Exporting Designer List Workflow from One Site to Another

Introduction

We developed and tested the workflow on a testing environment and now want to move to the production environment without the need to re-develop the workflow.
 
The steps to perform this are rather simple:

  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.

Step 1: First we will export all the files from the first site.
 
Open your site in SharePoint designer -> All Files -> Workflows -> Open your workflow.
 
Then select all the files and click on Export as shown in the figure below:

Select all files

Step 2:

  1. Open Second Site in SharePoint Designer 2010
  2. Then go to All Files -> Workflows. Here Create same workflow folder of the site first name.
  3. Then create a Blank workflow inside the folder and then copy List ID, TaskListID and HistoryListID.
  4. Open xoml.wfconfig.xml in Notepad, Then find the Association tag and very carefully change the GUIDs so that your migrated List IDs are the same as the "Site 2 List" workflow List IDs. Observe the figure below:

    Association tag

  5. Save the file.
  6. Close the SharePoint Designer.
  7. Open the SharePoint Designer again and open your site.
  8. Instead of All Files, this time click on Workflows.
  9. Select your workflow, then Save and Publish the workflow. 
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