New terminology in Long Running Workflows in Studio Desktop

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:loudspeaker: Hi everyone,

We’ve recently updated the terminology used in Long Running Workflows within Studio Desktop. The goal is to make the naming more intuitive and consistent with RPA concepts, moving away from the previous BPMN-inspired terminology.

To take advantage of the change, create a new Long Running Workflow file or use the Flowchart Builder activity package version 1.1.0.

:puzzle_piece: What’s changing

In previous versions, several elements in Long Running Workflows used BPMN terms such as Service Task, Message Intermediate Catch Event or Error End Event. These have now been renamed to better reflect RPA workflows.

There are no changes to existing workflows and all these activities work just like before. Searching for activities using the BPMN terminology also works and there is no impact for importing a BPMN file.

Old name New name Notes
Start Event Manual Trigger
Message Start Event On App Trigger
Timer Start Event On a Schedule
Task Sequence Also functions as a Sequence
Agentic Task Agent
User Task Human Approval
Business Rule Task Business Rule
Service Task Invoke Workflow
Send Task Activity Selecting an activity from command palette embeds it on the canvas
Receive Task Wait for Trigger
Intermediate Event Event Placeholder
Timer Intermediate Catch Event Resume after Delay
Message Intermediate Catch Event Wait for Message
Error Boundary Event Error Handler
End Event End
Error End Event Throw
Terminate End Event Terminate

There are no changes to the following activities:

  • Decision
  • Switch
  • Split
  • Merge
  • Subprocess
  • Detached Error Handler

Here are some of the changes in a demo project:

:light_bulb: Why we changed it

The previous terminology was consistent with BPMN but introduced unnecessary abstraction for most automation developers. The updated terms align more closely with RPA workflows rather than process modeling constructs.

This update should make Long Running Workflows:

  • Easier to understand without BPMN background knowledge
  • More consistent with other Studio activities and naming conventions

:speech_balloon: We’d appreciate your feedback on the new terminology or Long Running Workflows in general so post your comments or questions below.

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That’s a great update — the new names make a lot more sense for those of us coming from an RPA background instead of BPMN. It’ll definitely make Long Running Workflows easier to explain and adopt. Nice improvement!

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What version of Studio is this? It does not look like any version I work with.

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Its available on a few versions, but you need a certain dependency in your project to enable this canvas.

Easiest way is to start a new project from the templates

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The version you see is on the STS version of Studio, where all the new features get tested before going to the LTS version, which perhaps explains some of the studio differences, but you can use the Long Running Workflows in Studio 24.10 and they work great. I’d highly recommend them.

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Hi @Nicolas_Lewentorp , just wanted to get your take on the new design experience and how it compares to the version you are currently using. Any feedback would be super valuable — feel free to DM me your thoughts or drop them here if you prefer.

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Thank you. It looks more intuitive and uncluttered, using the space more efficiently and thus easier to get an overview of the workflow.

I hope to get some time to explore it in more detail soon.

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