> #### 1.3.8 Migrating Process Instances

> An organization may have hundreds or thousands of process instances running when, for business reasons; it needs to make significant changes in their underlying structure. It is insufficient to change only the process definition. The organization must change all of these running process instances based on that process definition.

> The only reasonable way to change thousands of process instances in a timely manner to use a different process definition is to use batch processing. The ability to add a step into a process instance or add options is that what is mostly needed. The upgrade needs to preserve the process instance state as long as all the active tasks (activities) have matching names in the new process instance. If there is no matching activity step, it is sufficient to put the process in error mode for manual handling.

> Process instance migration proceeds as follows:

> · Each Activity in the process to be migrated or source process is matched to an identically named activity in the destination process but only if an identically named activity exists. If an Activity in the source process has no correspondingly named Activity in the destination process, the source process Activity will be considered to be "removed." If an Activity in the destination process has no correspondingly named Activity in the source process, the destination process Activity will be considered to be "removed."
> · The Activity names in the process instances to be migrated and the process definition to which the process instances are to be migrated must be unique within a given process. If Activity names are not unique with in a process, there is no definite way to find the matching Activity, and the result is undetermined. Renaming an Activity has the same result as removing one, and adding another in the context of process migration. In other words, the Activity in the source process will not be matched to the renamed Activity in the destination process.
> · The process instances to be migrated must have a running Activity, i.e. the process instance must be in running state.
> · The removal of an active Activity is an error condition.

> To migrate process instances:

> 1. Make sure that you are displaying the Process Instances page.

> 2. Select all process instances that you want to migrate to an updated process definition.

> 3. Select one of the two the migrating options for the process instances that can not be migrated, i.e. "Leave Unchanged" or "Change and mark error".

> 4. Enter the process definition ID of the process definition to which you want to migrate your process instances.

> 5. Click Migrate.

> The results of your migration are displayed in the Migration Result page. The Migration Exception page provides status information on migration errors.

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