Process Instance Migration (JBPM 3.0->Activiti 5.10)

[izaak]

Like many others we wrote our bpm in jpdl 3, and are looking to update to one of the more current frameworks. Our business processes tend to never end, migrating peice meal isn't a great option for us (i.e. leaving the old things on the old jbpm, and doing all new work in activiti). I've looked around and found a couple of migration projects that didn't seem to get anywhere. I'm thinking my only option is to take the set of object in our database and move them programattically through the activti workflow.

It would greatly simplify my life If i could start them out at an arbritrary point in the process, rather than be forced to walk the process tree for each object. This doesn't seem possible (my attempts at querying for a task using the taskservice always return null for any process that is not the first.

[jbarrez]

We've tried to do it in the past, but we quickly understood it was a hell of a job to get right.
The process xml is one which could be automised until a certain level … but the real pain is in the data.

If you'd really want to do it, you will need to move the data using SQL itself. That is the only way to make sure that the process instance is in a certain state. That stuff won't be able through the API.

[izaak]

I think because our use of the workflow framework under JPDL was so nieve, that the value of the information stored there is basically that there is a state (i.e. we make no use of the history, or even the path the objects has taken in the workflow). So it looks like my job will be to run our existing objects through the new workflow up to their current state (loosing the historical information – which was unused anyway).

It's not a wonderful situation, but i think it's better then what we had. I guess i was just hoping i could forceably push an object to a given point in the workflow without going through any of the initial steps.

If you have any suggestions as to why this (running the objects through the process artificially) would be a terrible idea it would be greatly appreciated.

[jbarrez]

I think it makes sense if you can somehow automise it (depends on how many you have of course). Not needing the history is of course a big plus!