If you’re working with Flowable or any BPMN engine, you’ve probably come across the terms Timer Event and Job.
At first glance, they might seem similar — both are related to waiting or background tasks — but they actually play very different roles in how workflows are executed.
Let’s break it down 👇
⏳ What is a Timer Event?
A Timer Event is a BPMN element that allows your workflow to pause or wait for a specific time duration, date, or cycle.
You define it directly in your BPMN model using Flowable Modeler or XML. Examples include:
✅ Start Timer Event – start a process every Monday
✅ Intermediate Timer Catch Event – wait 3 days before continuing
✅ Boundary Timer Event – trigger escalation if a task isn’t completed in 1 hour
💡 It’s what you see and model when you design your business process.
⚙️ What is a Job?
A Job is an internal Flowable engine construct — a background task that gets created and managed automatically to execute things asynchronously.
Jobs are used for:
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Executing Timer Events
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Handling async service tasks
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Retrying failed executions
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Managing dead letter jobs (failed too many times)
💡 It’s what Flowable creates and runs behind the scenes to make your process wait, retry, or continue in the background.
🔁 How They Work Together
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You define a Timer Event in your BPMN process.
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When the process reaches that point, Flowable creates a Job.
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The Job Executor picks it up when the time is due.
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The process resumes execution.
So in simple terms:
| Timer Event | Job |
|---|---|
| What you model | What the engine runs |
| Exists in BPMN | Exists in Flowable DB |
| Represents “wait” logic | Executes “wait” or async logic |
| Seen in Modeler | Seen in Admin Console or Logs |
🧠 Analogy
A Timer Event is like setting a timer on your oven.
The Job is what actually rings when the time’s up and tells you to take action.
✅ Summary
If you want to control time-based behavior in your process, use Timer Events.
If you want to understand how Flowable executes them, learn about Jobs.
Understanding the difference is key to mastering BPMN automation and troubleshooting delays or failed tasks in production.
🎥 Want a short video demo showing this in action?
Let me know in the comments or DM me.
#Flowable #BPMN #WorkflowAutomation #JavaDevelopers #BusinessProcessManagement #AKITI #Automation
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