Long-running instances: the architectural test that separates real BPM from flow automation tools

Most workflow platforms look identical in a demo. They all approve a request, route a document, and close a ticket. Ask them to track a contract through three years of amendments and renewals, and the differences get very real, very fast.

Some business processes run for months, or even years

Not every business process resolves in a week. Construction projects run from permit to handover, sometimes five years or more. Insurance claims move through investigation, litigation, and settlement across months or decades. Regulatory compliance cases stay open indefinitely.

They're often your business-critical processes, and they're exactly what exposes whether a platform is built for real BPM or just simple approvals.

Change a live process – watch what breaks

Most platforms follow a simple pattern: a request starts, gets routed, gets resolved, and closes. That works for simple approvals that don’t need to be changed. But business doesn't stay still, does it? A new regulatory requirement lands. Approval hierarchy changes. Someone adds a step. When that happens, you have options, none of them good: manage two parallel versions for months, manually migrate instances to the new version, or terminate and restart them, losing all context and audit history.

WEBCON doesn’t make you pretend your business will remain the same

WEBCON takes a different architectural approach. There's no time limit on instances, and you can change live processes at any point without stopping anything.

"We're forever changing how things work and WEBCON makes it very easy to do that on the fly. You don't have to take the whole thing down to add a field."

Kate Pickworth
Director of EPMO, Copper River

Here's how it works: running instances are stored as structured data in a database and use zero system resources beyond database storage. Resources only kick in when a state change occurs. That's why you can run thousands of concurrent instances across hundreds of applications without hitting infrastructure and time limits.

Other platforms keep instances active in memory the whole time. That's why they time out. WEBCON doesn't − when processes change, InstantChange™ applies the update to every running instance immediately, with no data loss and no downtime.

How the major BPM platforms compare

Before going deeper on WEBCON's approach, here's what the official documentation says about how each platform handles this.

	LONG-RUNNING INSTANCES	MID-FLIGHT CHANGES
	No time limit for instances	Yes, thanks to InstantChange™.
	30 days limit for pending instances, 90 days limit for cloud flows without activity (without premium license). [microsoft.com, May 2026]	No, running instances continue with the old version. [microsoft.com, May 2026]
	1 year limit for running instances in Automation Cloud. [help.nintex.com, May 2026]	Yes, with limitations: API allows migrating Active and Error instances, Running and Completed instances continue with the old version. [help.nintex.com, May 2026]
	No time limit for instances. 100‑activity‑count caps by default for instance. [servicenow.com, May 2026]	No, running instances continue with the old version.  [servicenow.com, May 2026]
	Process log records auto-archive after 30 days by default. [creatio.com, May 2026]	No, running instances continue with the old version. [creatio.com, May 2026]

Here's what happens when long-running instances aren't supported

These things go wrong when a platform can't support long-running instances:

1. Your most valuable processes get excluded
   Without long-running instance support, your platform handles simple approvals, not business-critical operations.
2. Your audit trail breaks at the worst moment
   Without continuous instance support, your audit trail has gaps. In regulated industries, that's a liability.
3. Change management becomes a governance nightmare
   When a process definition changes mid-flight, you end up with two versions running simultaneously.
4. You stop improving processes
   Every significant change could mean terminating running instances and starting over.

Ask us this one question

Ask any platform vendor one question during your demo: "Show me an instance that has been running for six months. Now change its definition without touching what's already in flight." Most vendors won't be able to do it. We can. Book a demo here.

Don't take our word for it. Check out the Nowy Styl case study. They run applications built on WEBCON that are over 15 years old. Still running. Still being improved.