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Migration Assessment Scan: Workflow Associations 2013

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Learn how to fix issues with that occur with Workflow Associations 2013 during migration.

Overview

When content is migrated from the SharePoint source environment to the new target environment there are two types of workflows that could be involved, depending on their use in the current farm.

Workflows that were created using the workflow service that was available in SharePoint 2010 and are still in use on the source environment are migrated to the new farm and will continue to work as expected.

SharePoint source farms may run Workflow 2013 using a version of the Workflow Manager. As a result, when content is moved from the source environment to the target environment, there's a process to migrate Workflow 2013 over to the Azure instance of the Workflow Manager.

Data Migration

Workflow Data is divided into two parts:

  • Workflow Definition: The definition describes the overall workflow process, for example, a three stage approval workflow with custom routing rules for each stage. This data lives in Office 365 and is migrated with the rest of the Office 365 data and will be available in your target environment.

  • Workflow Instances: Each running instance of a workflow definition maintains the state of the workflow, for example, this document is in Stage 2 of the approval process and is assigned to John Doe. This data lives in the Azure Workflow Manager. Unfortunately, the Azure team doesn't have the technology to migrate Workflow Manager data from the current source environments to Azure instances. The result of this will be the loss of all running workflow instances. For example, a document that was in Stage 2 of a workflow in the source environment will be back to Stage Zero (workflow not started) post migration to the target environment.

Important

Any site that is configured as "No Access" (locked), in SharePoint will be skipped. To see a list of locked site collections see the Locked Sites scan output.

Preparing for Migration

To avoid unnecessary workflow restarts, it's best to complete in-flight workflows before the migration event when your content is moved to the target environment. If the feature is in use in the source environment today you can receive a list of running instances of workflows prior to the migration event, so that you can communicate this status to your site owners.

Post Migration

Once the migration is complete, all users need to restart any workflows that were still in flight. In some extreme cases, it may be necessary to recreate a workflow if the tooling is unable to migrate it.

Scan Result Report

WorkflowAssociations2013-detail.csv This scan report contains source workflow definitions and where they're associated in the site. Workflow definitions come across in the migration, so this gives some visibility into the workflow footprint in the farm.

Column Description
SiteId
Unique identifier of the impacted site collection.
SiteURL
URL to the impacted site collection.
SiteOwner
Owner of the site collection.
SiteAdmins
List of people listed as site collection administrators.
SiteSizeInMB
Size of the size collection in megabytes [MB]
NumOfWebs
Number of webs that exist in the site collection.
ContentDBName
Name of the content database hosting the site collection.
ContentDBServerName
SQL Server hosting the content database.
ContentDBSizeInMB
Size of the content database hosting the site collection.
LastContentModifiedDate
Date/Time the site collection had content modified.
TotalItemCount
Total number of items found in the site collection.
Hits
Number of requests logged for the site collection. Relies on data from the usage logging service. If the usage logging service is disabled this row shows N/A.
DistinctUsers
Number of distinct users that have accessed the site collection. Relies on data from the usage logging service. If the usage logging service is disabled this row shows N/A.
DaysOfUsageData
Number of days the usage logging service retains data. This provides context for Hits and DistinctUsers. For example, if this is 14 days, the Hits and DistinctUsers data is for the last 14 days.
Scope
Either List or Site. This is the level that the workflow runs at. It should help the site owner locate the impacted workflow definitions.
RunningInstances
Number of running instances linked to this workflow association.
WebUrl
Url to the subsite.
ListTitle
If the workflow is associated with a list, this displays the title of that list.
ListUrl
If the workflow is associated with a list, this displays the url to the root of the list.
IsReusable
True/False. Identifies which workflows were published as reusable workflows.
WorkflowAssociationName
Display name given to the workflow association.
WorkflowDescription
Description given to the workflow association.
WorkflowPublishedBy
Identity of the account used to publish the workflow.
WorkflowAssociationID
Unique identifier for the workflow association.
EmailActivityExists
True if there are email activities contained in the workflow. It may be necessary to fix up the identities in the email activities post migration.
ConditionalRuleExists
True if there are conditional rules contained in the workflow. It may be necessary to fix up the identities in the conditional rules post migration.
WorkflowFileCheckedOut
True if the workflow files are checked out. Checked out files won't migrate.
ScanID
Unique identifier assigned to a specific execution of the SharePoint Migration Assessment Tool.