IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Get started with IBM BPM > Key concepts > BPEL processes and human tasks > Human tasks overview > Task templates

Versioning of human tasks

You can create new versions of your human task, so that multiple versions of the same task can co-exist in a runtime environment.

You can include versioning information when you model the stand-alone human task in Integration Designer. A timestamp is used to determine the currently valid version of task. This means that different versions of a task can have the same task name, but different timestamps. The version of a task that is used at run time is determined by whether the task is used in an early-binding scenario or a late-binding scenario.

Early binding

With early binding, the decision on which version of the task is used is made either during modeling, or when the task model is deployed. The calling component invokes a dedicated, statically-bound task according to the Service Component Architecture wiring. The client always invokes the statically-bound version of a task, even if a newer version of the task exists.

An example of early-binding is an SCA wire. If you wire a stand-alone reference to a human task component, every invocation of the task using this reference is targeted to the specific version of the human task component.

Late binding

With late binding, the decision on which version of a human task is used happens when the task instance is created. In this case, the version of the task that is currently valid is used. Existing task instances continue to run with the task with which they were associated when they started. This leads to the following categories of tasks:

  • Currently valid tasks. These tasks are used for new task instances.
  • Tasks that are no longer valid. These tasks are still used for running task instances.
  • Tasks that become valid in the future according to their valid-from date. These tasks apply only to tasks that were deployed using Integration Designer.

Follow-on tasks and subtasks are always invoked using late binding.

If the human task is deployed from Process Center as part of a process application, the following additional considerations apply to late binding.

Task templates


Related information:

Versioning business processes and human tasks in IBM BPM