Lifecycle of BPEL processes

When a BPEL process is initiated, the navigation of a process instance is started, and it begins to interact with its environment. Certain interactions are only possible in particular process states, and these interactions, in turn, influence the state of the process instance.

State transition diagrams for BPEL process instances
Processes change state whenever something of significance happens during the lifecycle of the process instance. For example, an API request causes a process in the running state to be put into the suspended state. State transition diagrams show the state transitions that can occur during the process lifecycle. Microflows and long-running processes have different state transition diagrams.
State transition diagrams for activities in BPEL processes
The state of an activity instance changes when a significant step in the execution of the activity instance occurs. The states and the state transitions depend on the type of activity.
Lifecycle management of BPEL subprocesses
A process that is created and started by another process is known as a subprocess. The way in which the lifecycle of subprocesses can be managed depends on how these processes are modeled.
Lifecycle of stand-alone human tasks that are invoked by a BPEL process
The lifecycle of an inline task is always managed by its associated BPEL process. The lifecycle of a stand-alone to-do task can be managed by the calling BPEL process depending on the definition of the task.

Parent topic: BPEL processes overview