Migrating a SharePoint Designer Workflow into Visual Studio Workflow

Question

Under normal circumstances you cannot move a workflow designed in SharePoint Designer to another site, or into Visual Studio for further customisation/development.

I believe it is possible but was looking for some pointers on approach/technique and maybe some links to more information.

I know some MVPs (Todd Bleeker and others) have been working on this in the past, but I have yet to find a definitive solution to the issue.

Also does anyone know if MS are considering improvements to the Workflow designer within the next version of SharePoint Designer?

Answer 1

The issue with Sharepoint Designer workflows is that they have essentially hardcoded all the List (and other) GUIDs into them, which just makes it impractical to generalize them.

From what I've heard, you can "just" move the XOML File into a new Visual Studio Workflow and then add the .cs and .rules files, but I also heard conflicting info about this.

I do not know if Microsoft plans improvements, but I also think that SharePoint Designer still has plenty of room for improvements.

Answer 2

Here's a link which might help get you started.