This is my situation:

I deploy the vacation request sample. I go to the workflow console, login as ewilliams and fill out a few instances of this process.

I go to the "task" tab, click on a "READY" link for one instance of this process, view the feedback given and click "Complete". Finished...done. it works.

I go BACK to my IDE and do some changes to the logic in the bpm file and change a name or two of the PIPA xform for this process, save it and redeploy everything.

I go into the workflow console again, refresh, and go to the "TASKS" tab. I see some OLD instances of the vacation request processes that I did NOT click "COMPLETE" for so I click on the "READY" link of one of them, and click "COMPLETE". It takes a while to process, but in the end I get a HUGE error. (see attached).

Is this a bug? Our users should NOT be shown an error like this even if its an old build....they should just see it go away. What if they forget to "COMPLETE" a process and in the meantime we updated that particular process before they decide to actually complete it?

thanks,

katie

Katie,

by changing the xform you changed the structure of the messages, and the web service behind it.

This is true for web services as well: there are breaking changes that can not be predicted in a process instance.

Thanks,

Antoine

So how can this problem be solved? Of course there can be many changes to a work flow over its lifetime...and we cannot always make sure that our employees click on the "COMPLETE" button...how do we solve this so such HUGE errors don't show itself?

I don't quite understand your reply.

Hi,

i posted the same error few weeks ago (instances lifetime) and no one answered me, one of the BPM's premise most important is process improvement, so with an error like this, we can't improve our process along the time, because the instances in the workflow aren't active anymore...even if i change the process and not the forms...

I need a suggestion urgently please....

You need to use forms with different names for different versions. In that case the previous form won't be erased, and previous instances will terminate properly.

Thanks,

Antoine