I’m currently investigating Flowable as a BPM solution with Spring Boot for the process engine deployment. I’m running Flowable Modeller, Flowable Task and Flowable Admin apps locally and trying to figure out the most efficient development process. I want to model the process in the Modeller, then test some of its parts using Task/Admin applications. The Admin app seems to do a good job for tracking the process execution, but I don’t see any option to start processes from the Admin. I found such an option in the Task app. However, I can’t see any possibility to set process variables in the Task app, which makes the testing difficult or even impossible.
Am I missing something or is it really impossible to start a process from within Flowable apps with the ability to set process variables?
Let me be the first to welcome you to your Flowable adventure!
There are a couple of ways to start a process with variables:
Add a start form to the process. This way the task app will prompt you with a form when you attempt to start the process.
Use the REST API and Postman or curl to start your processes. The task app has the the full REST API enabled with basic auth.
Edit: The Admin app does not contain an instance of the engine. It uses the flowable REST endpoints to display the status of processes. It can easily be configured to point to your spring boot app instead if you’ve enable the rest endpoints there.
Thank you for your response, that answers my question. I’ve found the REST API for starting process the most convenient for testing, but it’s also good to know that forms can serve that purpose as well.