Full Changelog: https://github.com/Activiti/Activiti/compare/7.20.0-rc.1056...7.20.0-rc.1057

• Upgrade to Spring Framework 7 and Spring Boot 4 - Flowable 8 is now based on Spring Framework 7 and Spring Boot 4. There is no support for Spring Boot 3 anymore.
• Upgrade to Jackson 3 - Jackson 3 is now the default JSON library. Jackson 2 is still supported via a compatibility layer
• Remove JUnit 3 and JUnit 4 support - JUnit 3 and JUnit 4 testing support, deprecated in 7.2.0, has been removed. Use JUnit 5 (Jupiter) exclusively

• Lambda Expression support in expressions - Lambda expressions are now supported in expressions. The planItemInstances keyword has been expanded to support filtering based on a predicate using lambda expressions
• The method stream() can be used to obtain a java.util.stream.Stream from a collection. e.g. ${customers.stream().filter(customer -> customer.type eq 'premium').toList()} to get a list of premium customers or ${customers.stream().map(customer -> customer.name).toList() to get the names of all the customers.
• The planItemInstances now expose a filter(Predicate<DelegatePlanItemInstance> predicate) method that can be used to provide custom filter options.
• Date variables with milliseconds - Date variables will now include the milliseconds when they are returned over REST. E.g., up to now a date variable with the value of 2020-05-04T09:25:45.583Z would have been returned as 2020-05-04T09:25:45Z. However, now it would be returned as 2020-05-04T09:25:45.583Z which is still ISO 8601 compliant.
• Date properties in UTC - Date properties e.g., Process Instance start time will be returned as an ISO 8601 in the UTC timezone. E.g., if the start time was returned as 2025-09-24T09:58:12.609+02:00 now it is returned as 2025-09-24T07:58:12.609Z.
• Access definition information in expressions during deployment - Expressions can now access some of the definition information in expressions resolved during deployment. e.g. in Start Timer expression ${variableContainer.definitionKey} to access the definition key
• Case and Process instance migration improvements:
  • Support for updating more task properties when doing case and process instance migration
  • Case and process instance migration validation is now available in the REST API
  • Option to automatically create plan item instances for new plan items during case instance migration
• End user tracking - Added endUserId for historic process/case instances and state for historic process instances
• Case and Process end interceptor - Added case and process end interceptor support
• Business status events - Dispatch events when updating the business status of a case or process
• Event Registry hookpoints - Added hookpoints to event registry for event payload types
• Possibility to disable DMN history persistence - Added option to disable history persistence when executing DMN decisions
• Support Java Records in Expressions

• Improve Expression coercion performance
• Long String variables now store a cached value, avoiding repeated deserialization
• Reduce unnecessary ObjectMapper instance creation - reuse the one from engine configuration

• Fix issue with multiple case reactivations with a parent case instance
• Fix NPE when having two sentries, and one doesn't have an ifPart
• Fix case / process instance ended invoked twice when undeploying deeply nested app
• Fix issue with moving parallel multi-instance activities to a single activity
• Ensure that multiple character events for the same element are handled correctly in XML parsing
• Make sure that BeanELResolver and DMN Expression resolution propagates the exception cause
• Avoid 'Invalid reference in diagram interchange definition' warning message in logs when plan items are part of a plan fragment
• Unlock exclusive jobs when unacquiring all jobs of a worker
• Unacquiring external worker job should unlock the exclusive scope if the external worker job is exclusive
• Address security concerns raised via GitHub issue

Important: If you have scripts or expressions that call methods on a JsonNode, you need to carefully check if these work with Jackson 3, as many method signatures have changed (see details below). If you are unsure, we recommend starting with Jackson 2 configured first (flowable.variable-json-mapper=jackson2), and then testing for an upgrade to Jackson 3 over time. We do recommend looking into upgrading to Jackson 3, since Jackson 2 will eventually stop receiving updates. See Jackson Releases for the latest support information.

Jackson 3 is used for Flowable internal json manipulation. There is still support for Jackson 2 variables. With Spring Boot this can be enabled by setting flowable.variable-json-mapper to jackson2. By default, Jackson 3 is being used for variables. When configuring Flowable without Spring Boot then the variableJsonMapper on the process, cmmn, and app engine configurations should be set to be org.flowable.common.engine.impl.json.jackson2.Jackson2VariableJsonMapper and the org.flowable.common.rest.variable.Jackson2JsonObjectRestVariableConverter should be added to the appropriate rest response factories.

