Database for Modeler and Runtime

Flowable Engine
1

I have an instance of ui modeler web using a database. A model I create in the UI is stored as “act_de_model”. When I run my application on the same database and have it create a model, it stores the model as “act_re_model”. Can I convert the act_de_model to a model that my application can use? How does the application retrieve the act_de_model? Or do I need to use separate databases and store the model as a bpmn file and use that in my application?

1 Like
2

Hey @christine,

What exactly are you trying to achieve. Which model would you like to use? Are you perhaps interested in using the BpmnModel?

Cheers,
Filip

3

Hi Filip,

I am new to Flowable. I am figuring out how to use it. I can create a model in the web modeler, I can export the model to a bpmn.20.xml file, I can use that in my code to run a model. My question is, is it necessary to export the model to a file and use that file in my code, or can I make the model available to my program directly from the modeler?

I am a freelancer, I now work for a company that is considering moving from activiti to flowable.

4

Yes you can deploy from the Flowable Modeler application into the Flowable Task application (or any other application that runs the Flowable REST API).

In order to deploy it, you would need to create an App, add the models to the app and then deploy that app.

You can find more information about the Flowable UI Modeler here.

A really great blog post is also Instant Gratification with Flowable 6.

5

Thanks, the blog post is very useful. When I use the provided war files, I do get

Caused by: org.flowable.common.engine.api.FlowableException: couldn’t deduct database type

Apparently I have to configure the database, but I didn’t find how to do that using the war files.

6

It should work out of the box. Are you setting some different JDBC url and driver class perhaps?

7

I downloaded Flowable 6.4.1, put the war files in the tomcat webapps directory, and restarted tomcat. I would like to change the database, but I haven’t done that when running the war files in tomcat.

8

If you want to change the type of the database then you would need to put the jdbc driver of the database in the tomcat lib directory.

Then you would need to add an application.properties file in the tomcat lib directory and in it you can set the following variables (e.g. for Postgres):

spring.datasource.driver-class-name=org.postgresql.Driver
spring.datasource.url=jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/flowable
spring.datasource.username=flowable
spring.datasource.password=flowable

NB: the spring.datasource.driver-class-name is important for the correct driver to be used.

9

Yes, thank you. it’s all working now.