You can now access a hosted instance of K2 blackpoint to test drive it This is a 60-day free trial available in a K2-hosted online environment. Go here to Try it now.

As you may know the next update to K2 code named 090x has been in the works and the beta is available for customers.

There are couple of important features to 090x, 1) It aligns blackpoint and blackpearl so that if you are looking at upgrading to blackpearl from blackpoint it is now a simple upgrade step. 2) It supports the 2008 wave of products such as Windows server 2008, Sql server 2008 and importantly for developers it supports VS.NET 2008.

Johnny has beaten me on a run down blog post…read “early impressions on 090x” by Johnny here

K2 are coming to town again! on June 26th there is a morning session held in Melbourne. Please subscribe to this event to attend. More info here – Business Process Automation – A Practical Approach

Chris “community man” Geier from K2 has released a video on Kerberos – the necessary evil that we all need to befriend – check this out here – very useful.

The next update to K2 blackpearl is in beta now. This release will bring some key new features such as

> The new Silverlight-based Process Designer for SharePoint
> Inline functions, which allow for calculation, boolean logic
and text manipulation with no code
> An update to the API set for process instance management

you can get it from the K2 customer portal now.

There is a white paper made available for planning your performance testing scenarios for K2. I think this is a valuable document that will help you understand the performance factors in relation to K2.

KB000401 – K2 blackpearl Performance Testing White Paper
In order to evaluate the performance of a K2 environment, guidance in this document can be used for customers to set up their own performance testing. Actual K2 performance can vary greatly across environments and scenarios due to variable hardware and network configurations, as well as the types of business solutions developed and technologies with which K2 blackpearl is integrated.

Also checkout this performance monitoring KB

I have been playing around with the recently released SP2 for Sharepoint 2007 with K2. This was mainly to check for any compatibility issues. I also wanted to look at the newly updated K2 blackpoint installer and the diag tools

My experience upgrading a K2 807 enabled Sharepoint server to SP2 went without issues. K2 continued to function well.

My testing was done on a fairly simple MOSS VM. I have not done any performance benchmarks. I am also interested in the Forms Server enhancements made for MOSS http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953334 But, that will be for another blog post.

My test run also covered K2 blackpoint (latest installer). I think the software works fine with SP2. BTW, The most awaited K2 update code named ‘090x’ will officially support Sharepoint SP2 along with aligning with 2008 wave.

The updated blackpoint installer (note: this is not an upgrade to existing blackpoint environments) is great – its diagtools are brilliant, helping you verify the install, settings, permissions, etc – a very valuable tool. It checks for  and fix issues reported.

If you find any issues with upgrading to SP2 or installing K2 on an SP2 environment please log a support ticket with K2 or go to Forums on k2underground.com

UPDATE: There is a hotfix available for an issue that has been found when using Sharepoint integration tasks in K2 processes. Check this out - KB000451 – Hotfix: After installing MOSS SP2, SharePoint Integration tasks are not created for the second and subsequent client events.

There has been a number KBs made available since the release of the update 370. Take a look these and apply the relevant fixes if you have the issues mentioned occurring in your environment. There are also a few FYI type KBs which I have not included here. For a full list visit the K2 customer portal.

KB000375 – Hotfix: Event Instances Report in the Process Overview Report shows events that belong to another activity.
When using the Activity Instance Report or the Process Overview Report in the Out of Box Reports in K2 Workspace the activities reported on are incorrect and reflect the data of a different activity or event.

KB000376 – Hotfix: Searching for users in K2 Workspace returns users with the wrong domain prefix.
When using Multidomains in the same forest, occasionally the incorrect domain prefix is returned when searching for users in K2 Workspace.

KB000378 – Hotfix: Activity Instances Destinations Report in the Process Overview Report shows incorrect activity name
When using the Activity Instances Destinations Report in the Process Overview Report of the Out of Box Reports in K2 Workspace, the data summary may incorrectly reflect the activity name for a different activity in the process.

