Error trying to spawn instances - bpm maximum concurrent instances 999

Question

Hi,
We have an 'Event Distributor' process which has to process as many contracts as there are in a database. A global create when run would spawn as many instances of the process as the contract records in database.
The problem is when there are above 999 records, the 'global create' is instantiating only till 999. And after that, no more instances are being spawned.
Is there a configuration that can be done anywhere to increase the 'max number of concurrent instances'? Typically we expect upto 3000 contracts as maximum count.
This is an urgent issue. Any quick clue/suggestion/direction would be of great use.
Thanks in advance,
Pavan.

Answer 1

Instead of using a Global Creation, you might want to consider using a Global Automatic to create the work item instances. Set the Global Automatic's property to poll based on a time interval.
Inside the Global Automatic's method you'd have logic that reads the rows in your database that read your contract records in a "for" loop. Before getting into the loop, initialize a counter (e.g. "i as Int = 0"). Inside the loop, test the counter to see if it exceeds 995 (or some number less than 999). If it does then either "exit" or "break" out of the loop.
As you are reading the contract records, are you updating the rows in the database to indicate that they have been processed? If this is the case, then when the Global Automatic fires off again it will pick up with the next 995 records of unprocessed contract records. If you are not updating the rows in the database to indicate that they have been processed, there are a couple other techniques (e.g. store the last updated row in another table or using a Server Session variable) that will need to be used to keep track of where to start up again.
Dan