Camunda extensions

Open source solutions are great. You can immediately and for free benefit from such solution. It is a common way to test new ideas, verify proof of concepts and prepare the input for business cases of larger projects.

The moment you decide to roll out the solution in a larger scale it happens, that you are missing some crucial functionalities. You have two options to continue your journey. Either you switch to a paid version of the solution, where a wide set of features is available or you start building functionalities you need.

While working with our customers on process automation and digitalization with the use of Camunda workflow engine, we have faced this challenge several times. We noticed, that not every business domain or customer needs to have all the paid features at once. Some of them, due to process specificity will never be needed.

In that case it is a good idea to enrich your open source Camunda installation with custom plugins or extensions. Thanks to openness of Camunda architecture, there are different options possible. With plugins you can add extra features to existing web application of Cockpit or Task list. You can also get a stand alone application, that integrates with your Camunda and provides extra features. There are different pros and cons for each of the approach, but the most important is, that both can be added to all open source installations.

I’d like to present you the list of plugins and extensions, that we’ve built so far. I invite you to inspire us and share what is crucial to your business. Is there something that we didn’t do so far?

Process administration
– Migrate process instance to newer version of process definition
– Replace assignee of open task in mass
– Move process instance to another step
– Consult the audit log
– Consult the details of incidents and retry
– Move process instance to another step

Operational improvements
– Process definition and process instance history view
– Search processes using business parameters and consult the details (Task list plugin)
– Overview of all process step execution details (Task list plugin)

Management and analysis
– Consult the process version changes
– Sales funnel view
Custom Camunda extension tailored to your needs!

We have grouped the features regarding the potential beneficiary: process administrator, operational users and managers.

Process administration Camunda extensions

Migrate process instance to newer version of process definition

You can define the logic of how process steps should be mapped to new process definition, select the process instances and migrate them in mass to new version of the process.

Use case: often changes in the business logic and the need to apply new rules to not yet completed process instances.

Select process versions to migrate

Select process instances to migrate 2

Confirm migration

Migration details

Features: 

• select the process definition and the definition versions as source and target for migration
• consult the migration plan and adapt if necessary
• select process instances to be migrated (all or based on filter criteria) and execute the migration
• results can be seen in batch process results 

Replace assignee of open task in mass

You can search for manual task with adcanced filters, that are not yet executed and change the assignee for all or selected tasks.

Use case: processes with high volume of user tasks, that require immediate action and you have to react to unplanned absence.

Filter and select user tasks

Choose the new assignee

Confirm the assignee change

Consult the details of assignee change batch process

Cosult the list of all change assignee batch processes

Features:

• Consult the list of all open tasks and select the ones of your interest. You can use the blocks of assigned to a user or to a group, unassigned or all. You can also apply advanced filters
• Choose new assignee for selected user tasks.
• Confirm and consult the result in batch report.
• Consult all previous change assignee batch processes.

Move process instance to another step

You can search for process instances with advanced filters and force them to move to another process step in the process or cancel the instance.

Use case: clean up of unfinished or frozen process instances

Select process instances for modification

Select the target state

Confirm the execution

Consult the audit log

You can search for all process instances and consult it’s details. You get an overview of the process definition, process steps executed in a timeline (dates and duration) as well as the list of all user tasks

Use case: investigate specific process instance in details

Search process instances

Consult the audit log of process instance

Features:

• Search for active and historical process instances using basic filter criteria.
• Consult the process diagram.
• Consult the detailed timeline of all executed process steps with timestamps and duration.
• Consult all user tasks involved in the process instance.

Consult the details of incidents and retry

You can search for incidents and consult their details. You can schedule to retry the process instances.

Use case: in case of unexpected and not foresaw failure, you can rerun the processes.

Search for process with incidents

Schedule to retry

Features:

• search for incidents and consults the detailed error messages.
• select process instances and schedule the retry batch, you can also define the volume of retries.

Operational improvements Camunda extensions

Process definition and process instance history view

You can check, how your process definition has changed over time. You can also see in a visual way, how certain process instances were executed. A line is drawn, that connects all involved process steps in an order. You can consult all the attributes handled in the process and its values.

Use case: 
Discover and analyse what happened in processes that contain many alternatives and consist of many process steps.<
Discover and analyse how the process definition has changed and what are the current volumes of process instances.<

Process definition history

Features:

• Select process definition and its version, a diagram and list of process instances is presented.
• Diagram with a map, indicating the state of selected process version and the volumes of all active and historical process instances.
• List of all process instances with filter functionality and basic parameters in tabular form.
• Selecting a process step on diagram automatically narrows down the list of process instances.
• Filter the processes based on parameters.
• View the details of selected process instance.

Process instance history

• Main attributes in header, a process diagram in relevant version and the list of all process variables and its details.

Process instance graphical timeline (Task list plugin)

• Historic diagram view indicating the flow of current process instance.

Search processes using business parameters and consult the details (Task list plugin)

You can search for all active and historical process instances using the attributes, that were captured during the process execution. You get the details within your task list.

Use case:
Customer service.
Fast lookup of the relevant case.
Consult and analyse the details of process instance.

Process instance search

Features: 

• search by: predefined list of business attributes available in given process, results in a list of process instances with most important attributes 

Process instance search result

• Consult the details of process instance in a structured way. Data is being presented in groups defined for each process.

Process instance details – business attributes

Overview of all process step execution details (Task list plugin)

You can see in a chronological order when certain step was started and finished (duration is immediately presented). You can also see the details of the executed actions and who did it.

Use case: to get a quick view on the history of an instance in a complex process.

Process instance details – timeline

Features:

• Timeline of process instance, indicating the execution timestamps, duration and the involved user.

Management and analysis Camunda extensions

Consult the process version changes

You can select the process definition and the two processes version to be compared: as a source version and target version. You get the visualisation of both process version and the differences between them.

Use Case: to see and analyse the areas of process with most frequent changes.

Visual version comparison

Data analytics and visualization

You can build reports that will give you the insight into your processes from different perspectives:

• Metrics: volumes and durations.
• Objects: process instances, incidents, flow nodes, user tasks.
• Visualisation with a heatmap (based on duration or volumes), bar charts, line charts, tables.
• Distribution of process sequences – which route is the most frequent one.
• Identification of instances with high node execution variation.

Sales funnel view

You can associate process step with your custom sales funnel stage. Based on this definition you can present different funnels for different processes.

For one process you can compare the funnels in different time frames or based on different business parameters.

Funnel extension – blurred for anonymization

Custom Camunda extension tailored to your needs!

These are just some of the extensions we have made. If you have a custom need to extend the functionality of Camundy with new possibilities, be sure to contact us.

Piotr Mazur
Digital Transformation Solution Manager