KB000382 – Known Issue: An exception occurs when completing an asynchronous server event by calling the Update or Finish method from an external application.
An exception occurs when completing an asynchronous server event by calling the Finish method from an external application.

KB000380 – Hotfix: The value of the “AllocatedUser” property (on an OpenWorkListItem method call), is not returned correctly
There is a known issue related to the K2 blackpearl 0807 update KB000350 and KB000370 that when the OpenWorklistItem method is invoked, the WorklistItem’s AllocatedUser property has a null value

KB000383 – Known Issue: Loading a record with a SmartObject date property that is empty causes a “Specified cast is not valid” error
When using the SmartObject Event Wizard to replicate datafields and one of the SmartObject properties is of Date/Time type, a “cast” error will occur if this source SmartObject property is left empty.

KB000384 – Hotfix: An exception occurs when completing an asynchronous server event by calling the Update or Finish method from an external application.
An exception occurs when completing an asynchronous server event by calling the Update or Finish method from an external application.

KB000360 – K2 connect: How to cache credentials for K2 connect for SAP Security Labels
K2 connect for SAP requires that a second set of user credentials be cached in association with the user’s primary identity. This article provides high level technical information on the options available to the developer and how they can be implemented along with a technical discussion of how the authentication procedure works for K2 connect for SAP.

KB000385 – Hotfix: Loading a record with a SmartObject date property that is empty causes a “Specified cast is not valid” error

KB000387 – SSO Error after K2 blackpearl Configuration Manager is run
Error occurs after re running the K2 blackpearl Configuration Manager and user authenticates using SSO

KB000388 – Hotfix: Shared Activity Level Datafields will revert to default values when the client event is instantiated

KB000396 – Hotfix: K2 Migration Utility becomes unresponsive on “List InfoPath Documents” page
While running the K2 Environment Migration Utlility the application encounters a problem and stops responding while attempting to retrieve the List of InfoPath Documents. No error message is displayed to the user.

KB000398 – Known Issue: K2 Designer for Visual Studio is unable to compile a project that contains a K2.net 2003 Artifact(s)
When K2.net 2003 artifacts are imported or used in a K2 designer for Visual Studio project and later the user attempts to deploy the process, K2 designer for Visual Studio is unable to compile the K2.net 2003 Artifacts.

KB000397 – Hotfix: Release Worklist Item Using the K2 blackpearl API does not work as expected
When the Administrator, or user with the appropriate rights attempts to release a worklist item when the destination was a user group using the SourceCode.Workflow.Management.WorkflowManagementServer.ReleaseWorklistItem, an exception occurs stating that the worklist item is not found

KB000389 – Hotfix: Object Reference error when an Escalation on an Activity is moved to a new process version by Error Repair
An Object Reference error may occur after using the Error Repair tool on a process that has escalations
configured for activities within the process. Once the Error Repair tool has moved the the process instance
in error onto a new version of the process, the activity escalations in the process instance and the new
process definition do not match.

KB000400 – Hotfix: K2 Designer for Visual Studio is unable to compile a project that contains a K2.net 2003 Artifact(s)
When K2.net 2003 artifacts are imported or used in a K2 designer for Visual Studio project and later the user attempts to deploy the process, K2 designer for Visual Studio is unable to compile the K2.net 2003 Artifacts.

KB000402 – Hotfix: Error occurs when opening an InfoPath Client Event.
When using InfoPath Workflow integration and Forms Services it will not open the InfoPath client events if the user opening them does not have at least contributor rights.

KB000390 – Hotfix: The returned XML for a SharePoint user(s) is not fully formed if they have minimal permissions available when working within SharePoint.

KB000407 – Hotfix: Issue with Notification Event Designer.
If a notification is edited that contains Worklist Item URL data fields. The notification e-mail will be sent when the notification event is fired but the Worklist Item URL will not populate correctly with the runtime data. Re-opening the edited notification in the Notification Event Designer shows a blank e-mail body.

KB000393 – Hotfix: Intermittent error in SharePoint when moving documents to a Records Center
Intermittent errors may occur on the SharePoint Web Frontend when a K2 process attempts to move a
document to the SharePoint Records Center. These errors can, however, be successfully repaired
by re-trying them from the Management Console.

