VidiFlow Release Notes

The following items on the list encompass breaking changes, features, and fixes that are relevant for the major release.

Release 23.3.1

Setup and Operations

Dependencies and Component Updates

The following central components were updated and will be shipped in the noted version, along with relevant product and service dependencies:

Please note that the UPDATED marker indicates a change between the previous major release and the one this document is issued for.

Known Issues

Features

New Services, Agents, and Tasks

Set Key Value Metadata (Version 1.0) / Remove Key Value Metadata (Version 1.0)

This pair of new tasks allows one to set, update, and remove key-value metadata in VidiCore.

This can also be used to set S3 tags as those will be synched implicitly be VidiCore to key-value metadata. For more information, see VidiCore documentation.

List of Updated Tasks

Suffix “via Linux” Removed From all Tasks

In previous versions of VidiFlow, many tasks had the suffix "via Linux" in their names. This was necessary to distinguish the migrated tasks when switching from Windows to Linux. The old tasks are no longer deployed with VidiFlow, so the suffix has been deleted from all task names.

This change has no negative impact when using the tasks in existing workflows. To use updated versions of those tasks, it may be necessary to remove them from the workflow first and insert the new version manually.

Create Sorted Sequence (Version 3.0)

The new version of the task allows one to create overlaps in the resulting sequence.

Semantic Versioning for Workflows and Rules

Until version 23.2, VidiFlow did not use semantic versioning for workflows and rules. Every time a workflow or rule was saved, a new major version was created (1.0, 2.0, 3.0…). At the same time, there was the feature of using the so-called "LATEST" version when calling up workflows. This is practical because not all calls have to be adjusted every time the workflow or rule is changed.

On the other hand, this feature leads to runtime errors in a situation, where a workflow or rule is modified in a way, that the contract changes significantly, e.g. by adding mandatory input or output parameters without adapting the execution call of the workflows/rules.

With version 23.3, VidiFlow introduces semantic versioning for workflows and rules. If a workflow or rule is changed without changes on the contract, a new minor version is created. For workflows with contract changes, a new major version is created automatically. Users can also trigger to create a new major version if it makes sense for them based on other relevant changes inside the workflow.

The feature of using the “LATEST” workflow is changed in the following way: For each major version, it is now possible to use “x.LATEST”, where x is the major version. This is also replaced by the Workflow Designer to the new approach when adapting workflows. The advantage of this terminology is that the latest workflow version with a compatible contract is executed.

All APIs are fully backward compatible.

For more information, please see Semantic Versioning for Workflows and Rules [VF UG]

Workflow Monitor 

Central Saved Searches

A previous version of Workflow Monitor introduced the option to create saved queries for often-needed filter combinations. This is now enhanced by the option to create centrally saved searches.

Administrators can create a query in the Workflow Monitor and copy-paste it to a new entry in the ConfigPortal Use Case Page “User Interfaces / Workflow Monitor Central Queries”. One or more groups can be selected to provide the query only to the corresponding user groups. If no group is applied, the query is available for all users.

In connection with this feature, some menu items in the Saved Queries section have been slightly changed.

For documentation see Workflow Monitor | Saved-Queries.

Workflow Designer

With the release of VidiFlow 23.3, the new Workflow Designer is available for public testing. The previous version of Workflow Designer will also be deployed with Vidiflow and should be the standard for workflow design.

Compared to the previous version of Workflow Designer, there are different enhancements and improvements

• More intuitive user interface in many different areas of the application.

• The toolbox area offers a selection of VidiFlow service tasks, workflows, rules, and many other entities to easily drag and drop them to the BPMN canvas with fewer mouse clicks. Search filters and tags help one to find the entities faster.

• Auto-connect feature to connect tasks before dropping.

• Easier creation of workflow input and output parameters based on task parameters.

• Open sub-workflows or rules from the Designer.

• Use the latest BPMN.io version as the basis.

The documentation for the new Workflow Designer can be found here: Workflow Designer (new version)

The previous Workflow Designer is used per default. The new Designer can be opened from the VidiFlow Portal. Is is also possible to configure it as the default Designer for all use cases. For more information see Configure ConfigPortal & VidiFlow Portal for VidiFlow's New Workflow Designer [DEV VF] .

Rule Designer

Renaming of Rules

It is now possible to rename rules in the Rule Designer by changing the rule’s name in the top-left area and deploying the rule to the system.

Access Rights

The Rule Designer now has different access rights to open the Rule Designer or to be able to edit rules. This can be used in the future to create different roles differentiating between workflow and rule design.

VidiFlow Portal

Workflow Notification Handling

VidiFlow Portal can notify users of the execution of workflows. This is now disabled per default and can be enabled with the bell symbol.

Performance, Stabilization, and Other Improvements

Rate-Limiting for APIs

VidiFlow now supports rate-limiting for all APIs. This feature is disabled by default but can be enabled and configured for the deployment of the system.

For more information, please see Rate-limiting for APIs [VF OG].

Field “appVersion” Added to Logs

All VidiFlow modules now log the field “appVersion” to improve error analysis.

OpenTelemetry Support

In a first step to improve observability, all VidiFlow backend modules now gather execution traces and metrics using the OpenTelemetry framework.

Please note that these data are not yet published or stored.

Reduced Amount of Workflow Progress Updates

Several long-running service tasks may send a lot of status updates to the workflow, e.g. when updating the progress. This has been reduced now in a way that said progress updates will only be sent to the workflow index after at least 30 seconds.

Tie Camunda Broker Instance to Engine Instance

Previously, the scaling of the Camunda engine did not have any effect on performance or load distribution for task executions since only one engine instance could execute tasks due to a Camunda design restriction. To solve this, a Camunda broker instance is now tightly coupled to an engine instance. They now scale as a pair.

Automatically deploy workflows after staging from ConfigPortal

After staging workflows from ConfigPortal, VidiFlow will deploy these workflows automatically in the target environment. This allows them to be executed without any further steps.

Fixes