Whenever I need to make a change in the process definition I have to re deploy the process definition.It seems that creates a new version of the process definition.
Is there a way where I can update the existing process definition and not create a new version all the time.
What will happen to the old process instances if there is a new version of process definition in place.
Any help on the above queries is appreciated.
I don't think the Activiti API provides a way to replace an existing process definition without deploying a new version.
When you deploy a new version of a process, any existing process instances on the old version continue running on the old version.
However, there is a SetProcessDefinitionVersionCmd class you can use to change the process version on a process instance. It's not "smart", though; it simply changes the version number, and doesn't change any other runtime data, so it can break process instances if you make an incompatible change in the process definition.