Changing an active Designer workflow

Question

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In SP2010, I have a list workflow that was built in Designer only - no code. I need to make a small change and must understand what happens to workflows in progress when I do this. I'm not changing the steps or logical flow, I'm just altering some HTML that is written to an e-mail body. It's fine if the workflows already in progress don't see the change, since the e-mail in question will have already been sent for those. I just want new workflows to see the change as they start up.

Is this how it works - two versions of the workflow running at the same time, automatically managed correctly? or am I going to break the active workflows by making a change?

Answer 1

EDIT:

Yes. Two versions of the workflow can run at the same time and is automatically managed by SharePoint. You are NOT going to break the active workflows by making a change.

I just created a simple approval workflow using SPD 2010 on a SharePoint 2010 list. While the first version was running on a list item I modified the workflow, published it and ran it on another list item.

some observations:

• A new version is created when a workflow is modified
• Whenever a workflow is started, SharePoint picks up the latest modified version of the workflow
• Both the previous and current workflow versions can run at the same time

Screenshot with the previous version of workflow running.

Screenshot displaying the current modified version of the workflow running.