Preparing for upgrade

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Before upgrading IBM® Case Manager to IBM Business Automation Workflow, review the following information to ensure that you are ready to upgrade.

Review the requirements and considerations

Understand the requirements and support considerations for the upgrade to be able to choose the appropriate path when you're ready to proceed with the upgrade.
Supported versions
  • Before you upgrade IBM Case Manager, you must install IBM Business Automation Workflow. It is recommended that you upgrade to IBM Business Automation Workflow V21.0.3. If you are running IBM Business Process Manager or an earlier version of IBM Business Automation Workflow, you can upgrade by following the instructions for your specific configuration. See Upgrading to IBM Business Automation Workflow.
  • It is generally recommended that you upgrade from IBM Case Manager V5.3.3. If you want to upgrade from a different version with a supported upgrade path, such as V5.3.2 or V5.2.1.7, see Troubleshooting system upgrades.
  • Before you upgrade, review the Software Product Compatibility Reports (SPCR) to ensure compatible component products are at their proper supported versions for IBM Case Manager and IBM Business Automation Workflow.
WebSphere® Application Server support
  • The upgrade of IBM Case Manager to IBM Business Automation Workflow requires a new installation of Business Automation Workflow on a new WebSphere Application Server installation. See Using an external IBM Content Navigator.
  • Business Automation Workflow is based on WebSphere Application Server V8.5.5. This means that the Business Automation Workflow components must stay on WebSphere Application Server V8.5.5. However, an external Content Platform Engine or IBM Content Navigator can remain on WebSphere Application Server V9.0.
  • You can have different WebSphere Application Server versions like V8.5 and V9.0 in the same Business Automation Workflow environment. Therefore, you can also install Business Automation Workflow on WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment V8.5 and the external Content Platform Engine on WebSphere Application Server Base Edition V9.0 in the same environment. The requirement is that the JVM versions are the same.
Content Platform Engine and Business Automation Workflow support
  • To continue seeing the case solutions that were created in IBM Case Manager in Business Automation Workflow after the upgrade, configure Business Automation Workflow to use the same Content Platform Engine environment that IBM Case Manager uses for the design object store (DOS) and target object store (TOS). See step 4 in the upgrade procedure.
  • To continue using the same configurations and customizations in IBM Content Navigator after the upgrade, configure Business Automation Workflow to use the same IBM Content Navigator environment that is used with IBM Case Manager. See step 6 in the upgrade procedure.
Additional considerations
  • Ensure that the properties for the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) configuration used by both Business Automation Workflow and FileNet® Content Manager are matching. See step 5.
  • IBM FileNet P8 Content Platform Engine and IBM Content Navigator are on their respective supported versions.
  • Eliminate deprecated systems or reach out to your IBM representative to discuss other options, such as eForms or IBM Forms.
    Important: eForms and IBM Forms are supported only with an embedded IBM Content Navigator configuration. Note that using an external IBM Content Navigator configuration is the only upgrade path for a production Business Automation Workflow environment.
  • Ensure that all participant computers have a hostname with a domain name suffix, for example, my_computer.my_domain_name.com.
  • Use a Trusted CA SSL certificate is recommended, otherwise you will see a message stating that resources for straight-through processing are not reachable. See How do I avoid "The resources that are required for straight-through processing are not reachable" error being displayed when trying to access Case client from an external IBM Content Navigator configuration.

Choose your upgrade path

Based on whether you need a production or a non-production environment, choose the appropriate upgrade path. You can upgrade your IBM Case Manager system to Business Automation Workflow using either an external IBM Content Navigator or the embedded IBM Content Navigator.
See Upgrading.

Update your custom widgets, plug-ins, and extension packages

If you are using custom widgets, plug-ins, and extension packages, to make them work with the new Business Automation Workflow configuration, you may need to update them. See steps 7.a and 7.b in the upgrade procedure.