Starting Workflow Executions with Amazon SWF - Amazon Simple Workflow Service
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Starting Workflow Executions with Amazon SWF

You can start a workflow execution of a registered workflow type from any application using the StartWorkflowExecution action. When you start the execution you associate an identifier, called the workflowId, with it. The workflowId can be any string that is appropriate for your application, such as the order number in an order processing application. You can't use the same workflowId for multiple open workflow executions within the same domain. For example, if you start two workflow executions with the workflowId Customer Order 01, the second workflow execution will not start and the request will fail. You can, however, reuse the workflowId of a closed execution. Amazon SWF also associates a unique system generated identifier, called the runId, with each workflow execution.

After the workflow and activity types are registered, start the workflow by calling the StartWorkflowExecution action. The value of the input parameter can be any string specified by the application that is starting the workflow. The executionStartToCloseTimeout is the length of time in seconds that the workflow execution can consume from start to close. Exceeding this limit causes the workflow execution to time out. Unlike some of the other timeout parameters in Amazon SWF, you can't specify a value of NONE for this timeout; there is a one-year maximum limit on the time that a workflow execution can run. Similarly, the taskStartToCloseTimeout is the length of time in seconds that a decision task associated with this workflow execution can take before timing out.

https://swf.us-east-1.amazonaws.com.cn
StartWorkflowExecution
{
  "domain" : "867530901",
  "workflowId" : "20110927-T-1",
  "workflowType" : {
    "name" : "customerOrderWorkflow", "version" : "1.1"
  },
  "taskList" : { "name" : "specialTaskList" },
  "input" : "arbitrary-string-that-is-meaningful-to-the-workflow",
  "executionStartToCloseTimeout" : "1800",
  "tagList" : [ "music purchase", "digital", "ricoh-the-dog" ],
  "taskStartToCloseTimeout" : "1800",
  "childPolicy" : "TERMINATE"
}

If the StartWorkflowExecution action is successful, Amazon SWF returns the runId for the workflow execution. The runId for a workflow execution is unique within a specific region. Save the runId in case you later need to specify this workflow execution in a call to Amazon SWF. For example, you would use the runId if you later needed to send a signal to the workflow execution. 

{"runId": "9ba33198-4b18-4792-9c15-7181fb3a8852"}