about_Suspend-Workflow

Article
09/19/2022

Short description

Describes the Suspend-Workflow activity, which suspends the workflow in which the activity appears.

Long description

The Suspend-Workflow activity temporarily stops workflow processing from within the workflow. Before suspending, Windows PowerShell Workflow takes a checkpoint so the workflow's state and data are preserved and the workflow can resume from the suspension point.

To resume the workflow, the user running the workflow uses the Resume-Job cmdlet. You can't resume a workflow from within the workflow.

Syntax

workflow <Verb-Noun>
{
    Suspend-Workflow
}

Detailed description

The Suspend-Workflow temporarily stops the workflow and returns a job object that represents the workflow job. A job object is returned even if you didn't run the workflow as a job. For example, such as by using the AsJob workflow common parameter. The job state is Suspended.

You can use the job cmdlets to manage the suspended workflow job. To resume the workflow job, use the Resume-Job cmdlet.

When you resume the workflow job, the workflow resumes at the command that follows the Suspend-Workflow activity.

For example, the following workflow includes the Suspend-Workflow activity. When you run the workflow, it runs the Get-Date activity, saves its output in the $a variable, and then suspends the workflow, and returns a job object that represents the suspended workflow. The job type is PSWorkflowJob.

You can use the job cmdlets, such as Get-Job, to manage the workflow job.

Workflow Test-Suspend
{
    $a = Get-Date
    Suspend-Workflow
    (Get-Date)- $a
}

Test-Suspend

Id  Name  PSJobTypeName  State      HasMoreData  Location  Command
--  ----  -------------  -----      -----------  --------  -------
8   Job8  PSWorkflowJob  Suspended  True         localhost Test-Suspend

Resuming a workflow job

To resume the workflow job, use the Resume-Job cmdlet. The Resume-Job cmdlet returns the workflow job object immediately, even though it might not yet be resumed. To wait for the job to be resumed, use the Wait parameter, or use the Get-Job cmdlet to get the current job object.

Resume-Job -Name Job8

Id  Name  PSJobTypeName  State    HasMoreData  Location  Command
--  ----  -------------  -----    -----------  --------  -------
8   Job8  PSWorkflowJob  Running  True         localhost Test-Suspend

Get-Job -Name Job8

Id  Name  PSJobTypeName  State      HasMoreData  Location  Command
--  ----  -------------  -----      -----------  --------  -------
8   Job8  PSWorkflowJob  Completed  True         localhost Test-Suspend

Getting the output of a workflow job

To get the output of a workflow job, use the Receive-Job cmdlet. The output shows that the workflow resumed at the command that followed the Suspend-Workflow cmdlet. The value of the $a variable, which was populated before the suspension, is available to the workflow when it resumes.

Get-Job -Name Job8 | Receive-Job

Days              : 0
Hours             : 0
Minutes           : 0
Seconds           : 19
Milliseconds      : 823
Ticks             : 198230041
TotalDays         : 0.000229432917824074
TotalHours        : 0.00550639002777778
TotalMinutes      : 0.330383401666667
TotalSeconds      : 19.8230041
TotalMilliseconds : 19823.0041
PSComputerName    : localhost

Share via