Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Import SharePoint Designer workflow to Visio diagram


In this post we are going to see how we can import a workflow created inside SharePoint Designer 2010 into Visio diagram and visualize the flow written in the workflow.

If you also would like to read about how we can export diagram created in Visio to Designer 
Workflow, then I would recommend you read Exporting Visio diagram to Workflow Designer as well.

To demonstrate I have created a simple workflow in Designer and it looks like this.



We are pausing until some date and then checking a condition and based on condition we perform an action.

So let’s go ahead and save the workflow. Click on export to Visio option in ribbon under Manage group.



It will ask to save it as Visio workflow Interchange file. This is the same format even when we would like to open Visio diagram into Designer workflow as a name suggest its interchangeable - from one to the other form.



Open Visio and select Microsoft SharePoint Workflow as template and then go to Process group and click on Import button.



The moment you import the workflow created previously turns in to a Visio diagram.



As you can see we first have pause until date, then we have condition of field which is source and then we have send email activity only if condition is true, if condition is false we directly end the workflow. 

As you can see that this diagram is easy to understand from an end user point rather than looking at Designer workflow and wondering what is going on. 

2 comments:

Jess said...

This is helpful and appreciated.
When I get my SPD workflow visible in Visio, the steps show only generic shape names like "Compound Condition" and "Set Workflow Variable".
How do I see the specifics of these steps (i.e. what the conditions are or which variable is being set)? I open the shape properties and there is no data here.

Jess said...

This is helpful and appreciated.

My workflow steps when displayed in Visio shows only generic names like "Compound Condition" or "Set workflow variable". How do I see the details of the steps (i.e. what the conditions are or which variable is being set)?
I have selected "Properties" for a shape but there is no data there.




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