KB000411 – Known Issue: Custom Reporting Services component not visible
After installing K2 blackpoint 0902 (4.9040.1.0) the SOURCECODE data source in Visual Studio required for designing custom reports is missing.

KB000412 – Hotfix: K2.net 2003 ServerItem Not Found post Migration
After migrating from K2.net 2003, processes which included a Asynchronous Server events throw an error

KB000413 – Hotfix: Error occurs when the “Active Directory Service 2″ is invoked with 1500 or more process instances.
There is a known issue related to the K2 blackpearl 0807 update KB000370 that when the “Active Directory Service 2″ is invoked with 1500 or more process instances it will throw an “Out Of Memory” error. .

KB000410 – Workaround: K2 Connect for SAP – NLB Cluster Workaround Configuration
Existing users of K2 connect for SAP may want to extend the capabilities of their envionment by clustering the K2 connect servers. Since this functionality is not fully supported in the current release, a workaround has been devised to facilitate this.

KB000404 – Hotfix: Multiple users opening connections that call the Impersonate method increase execution times with every new concurrent connection
When multiple users open connections that use the Impersonate method on a K2 Connection, the execution times increase with every new concurrent connection.

KB000414 – Hotfix: InOut Parameters not returned correctly for a K2 connect custom method
A K2 connect ServiceObject which includes a custom method, does not handle InOut Mappings correctly

KB000408 – Hotfix: When using IPC processes and data from the child process should be returned to the parent process, the data is not retrieved.
When using IPC processes and sending and/or receiving information between processes, errors may occur intermittently due to data not being send through from the child process back to the parent process. Various memory, performance and threading enhancements have been made to the K2 Server, IPC’s and Escalations, which include:
- Memory enhancements made to the K2Server to ensure that only relevant data is stored in the ProcessInstance state
- Performance and threading enhancements made to IPC’s that would improve memory consumption
- Performance and memory enhancements made to Escalations

KB000386 – Hotfix: Unable to retrieve column data from a system library in SharePoint using Process Event Integration
The error message detailed below occurs in conjunction with the SharePoint Process Integration Wizard at run time. The individual checks a page back in from a SharePoint document library either an Item Checkin or an Item Update action (This error may persist for other event actions).  As soon as the action is attempted, the process goes into error.

KB000415 – Hotfix: Error received when trying to activate the K2 Workflow Integration Content Type feature.
When installing K2 blackpoint 0902 (4.9040.1.0) using WSS an error occurs when trying to activate the K2 Features.

KB000377 – Hotfix: Browser Enabled forms render as XML when “InfoPath, Web browser if InfoPath not available” is selected
When using InfoPath Forms Services and selecting the option “InfoPath, Web browser when InfoPath is not available”,
the form is rendered as XML when opening the action in K2 Workspace and neither K2 for Visual Studio nor InfoPath is available.

KB000381 – Hotfix: Duplicated destination user in Activity Instance Destination Report
There is a known issue related to the K2 blackpearl 0807 update KB000370 that when there are two parallel activities (Activity B and Activity C), both with a single destination user and both with Client Events where only Activity B is instantiated (because the line rule to Activity C is invalid (1=0)) then and error occurs in the Activity Instance Destinations report from Activity B which incorrectly shows two lines with the same user.

Check this out http://www.k2.com/networker/
………. here’s a sneak preview……….

• K2 is now on Twitter. Follow Chris Geier, community development manager, at Twitter.com/K2onK2. He’ll be providing industry commentary and keeping you updated on K2 news, people, events, tips, tricks, releases and plenty more.

In addition to Twitter, K2 has planted a few big green flags on Facebook. Drop by our K2 blackpearl and K2 blackpoint pages, and become a fan. Let us know what you think.

• We recently welcomed three new Insiders into the K2 family: Jonathan Beckett, Yousef Eqtait and Jey Srikantha.

Meet them at K2.com on our Insiders page.