topic RE: Process Compare in Product Forum

Process Compare

Neel1 — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 12:48:00 GMT

Hello -
I was going through the below mentioned weblink to see how one can compare two different processes not two different version of same process.

but i am not able to find option to do that(although it is written in this weblink), all I can see is to compare two version of one process in System>Processes>History. am i missing something?

Process Comparison Wizard

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Neeraj Kumar
Technical Architect
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RE: Process Compare

PvD_SE — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 13:00:00 GMT

Hi Neeraj,

If the tool was not meant to compare two different processes, you have to get creative to do that. I see two possibilities, but there are likely more:

Make a release of each process, compare the XML files of the two releases. Dunno if there's a suitable XML or TXT compare app in NotePad++ though, you may have to write one.
More work:
1. Save a copy of the first process (A)
2. Open the newly saved copy
3. Remove all pages (but Main Page)
4. Clear everything from the Main Page, you now have a clean sheet
5. Duplicate all content of the second process (B) to the clean sheet, including the complete content of the Main Page and all other pages
6. Save the copy
7. Now the two versions of the same process contains process A and process B
8. Compare the two versions of the copy as you normally would in BP

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Happy coding!
Paul
Sweden
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RE: Process Compare

ewilson — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 13:49:00 GMT

@Neeraj Kumar,

The historical process comparison tool is what's available for comparing different versions of a process. What you have to consider is that every time you save a process you're effectively creating a new version. I imagine what you're looking for is a way to compare say a process you have already imported locally and a new version you may have downloaded from the DX. Is that correct?

If so, you can perform that action using the historical comparison tool too, but you must plan accordingly. What I mean by that is you should create a backup copy of the existing process (export the process as .xml or .bprelease). Then you can import the new version you have and perform a comparison between it and the last saved version. Does that make sense? After that, if you don't want the newer version you just import your backup copy of the process.

Here's an example using the MS Excel VBO. On my machine, I have a fairly extensive history of the VBO because we're adding improvements fairly regularly. The screenshot below shows the history along with the points that I've imported our latest release from our internal source code control repository.

Now, if I highlight two different points in the history and click the Compare Selected Business Objects option, I'll be shown the differences.

Does that help?

And yes, I'm well aware that I'm a terrible developer when it comes to commenting my changes. That's what I use my Git check-in's for. 😁

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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RE: Process Compare

Neel1 — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 14:18:00 GMT

@ewilson

Thanks for your reply. I am using this approach to compare the diff version of process.

I am also looking for simple way to compare two diff version of two diff process.

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Neeraj Kumar
Technical Architect
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RE: Process Compare

ewilson — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 14:37:00 GMT

@Neeraj Kumar,

The simplest approach is probably what @PvD_SE mentioned above. Still not a perfect solution as you have to export your processes for the comparison, but I have used this approach too in the past. In my case I use UltraCompare which is an application that came in a bundle I bought years ago. Does a great job of text-based comparisons, but there are lots of tools out there that provide the same capabilities.

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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RE: Process Compare

Neel1 — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 11:12:00 GMT

@ewilson - Thanks for your reply.

In the link i shared in my initial post, below is the snip from that. How to achieve the 3rd point.
I am not finding option to type the file name OR selecting the another process for comparison as mentioned in the BP doc link.

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Neeraj Kumar
Technical Architect
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RE: Process Compare

ewilson — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 12:53:00 GMT

@Neeraj Kumar,

Perhaps I'm not understanding what you're trying to do. Are you trying to compare two completely different processes? If so, I don't believe that's possible without doing a text comparison of the XML as Paul pointed out. The Process Comparison Wizard is only looking at history of a single process. If you load a completely different process then the Wizard resets and loads that specific processes history for comparison.

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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RE: Process Compare

PvD_SE — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 13:19:00 GMT

Hi Neeraj,

As Eric states, comparing processes only makes sense if they are two instances of the same process, albeit with differences in content and time. If the origin of the two processes are unrelated, there's no point in attempting any comparison.

My previous answer assumed the two processes to be closely related and both solutions would provide you with their differences. The first option by doing a TXT compare between two XML release files with a dedicated or customized tool, the second option by having all logic for both processes in two versions of one process and therefor being able to compare the two versions by using the native BP comparison tool.

Question:

How large are the processes? (number of pages and number of actions)

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Happy coding!
Paul
Sweden
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