Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Designer 2007 Bible

21.3. Migrating SharePoint Designer Workflows

Workflows created with SharePoint Designer are associated with a SharePoint list or library by using the list or library's Globally Unique Identifier (GUID). This association is very important for a workflow to initiate properly for the list items. When deciding to migrate lists with workflows created with SharePoint Designer, it's essential to choose a method that maintains the association of the workflow with the list or library's GUID.

NOTE

Workflows created by SharePoint Designer are always associated with the particular list or library. To use the workflow with a different list or library, the workflow needs to be remodified in Workflow Designer to choose the new list. So, this section is about the best practices to use to migrate lists and libraries without breaking the associated workflows.

The following are the recommended methods for migrating lists in SharePoint without irreparably losing the workflow associations:

• Save Site as a Template: SharePoint allows you to save a Web site as a template. Saving the SharePoint site as a template allows you to reuse the customizations made to the Web site for creating new sites. If you save the SharePoint site where you created your workflows by using SharePoint Designer as a template and then create a new site based on that template, you should be able to reuse the workflows associated with the lists on the new site. It's very important to note that you should include content while ...