Upgrade workflows and workflow templates after upgrading Workflow Conductor

This article includes the following topics:

• The behavior of existing deployed workflows after a Workflow Conductor in-place upgrade
• Upgrading workflow templates in Conductor Studio after an in-place upgrade
• Migrating and upgrading workflow templates after installing a new version of Workflow Conductor on a different server

WORKFLOW CONDUCTOR IN-PLACE UPGRADES 

The information in the following two sections applies to the upgrade scenarios listed below when the upgrade occurs on the same server as the previous Workflow Conductor installation, including servers that were upgraded in-place from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010.

• Workflow Conductor 1.0/1.1 (2007) to Workflow Conductor 1.5 or higher (2007 or 2010)
• Workflow Conductor 1.5 (2007) to Workflow Conductor 1.5.1 or higher (2007 or 2010)

Existing deployed workflow behavior after a Workflow Conductor in-place upgrade

When you upgrade Workflow Conductor on the same server as the previous version, workflows that were deployed by the previous version of Workflow Conductor will continue to run, with one exception:

Workflows deployed with versions of Workflow Conductor prior to 1.5.1 that contain a Set Approval Status Widget in them may fail. If you experience this problem, you can allow the remaining widgets in your workflow to run by changing the Workflow Error Handling setting in the Workflow Conductor Control Panel General Settings page to Go to Next Widget. For more details about this setting, click here to view the online documentation.

If Set Approval Status is critical to your workflow, or if you prefer not to use the Go to Next Widget setting (which affects all workflows), follow the instructions below for upgrading workflow templates, and deploy a new version of the workflow. For more information about deploying new version of existing workflows, click here.

Upgrading workflow templates in Conductor Studio after an in-place upgrade

Any workflow templates that you saved in a previous version of Conductor Studio will still be available in after you upgrade to a new version of Workflow Conductor on the same server in any of the upgrade scenarios listed above.  

To upgrade a workflow template to the new version of Workflow Conductor:

1. Open the template in Conductor Studio.
2. Click on any Widget in the template and click Apply.
3. If the template was created in Workflow Conductor 1.0 or 1.1, click here for additional information about specific Widgets and properties that must be reconfigured.
4. Save the workflow template.

These steps will update the workflow template to run with the new version of Workflow Conductor when the template is deployed. If there are new required or optional properties or features for Widgets in the workflow, you will need to configure them. If you attempt to deploy a workflow with missing required properties, Conductor Studio will display an error to let you know.

Note: Updating a workflow template does NOT automatically upgrade any deployed version of the workflow. To upgrade the existing deployed workflow, deploy a new version of the workflow using the updated template. Click here for more information about deploying new versions of workflows.

Tip: Since each new version of Workflow Conductor contains new features and Widget enhancements, it is always a good idea to review workflow templates created in earlier versions of Conductor Studio before deploying them, to look for and take advantage of these new features.

WORKFLOW CONDUCTOR MIGRATION AND UPGRADE

The information in the next section applies to the upgrade scenarios listed below when the new version of Workflow Conductor is installed on a different server than the previous Workflow Conductor version.

• Workflow Conductor 1.0/1.1 (2007) to Workflow Conductor 1.5 or higher (2007 or 2010)
• Workflow Conductor 1.5 (2007) to Workflow Conductor 1.5.1 or higher (2007 or 2010)

Migrating and upgrading workflow templates after installing a new version of Workflow Conductor on a different server

To move Workflow Conductor workflows from one server to another, the deployed workflow must have been saved as a workflow template in Conductor Studio before it was deployed. If you did not save the workflow as a template before deploying it, you must recreate the workflow on the new server.

To move a workflow template to a new version of Workflow Conductor on a different server and deploy it:

1. Open the workflow template in Conductor Studio on the previous version of Workflow Conductor.
2. Click Workflow > Export, and save the .xoml template to a location on your network.
3. Start Conductor Studio on the new version of Workflow Conductor from the list or library where you want to deploy the workflow.
4. Click Workflow > Import, browse for the .xoml file you saved, and click Import.
5. Click on any Widget in the template and click Apply.
6. If the template was created in Workflow Conductor 1.0 or 1.1, click here for additional information about specific Widgets and properties that must be reconfigured.
7. Save the workflow template.
8. Click Publish > Deploy to deploy the workflow.

Note: If your workflow template was created in Workflow Conductor 1.5 or higher, references to specific list names in the workflow should still work without any additional configuration, as long as a list with the same name exists in the new location.