[jbpm-users] [JBoss jBPM] - Help with massive architectural problem: old jbpm processes

[donorschoose]

So as I understand it, running jBPM 3.1 processes cannot be migrated to new process definitions. This has, ironically, created a situation in which jBPM has become the single component in our architecture which prevents the evolution of the workflow process definitions. Allow me to elaborate.

Note: I joined DonorsChoose after this architectural problem was baked into the code, so I'm searching for a way around/out of it now.

DonorsChoose.org is a non-profit dedicated to funding projects and proposals created by teachers and funded by donations from the public. A given proposal is instantiated as a jBPM process instance.

When DonorsChoose.org first chose jBPM, the idea was that using a workflow library would make it much easier to modify the workflow process definitions as the needs of the organization changed. In practice, however, it has made it far more difficult to evolve the workflow process definitons. In particular, we have frequently had the need to add a new transition or modify the process definition because of a change in the business process environment. However, even when we make a change to the process definition that doesn't delete any existing tokens, etc., old process instances still run using the old version of the definition. However, our processes often live for months or longer, and the whole point of changing the process is so we can update all the existing proposals in place.

Given this, it has made it extremely difficult to modify the jBPM process definitions at all, and in fact what we've resorted to doing is hacking around this as touching the jBPM process definitions is unworkable for our application. It seems in retrospect we would have been much better off manually coding our workflows rather than trying to use jBPM.

What I'm posting about is --- is there some way to deal with this situation? Is there a way to hack jBPM so we can do things like add transitions or other nondestructive modifications to process definitions which would apply to running instances?

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