Moving SharePoint 2010 Workflows in Visio

Exporting or Importing SharePoint 2010 Workflows using SharePoint Designer now requires Visio Premium 2010.  This is important because I previously had Visio Professional and it will not have the content type for Workflow - SharePoint Workflow.

Another note:
To import and exported SharePoint Designer Workflow into Visio, which will be an .vwi file, create a new workflow - SharePoint Workflow.  Then navigate to Process tab in ribbon  and choose Import SharePoint Workflow.

I also found that Visio Check Diagram found errors in my workflow that even SharePoint Designer did not detect.  My issue was a very large workflow that should have been parallel, but I had built it sequential.

If you are like me and you have a production SharePoint site you are building solutions on, but need to play with it first in a development system, you will not be able to move the workflow among the 2 systems, unless you follow these instructions.

About .vwi files:
.vwi files are simply .zip files that are compressed with a different file extension.  To view one change the .vwi to a .zip extension.  OR even better, use 7-Zip to view or move files among 2 .vwi files.  The steps below require you to move a file among 2 .vwi files, so open 2 separate instances of 7-zip and open each file, then drag between them.  (If you un-compress and re-compress and change the filenames manually it will not work.)


There was an option in SharePoint Designer, Export to Visio which exports your workflow as a .vwi file, and can be imported in to another site using the option Import from Visio. But when you try that option, you will get the below message:

This workflow cannot be imported because it was created in SharePoint Designer for a different site, or the original workflow has been moved or deleted. To move a workflow between sites, use Save as Template (.wsp file) instead of a Visio workflow drawing.

(Saving as a .wsp IS NOT the answer)

So, to achieve the same follow the steps below.
  1. In the first(source) site, create the required workflow and publish it.
  2. Now select Export to Visio option which allows you to save the workflow with a .vwi extension. (Refer this workflow hereafter as source workflow).
  3. Now go to the destination site where you want the workflow to be copied, and create a new workflow with the same name as the previous one & publish it.
  4. Now select Export to Visio option which allows you to save the workflow with a .vwi extension. (Refer this workflow hereafter as Destination workflow).
  5. Now you will be having two .vwi files (one of source workflow’s – SourceWorkflowName.vwi and other of the destination workflow’s – DestinationWorkflowName.vwi). Now add .zip extension to both the files. Now your files names should be SourceWorkflowName.vwi.zip & DestinationWorkflowName.vwi.zip.
  6. Now open both the zip files, copy workflow.xoml.wfconfig.xml from destination workflow to source workflow. (Its destination to source and not source to destination).
  7. From now on, we will not use the file DestinationWorkflowName.vwi.zip. So ignore that file.
  8. Remove the .zip extension from SourceWorkflowName.vwi.zip which gives you the SourceWorkflowName.vwi file.
  9. Now, go to the destination site, open workflows and click Import from Visio and browse to the SourceWorkflowName.vwi file.
  10. That’s it and your workflow is copied. You can publish the workflow and run it.
PS : In case if your list’s GUID’s (for those lists that you have used in workflow – tasks list, history list or any other lists used in workflow steps) have been changed from source & destination site, you may need to update those steps in the workflow.  Lookups will need to be rebuilt.

Comments

  1. ChewieDevFebruary 5, 2013 at 2:52 PM

    By the way, Visio is a great way to design a workflow visually for a customer first. Even better if they create one for you.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SharePoint Designer 2013 Approval Workflow with Comments

Image
Adding Comments to a SharePoint 2013 Approval Workflow I needed the ability to capture comments from Approval Tasks in a workflow.  This has changed greatly in 2013 workflows.  Everything is more modular and as such must be built somewhat from scratch.
SharePoint 2013 workflows can become corrupt.  This may have been fixed by a patch, but please refer to a previous post before creating any 2013 workflows in Designer: http://www.ericjochens.com/2014/12/sharepoint-2013-workflow-observations.htmlSharePoint 2013 does not have a built-in approval workflow, nor does a built-in task item include comments.  I solved this by building my own approval workflow, and using a custom content type to include a comments field.A SharePoint 2013 Workflow will not store the Task ID when a task is created, so you cannot do a lookup into that task list to grab comments or any other field.  I solved this by creating a separate workflow in the task list to read the Related Items column, and update the origin…
Read more

SharePoint Search - Content Processing Pipeline Failed to Process the Item

Image
SharePoint 2013 Search Crawls Stop Crawling All Content Recently the search system stopped successfully crawling content.  ASPX pages were crawled, but no content was being indexed. Opening up the crawl log showed thousands of errors with this message:
The content processing pipeline failed to process the item.  (Index was out of range.  Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection.  Parameter name: index; SearchID = [GUID]) Note: the resolution is in the resolution section for those who cannot or refuse to read. What does this mean?  Honestly initially it made no sense.  So I learned a valuable lesson: I misguidedly spent the next 2 days trying the usual fixes like resetting the index, rebuilding the 2013 search components, and lastly what EVERYONE does: they fix it with a sledgehammer (in this case rebuilding the search service application).

But what if rebuilding the search service application is a horrible pain?  We have thousands of query rules, 30 result source…
Read more

Change SharePoint server hostname and Web Application Names

Note: I realize that many admins are reluctant to delete web applications.  I personally know why I ma doing it and how to achieve this easily.  You should always retain any customization you have added to the site, like web.config mods, etc.  The Alternate Access Mappings are always available, but they leave open holes that I do not wish to keep active.  I like a clean setup.
Why? Perhaps you need to clone a development, test, or some SharePoint server and you need to change the hostname so that it can exist on the same domain without a SID conflict.  Or you just have a use-case for wanting to rename the hostname of a SharePoint server.  It can be done, just make sure you go through all of the steps.

The Rename-SPServer PowerShell command can also be used to change the SQL Server name, for the case where you might move the databases to a new SQL server or instance and you need to point all of the farm servers to this new hostname\instance.

Changing the hostname isn't that bad, bu…
Read more