Hi everyone..  I administer a basic single server SharePoint 2010 environment that I inherited from the previous admin.  I've taken to copying a domain controller and the SharePoint server from backup into a separate development environment when I need to make changes.

I'm finding now that as I perfect a form or workflow in the development environment that I can't simply copy those changes out to file and import them into production.  Can anyone shed some light on how this might be accomplished?  I don't want to overwrite the entire database, just this one form and workflow.

Thanks for your help

Regards, Adam Tyler

What kind of form/workflow?

How have you changed the form/workflow?

Ideally start packaging your custom functionalities on sharepoint features.

Hi,

you can try this:

1. Export the workflow to Visio.
2. Edit the VWI archive and delete the configuration file.
3. Import the workflow back to your destination site.

So open the SharePoint designer and open the source site. click on the workflows link on the left and then the workflow you want to move. Click on the ribbon on export to Visio button.

Now rename the file exported (VWI file) to be a ZIP file and open it with Windows Explorer. You will find a file named workflow.xoml.wfconfig.xml

Just delete this file. Now rename the archive back to be a VWI file.

Now open the destination site and click the import from Visio and browse to the edited VWI file. This will allow you to re-associate your workflow as if it was created or exported from Visio rather than the designer while preserving any development made in the workflow it self.

Fernando,

Apologies, I should have mentioned that I am a complete noob when it comes to workflow and SharePoint forms.  Embarrassed to say that I am not sure how to answer your questions.

What kind of form/Workflow?

 - What kinds are there?  Maybe I can narrow it down.  Basically it's a travel request form which kicks off a series of tasks driven by what looks like a "master" workflow.  The workflow is tied to the site and the tasks that interact with it seem to fall into the sites "tasks" folder.  Does that help?

How have you changed the form/workflow?

 - This I can answer.  There are a number of e-mails that go out during workflow processing.  I have chanced the content of those e-mails, but the workflow will execute in much the same way.  There are so many modifications though, it would be great to export/import.  The form has been hacked on quite a bit.  New check boxes and different language here or there adding new content.  Much of this content is added to the e-mails in which the workflow sends, but again it doesn't really change the way the workflow executes.

Ideally start packaging your custom funcitonalities on sharepoint features.

 - Huh?

Really just looking for a way to export the form and workflow changes I have made in dev to file so that it can be imported into the production environment overwriting the old version of the form/workflow.  Hopefully this info helped some.  I've heard from other SharePoint resources that there is a way of imbedding the entire workflow within the form, this is not the way our existing workflows are built.

Nikhil,

This is great.  I will give it a shot.

Questions:

When this is imported, will it overwrite and existing workflow?

If a workflow consists of multiple associated "Tasks" and those tasks have mini workflows, do I need to export and import those separately or will exporting the "master" workflow get all of this?

What is the method for exporting the form and importing?

Nikhil,

I am finally getting to the point where I can test your recommendation in a development environment.  your suggestion seems to work up to a certain point.  When importing the workflow from dev to production it doesn't appear to allow me to give the imported workflow the same name.  I get a message stating that a workflow already exists with that name.

If I give the imported workflow a new name, none of the forms come across.  I really am looking for a way to migrate the changes and overwrite the existing workflow while preserving the forms.  Any suggestions?

Renaming the workflow will more than likely break the overall workflow, as it sounds like you have workflows calling other workflows to preform certain tasks.

If that is in fact the case, you would have to remove the outdated workflow from the live environment and drop the new updated workflow in its place.

I would recommend cloning your sandbox environment to test deploying to a new server. Once you feel confidant in your test, push to live.

Thanks for your reply.  I have in fact cloned the live environment to dev and am testing the restore in this way.  Deleting the existing workflow prior to the import seems to lose more content than I am prepared to rebuild.  The related task forms all are removed in the process and who knows what else.

I am in the process of testing the backup/restore software from Metalogix.  Hopefully it can get this done.  I can't believe this is so difficult.  Go Microsoft.

Turns out this is impossible.  This was an extreme pain, but I finally completed my migration of a dev workflow from dev environment to production using a combination of built in and 3rd party tools.  Specifically a migration product from Metalogix.  It wasn't perfect.  The biggest issue is that none of my users had access to the form after migration..  Only admins.  Ended up manually having to edit the forms ACL from designer before it would function.  It did copy the entire workflow though.  Much better than having to re-create it in the horrible SharePoint Designer interface.

• Marked as answer by ATyler - Life Flight Network 11 hours 50 minutes ago