IBM BPM 8.6 is now available and some of our clients have started to upgrade. First thing you’ll notice is that they have finally completed all the development on the Web Process Designer so the Desktop editor has been deprecated. BUT DON’T PANIC! You can still use the old version of the Desktop editor to manage legacy artifacts. Some other interesting things to note:
· Web Designer now “autosaves” while you are working. This is nice, but you have to remember to Check-In your artifact now when you are done working on it. The Check-In icon is where the old Save icon used to be.
· Support for REST Calls is now an easy implementation and business object creation can be automatically done by ingesting a Swagger file.
· Full support for implementing legacy artifacts exists in the Web Designer. You may need to use the deprecated Desktop editor to modify them, but usage of legacy artifacts is supported using the Web Designer.
· All legacy processes and coaches will still run in the latest version. We helped one client migrate to 8.6 and they have some old 7.X processes and coaches that are still running fine in the latest version.
· Numerous hot-key short cuts are now available in Web Designer. Some of them can save you a lot of time, like selecting multiple activities in your diagram and then entering “j” to wire them all together at once.
There are lots of other new or improved features that you will be able to take advantage of and we recommend that you upgrade as soon as convenient because support for 8.5.X will officially end in September, 2018. Apex Process Consultants can help make the transition to 8.6 easier (and help you avoid a few gotchas), so contact us today for details on how we can help.
