Binding issues after transport to production

Wed Feb 11 20:54:52 EST 2009

Hi Carolyn, 

Thanks for the kind comments... Keep watching for news later this
year... 

A little extra info makes things clearer ... Custom workflows created
under 3.0F would have used table-like containers.
In ECC 6.0 they would have been converted to XML.  Haven't had to deal
with that myself but I know there are some settings you can use to avoid
issues... Hunt around the basic data of the workflow and look through
all the SAP Easy Access Tools > Business Workflow > Administration menu,
and also look for SAP Notes on moving to the XML container. 

There were also some conversion programs for migrating the containers on
upgrade I believe... Again try the SAP Notes or someone on the forum
might have come across this.  

But I think the main thing you need to check is that the XML container
approach is being used equally across all environments - it's possible
the setting was changed in the workflow admin in your DEV and QA
environments but not production and that could create ongoing problems.

Good luck!
Jocelyn 

-----Original Message-----
From: sap-wug-bounces at MIT.EDU [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at MIT.EDU] On Behalf
Of Carolyn Fuller
Sent: Thursday, 12 February 2009 12:22 PM
To: SAP Workflow Users' Group
Subject: Re: Binding issues after transport to production

Jocelyn,

By the way, I should mention that the only reason I seem to be doing  
anything correctly is that "Practical Workflow for SAP" is always near  
my side when I touch a workflow! Thank you for helping to write such  
an excellent book.

Yikes! I have to digest this new suggestion...

So, first, you are indicating that SWU_OBUF might not solve the  
problems we've encountered with bindings in production, correct?

I should mention that the times we've encountered problems have always  
been after modifying workflow templates that were originally custom  
created under 3.0f as workflow tasks by someone who wasn't a workflow  
developer and did some unconventional things. They were converted to  
workflow templates under 4.6c in 2000.

The most recent change involved converting an activity step from being  
synchronous to being asynchronous. As far as I know I did not delete  
any container elements. The problem was encountered when we were doing  
production validations on the transported workflow template. So the  
workflow instances were all created after the transport. None of them  
were old instances. In fact, we told our community of users that they  
needed to clear out all their workflows before the transport because  
the old workflow wasn't going to work if it needed to go through the  
new asynchronous step. The specific binding that caused us problems  
was the binding to the new terminating event.

Now the future...

Changes to these same workflow templates are planned for production  
next month.

I've just finished significant changes to a complex workflow template  
in our development environment and, what I thought, was a minor change  
to another workflow template that is a subworkflow to a subworkflow to  
the first. Everything is working perfectly in our development  
environment. I haven't moved this transport to QA yet.

Should I copy these workflow templates into 3 new workflow templates  
instead?

Carolyn

On Feb 11, 2009, at 7:25 PM, Dart, Jocelyn wrote:

> Carolyn,
>
> You do have to be cognisant that not everything in a workflow is  
> version
> dependent - particularly the workflow container.  So if you are  
> already
> generating versions and doing the other stuff correctly as you seem to
> be doing, you need to think about how you are approaching changes to  
> the
> container in particular and any other non-version-dependent areas such
> as event linkage.
>
> In particular you should not delete container elements that are no
> longer to be used - better to change their description to "Do Not Use"
>
> Also if you have change the structure underlying a container element  
> you
> may need to be careful.  If possible, it might be worth considering
> creating a new container element.
>
> If your changes are significant you should also consider the option of
> creating a new workflow template and retiring the old workflow  
> template
> by deactivating the event linkage to the old template - this will  
> still
> let old instances run through to completion.
>
> Hope that helps in your thinking...
>
> Regards,
> Jocelyn
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: sap-wug-bounces at MIT.EDU [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at MIT.EDU] On  
> Behalf
> Of Carolyn Fuller
> Sent: Thursday, 12 February 2009 11:10 AM
> To: SAP Workflow Users' Group
> Subject: Re: Binding issues after transport to production
>
> Jocelyn,
>
> I do generate version before modifying the workflows in development.
>
> We do our production validations on workflow transports before  
> midnight.
>
> I take this to mean that if a workflow's binding is working properly
> in our QA environment, then SWU_OBUF should clear up any binding
> issues after a transport to production?
>
> Carolyn
> On Feb 11, 2009, at 5:55 PM, Dart, Jocelyn wrote:
>
>> Hi Carolyn,
>>
>> A) Please STOP DOING THAT! You are just asking for trouble...
>>
>> B) Yes - run SWU_OBUF after transports ***** OR **** make sure you
>> transports go in before midnight system time - as the relevant  
>> buffers
>> will be automatically refreshed at that time.
>>
>> C) Even better, when you are modifying workflows make sure you
>> GENERATE
>> VERSION before modifying - this keeps changes in the new version of
>> the
>> workflow separate from the old version to minimize possible  
>> conflicts,
>> allowing existing workflows to continue using the old version, while
>> new
>> instances use the new version.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Jocelyn
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu] On
>> Behalf
>> Of Alon Raskin
>> Sent: Thursday, 12 February 2009 8:16 AM
>> To: SAP Workflow Users' Group
>> Subject: RE: Binding issues after transport to production
>>
>> Just to clarify, you are modifying the workflows directly in the
>> production system?
>>
>> Alon Raskin
>> e: araskin at 3i-consulting.com
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu] On
>> Behalf
>> Of Carolyn Fuller
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 2:17 PM
>> To: SAP Workflow Users' Group
>> Subject: Binding issues after transport to production
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> On a couple of occasions I've moved modified workflows from our
>> development environment to our QA environment with no problems only  
>> to
>> encounter binding issues in production. On these occasions, deleting
>> the bindings in production and re-creating them in production has
>> solved the problem.
>>
>> Are these issues due to the fact that I didn't run SWU_OBUF after the
>> transports went in? Should SWU_OBUF be on our action log when  
>> modified
>> workflows go into production?
>>
>> ---
>> Carolyn Fuller
>> Massachusetts Institute of Technology
>> Information Services and Technology
>> Administrative Computing
>> Senior Analyst/ Programmer
>> (617) 253-6213
>> http://fuller.mit.edu/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SAP-WUG mailing list
>> SAP-WUG at mit.edu
>> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sap-wug
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SAP-WUG mailing list
>> SAP-WUG at mit.edu
>> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sap-wug
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SAP-WUG mailing list
>> SAP-WUG at mit.edu
>> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sap-wug
>
>
> ---
> Carolyn Fuller
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology
> Information Services and Technology
> Administrative Computing
> Senior Analyst/ Programmer
> (617) 253-6213
> http://fuller.mit.edu/
>
> _______________________________________________
> SAP-WUG mailing list
> SAP-WUG at mit.edu
> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sap-wug
>
> _______________________________________________
> SAP-WUG mailing list
> SAP-WUG at mit.edu
> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sap-wug

---
Carolyn Fuller
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Information Services and Technology
Administrative Computing
Senior Analyst/ Programmer
(617) 253-6213
http://fuller.mit.edu/

_______________________________________________
SAP-WUG mailing list
SAP-WUG at mit.edu
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sap-wug