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Hi Mario,

I have never used the standard actions and always relied on the SharePoint REST API. :)

If you have the item id of the file you could use this a starting point:

Method: POST
https://{tenant}.sharepoint.com/sites/{site}/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('Documents')/items({itemId})
X-HTTP-Method: MERGE
IF-MATCH: *

Body
{
"Title": "My new title",
"Department": "Finance",
"OwnerId": 12,
"RelatedProjectId": 5
}


If you only have the filename, which is risky, if it get's renamed or the file is moved in SharePoint, you can use this:

Method: POST
https://{tenant}.sharepoint.com/sites/{site}/_api/web/GetFileByServerRelativePath(decodedurl='/sites/{site}/Shared Documents/Folder/SubFolder/file.docx')/ListItemAllFields

Headers:
X-HTTP-Method: MERGE
IF-MATCH: *

Body
{
"Title": "My new title",
"Department": "Finance",
"OwnerId": 12,
"RelatedProjectId": 5
}


The property names are the internal field names.

Best regards,
Daniel

Hi everyone,

I have a SharePoint document library with subfolders. From a WEBCON workflow I upload a file into one of these subfolders using the action “Add an attachment to a list”, and afterwards I want to update the metadata columns of that file using “Edit a list element”. The upload itself works fine: the document is placed correctly in the subfolder. However, when I try to update the metadata of this uploaded document with “Edit a list element”, it does not work.

Does anyone know a trick or workaround to solve this?

Thanks in advance and kind regards,
Mario

Hi Maria,

Archiving works in three different retention levels (three "modes"). One of them is moving instances to archive database, which removes them completely from content database, thinning out tables related to instances, securities, history, tasks, action logs.
Instances in archive database are still available in WEBCON Portal, but they are read-only and this operation is irreversible. Once you archive an instance, no further operations can be made on it (other than deleting completely).
These instances can be accessed via standard report, but you have to choose whether you display active or archived instances - unfortunately can't do both with standard functionalities.

In bigger environments we recommend archiving outside of business hours, because deleting could lock the SQL tables and slow down user operations.

One *custom* solution to display both active and archived instances in one view is to use User Defined API working as a data source.
Then on an application dashboard (can't use standard report) you could add an HTML widget, fetch data from custom API endpoint with JS and display that data in a custom HTML table/report.
Personally I'd try to create two separate API endpoints, both returning data from BPS internal view data sources - one with archived instances, second with active instances. JS would fetch data from both endpoints. That way you can use native cookie-based privileges checking (which is not available in MSSQL type of data sources).

Regarding overall performance issues, archiving is just the first step. Other than that:
a) it is crucial to implement a maintenance plan as described in https://community.webcon.com/posts/post/sql-maintenance-dedicated-maintenance-mechanism-for-large-bps-databases-indexes-and-statistics/331/26
b) other settings described in "Effect of other settings on SQL engine performance" of above article are also important
c) keep database compatibility levels at the highest available in your SQL Server version (and remember to install Cumulative Updates)
d) for slow opening instances, if you have choice fields with big data sources, put them in autocomplete/pop-up search modes (NOT choice list or choice trees)

Kind regards

Hi MariaM,
As Jacek wrote, start with diagnostics.

Additionally, as I mentioned in my reply to your other post, you should consider checking the overall condition of your SQL Server. Keeping your SQL databases in good and healthy condition is important for WEBCON to run smoothly.
Link: https://community.webcon.com/posts/post/sql-maintenance-dedicated-maintenance-mechanism-for-large-bps-databases-indexes-and-statistics/331/26

Hi,
In the WEBCON instances I manage, I don’t archive workflow instances. I handle this in a slightly different way.
In the report, I create a separate view for items that are still in progress and another view for completed ones (finished). In general, users (should) focus mainly on the items that are still in progress.

Additionally, I would check whether you have pagination enabled in the report, for example, 25 items per page.
Do you use any calculated columns in your reports? They may also slow down report loading.

Last but not least, I would recommend checking the SQL Server configuration and overall condition. There is a great article here about SQL maintenance best practices:
https://community.webcon.com/posts/post/sql-maintenance-dedicated-maintenance-mechanism-for-large-bps-databases-indexes-and-statistics/331/26

Hi everyone,

How do you manage applications and workflows in your companies? Do you have an archiving policy, for example, deleting or archiving workflow instances after one year?

For example, we use WEBCON BPS only for invoice approval workflows. Once the workflow is completed, invoices can still be viewed in another application.

We're experiencing slow loading times when opening instances or reports containing more than 50,000 instances. Sometimes the page takes over 30 seconds to load, but after refreshing once or several times, it loads normally in 2–3 seconds.

Do you archive old instances to improve performance? Is there a way to move instances to a separate database and still access them from a report, ideally using a single report for both active and archived instances?

Thanks for sharing your experience!

Hi MariaM,

I would start by enabling diagnostics (User menu → Enable diagnostics) and checking which operation takes the most time during form loading.
See: https://docs.webcon.com/docs/2025R1/Portal/UserProfile/#id_diag
This should help identify where the bottleneck is.

Regards,
Jacek

Hi everyone,

Has anyone experienced an issue where opening an instance sometimes takes an unusually long time, with the page stuck in a loading state?

I've experienced cases where it took almost 2 minutes for an instance to load. However, if I refresh the page, the same instance often opens almost instantly, within 1–3 seconds.

The behavior seems inconsistent. The same instance can sometimes take 10, 30, 60 seconds, or even longer to open, while at other times it loads within a few seconds.

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this behavior and what we should investigate?

Any suggestions on what to check or how to troubleshoot this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Hi Joana,

Yes, there were changes made to checkout mechanism in recent versions.
Some of the issues you mentioned, especially those related to substitutions, were already recognized and will be fixed in upcoming 2026.2.6 patch (planned release mid-November), so upgrading is recommended.
Sorry for the inconvenience!

Kind regards

Hi Konrad,
thanks for your update! I have new stuff to check out in the database ;)
Glad you've filled gaps in my answer.