Unsupported plugins after upgrade to 18.3

Question

Hi all, 
 
 We are upgrading from 7.9 to 18.3 
 
 We have a list of plugins that are not available in the appmarket anymore mostly because they are now part of the product. 
 
 Will the code work straightaway without the old external plugin or do we need to modify every call to the plugin and replace it with the new out of the box activity? 
 Can we copy out current plugins .jar files to the new upgraded server and expect the code will still work with the unsupported plugin in Appian 18.3? 
 
 Many thanks!

Shanmukha · Accepted Answer

Hi Jesusa, 
 
As you have already mentioned that there are couple of options since the upgrade is from very older version to the latest version. You may get some kind troubles while migrating the code which is related to plugins. 
 
I would suggest to follow the last options which is copying the jar files from 7.9 to 18.3 and then try importing the application and then change your code to use newer versions of plugin.

aloks0189 · Answer

Hi jesusa310 as per my understanding, please find the response for the same as mentioned below: 
 1. Your Code won't work straightaway without the old external plugin, even when the same plugin is OOTB in new Appian 18.3. 
 Reason 
 
 There are various type of plugins such as Smart Service, Expression Function, Custom CDT, Servlet plugin. Now the actual problem is, when a smart service is removed and now available as part of product version 18.2 OOTB then even though the plugin has the same name, same number of parameters with same type but still their groupId might be different internally and if so, then you must remove these nodes in your process and re-map these smart services in your process model. 
 You shouldn't copy out the current plugin Jar files into upgraded server, because if there are any plugins which is already exist with the same key or function name then this will throw an exception during the deployment, and also you might be using some old API's when you built these plugins while working with v7.9 and by now, many of these API's or their classes, methods might have got deprecated / removed hence the best option could be as follows: 
 
 Please Check whether the same requirement can be achieved in Appian v18.3 
 If so, then you need to allocate some time for the code upgrade activity.

NOTE: As you migrating from very lower version of Appian i.e. 7.9 to the current one i.e. 18.3, you need to allocate good amount of time for the upgrade related activities, and this will also benefit you in many aspects such as UI enhancements, better performance etc.. 
 
 Hope this will help.