Notable changes when using JSON in expressions / scripts:

• Packages have changed from com.fasterxml.jackson.databind and com.fasterxml.jackson.core to tools.jackson.databind and tools.jackson.core
• elements() no longer returns Iterator<JsonNode> and instead returns Collection<JsonNode>
• values() no longer returns Iterator<JsonNode> and instead returns Collection<JsonNode>
• Iterator<String> fieldNames() replaced by Collection<String> propertyNames()
• Iterator<Map.Entry<String, JsonNode>> fields() replaced by Set<Map.Entry<String, JsonNode>> properties()
• JsonNode with(String) replaced by ObjectNode withObject(String), and if not using a pointer then it is better to use ObjectNode withProperty(String)
• TextNode textNode(String) replaced by StringNode stringNode(String)
• List<String> findValuesAsText(String) replaced by List<String> findValuesAsString(String)
• List<String> findValuesAsText(String, List<String>) replaced by List<String> findValuesAsString(String, List<String>)
• boolean isContainerNode() replaced by boolean isContainer()
• boolean isEmpty(SerializerProvider) replaced by boolean isEmpty(SerializationContext)
• JsonNode put(String, JsonNode) replaced by JsonNode replace(String, JsonNode)
• JsonNode putAll(Map<String, ? extends JsonNode>) replaced by JsonNode setAll(Map<String, ? extends JsonNode>)
• JsonNode putAll(ObjectNode) replaced by JsonNode setAll(ObjectNode)
• JsonParser traverse() removed without replacement
• JsonParser traverse(ObjectCodec) replaced by JsonParser traverse(ObjectReadContext)
• void serialize(JsonGenerator, SerializerProvider) replaced by void serialize(JsonGenerator, SerializationContext)
• void serializeWithType(JsonGenerator, SerializerProvider, TypeSerializer) replaced by void serializeWithType(JsonGenerator, SerializationContext, TypeSerializer)

Methods deprecated in Jackson 3:

• String asText() replaced by String asString()
• String asText(String) replaced by String asString(String)
• boolean isTextual() replaced by boolean isString()
• String textValue() replaced by String stringValue()

There is also a behaviour change in the different xxxValue and asXXX methods. In Jackson 3 those methods would fail if the node is not of the appropriate type and / or if it cannot coerce the value to the requested type. e.g.

• When using stringValue on a non StringNode or NullNode it would fail, in Jackson 2 it would return null.
• When using asString on a ObjectNode or ArrayNode it would fail, in Jackson 2 it would return an empty string.

• Upgrade to Spring Framework 7 / Spring Boot 4
• Upgrade to Jackson 3 (with Jackson 2 compatibility)
• Various other dependency updates

Full Changelog: https://github.com/Activiti/Activiti/compare/7.20.0-rc.1055...7.20.0-rc.1056

Full Changelog: https://github.com/Activiti/Activiti/compare/7.20.0-rc.1054...7.20.0-rc.1055

Full Changelog: https://github.com/Activiti/Activiti/compare/7.20.0-rc.1053...7.20.0-rc.1054

Full Changelog: https://github.com/Activiti/Activiti/compare/7.20.0-rc.1052...7.20.0-rc.1053

Full Changelog: https://github.com/Activiti/Activiti/compare/7.20.0-rc.1051...7.20.0-rc.1052

• 8dd092c: [dotnet][rb][java][js][py] Automated Browser Version Update (#17140) (Selenium CI Bot) #17140
• aa3168d: [java] Catch exception on .contentAsString with binary content (#17139) (tim-burke-systemware) #17139
• 2f71272: [dotnet] [bidi] Wait until events are dispatched when unsubscribing (#17142) (Nikolay Borisenko) #17142
• e23507e: [dotnet] Any WebDriver can be disposed asynchronously (#17119) (Nikolay Borisenko) #17119

Full Changelog: https://github.com/Activiti/Activiti/compare/7.20.0-rc.1050...7.20.0-rc.1051