Exporting and Importing a Workflow
- Support Specialist 5
business Enterprise
Like Forms, there are many reasons why it is useful to be able to quickly export and import a Workflow to and from a file. Maybe you have multiple Workspaces that share common automation needs, or maybe you have a testing environment where you try out new processes first. Whatever the reason, we’ve made it easy to export and import Workflows, while ensuring they work without a hitch.
Exporting a Workflow
Once you have built a Workflow which you’d like to export, all you need to do is find it in the manager page and use the ‘Export’ button in the action menu.
Any Workflow can be exported, including drafts.
Once you click ‘Export’, the system will prepare all of the necessary data for you and compile a .grw file in your Downloads folder. This is a proprietary file format that can only be used to export and import Workflows to and from Gruntify. Depending on the size of the Workflow and your internet connection, the export can take up to one minute to complete.
Importing a Workflow
Once you have a .grw file downloaded, you can easily import that Workflow into any Workspace with Workflow Studio available. When you open the Workflow manager page, you will see an ‘Import’ button next to the ‘New Workflow’ button. Once you click ‘Import’ and select your file, the import process will begin.
When you import a Workflow, you will see the Workflow builder open with the graph as you last had it at export time. You will notice in the bottom-left corner of the graph that there is a popup window for the import.
The Import Helper
The Workflow import helper exists to solve a problem that occurs when exporting a Workflow from one Workspace to another. Because Workflows often reference other records in the Workspace (like Forms, Job Templates, Users, Teams, etc.), when we first import the Workflow to a new Workspace, all of those references will no longer work. Even if you had a Form or Team with the same name, its internal identifier is different and so the reference will fail.
What the import helper does is identify references to Workspace data that will need to be updated for the Workflow to run in the new Workspace. By working through all of the unresolved references in the Workflow, and linking them to records in the new Workspace, we can be sure that the Workflow will operate as intended after the import.
You may notice that some (or potentially even all) references are marked as ‘resolved’ before you have even done anything. That is because the Workflow builder will check to see which references already exist in this Workspace and save you the hassle of verifying them. A common example of this would be if multiple users exist across both workspaces, and there is no need to re-select them from a list.
Once all import references are checked and resolved, the Workflow will automatically save as a draft, and you can publish it whenever you wish.
Related Content