Sub-workflow version problems

[Kjetil Kilhavn]

It's a bit late and will definitely not solve your current problem Rick, but 
perhaps a local workflow would be the solution to this. Our 'holy book' states 
that the recommendation is to use local workflows for subworkflows if the 
"subworkflow" is not called by other workflows.
I haven't actually tried it, but since a local workflow is not callable outside 
its main workflow and not stored as a separate template I am sure it would 
share the runtime version with main workflow.

A proper subworkflow is an independent workflow template, so you would usually 
not want it to be tied to the version of the calling workflow. Such a binding 
would for instance mean that error corrections wouldn't become effective for 
running instances. It would probably also make the runtime engine more 
complicated with multiple runtime versions of a workflow active at the same 
time.

I see your problem though, and I've had a similar problem once where we had to 
introduce code in the business object to check whether a specific container 
element existed in the container in order to control the behaviour. It's not a 
good design, but at the time it was the only solution possible for us.

I suppose changing the binding of a subworkflow must be considered as important 
as changing the binding of a published BAPI, and SAP's solution to that is to 
create a new BAPI function module. That's one solution, and the other is to 
ensure that the new version is able to handle the old binding as well, so you 
can't introduce a new mandatory element.

Onsdag 14. mars 2012 12.38.36 skrev Mike Pokraka:
> Hi Rick,
> 
> That's how it would work. A subwf is a completely new instance of a WF.
> 
> There may be a way to call a WF with a specific version, perhaps someone
> else has hacked this. But for incompatible changes to a subWF it's usually
> far easier to make a copy and include that in your new version of the main
> WF. For reporting purposes it's usually not a biggie.
> 
> Regards,
> Mike
> 
> On Wed, March 14, 2012 12:42 am, Rick Bakker wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > Could someone confirm/deny:
> > 
> > 1. Workflow A calls sub-workflow B.
> > 2. If you change sub-workflow B then existing instances of A will call
> > 
> >    the new version of B.
> > 
> > I didn't expect this and it can cause some big problems, e.g. if you
> > change
> > the binding between A and B then A can even go into error when it tries
> > to call B.
> > 
> > Does anyone know a way to get A to call the version of B that was live
> > when
> > the instance of A was created?
> > 
> > Be careful when changing sub-workflows!
> > 
> > (I knew of this problem with Tasks but that's fair enough, they don't have
> > versions)
> > 
> > regards
> > Rick Bakker
> > hanabi technology

-- 
Kjetil Kilhavn (+47 40220607) - Blue Consulting AS (http://www.bluec.no)