Impact to Users during Deployment

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Impact to Users during Deployment

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[font=Roboto, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Hi,[/font]

[font=Roboto, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I have a question regarding the impact to users of decisions when there is a deployment.[/font]

[font=Roboto, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]If we deploy an updated flow from development to production and there are users currently using this flow in production, what will the impact be to these users? Also, what will the impact be to other users who are using the production version of decision, but are not using a flow which will be updated by the deployment? What will be the impact in both scenarios?[/font]

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[font=Roboto, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]When you deploy an update to a flow that is "in flight" but is at an assigned form, that flow is upgraded to new version and when customer opens assignment they will see the new form (if it has been updated) and the following steps will be from the new version.[/font]
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[font=Roboto, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In this case, flow developers need to be very careful to handle data that may have been introduced in newer versions of the flow that may not exist in older versions. e.g. if you originally have a request process that has one approval step. [/font]
[font=Roboto, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]While that flow is sitting on the assigned approval step you import a new version that adds the collection of "is emergency request" to the request form and a second approval step that is skipped if "Is Emergency Request" = true, you will need to also add a check to see if "Is Emergency Request" exists first or else in flight flows will throw an exception at when they check this bool because it does not exist in processes that were already started. [/font]
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[font=Roboto, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]You should not delete any form step that can be assigned to a user unless you know that all of those assignments will be completed. If you want to make new executions of a process use new steps/flows you can create copies of your main entry point flows and point your new executions against the copies. This will let old flows finish with the old logic and new flows use the new logic. [/font]
[font=Roboto, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Flows that are not persistent, think have assignments, should not be affected by flow changes as they are executing completely in memory. It is only when the data is read back into the app server from the DB that conflicts normally can arise "[/font]
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[font=Roboto, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Also, what will the impact be to other users who are using the production version of decision, but are not using a flow which will be updated by the deployment?"[/font]
[font=Roboto, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]- No impact unless the import is extremely large and then they may notice some slow down. [/font]