Skip to main content

Notifications

Announcements

No record found.

News and Announcements icon
Community site session details

Community site session details

Session Id :
Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived) / Editing active workflo...
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

Editing active workflows, best practice

(0) ShareShare
ReportReport
Posted on by Riley-Hickman 72

Hello all,

My goal is to edit an activated workflow with a new owner and some administration notes.  Though I would love to extrapolate this to any edit to any activated workflow/process. How can I accomplish this with no down time, if down time is inevitable then what is the best method for capturing the delta for the trigger events such as an attribute changing values, etc. and what are some strategies for minimizing the down time associated with an edit.

My best guess would be to export the process(s) in question and import into a dev system.  Make your changes and export the now edited processes to import them back into production.  Would this have any down time associated with it or possible gotchas?

Currently, I am working with on-premise 2015 (v7.0), will hopefully update to latest within a year.

Thanks,

Riley

*This post is locked for comments

  • Andre Margono Profile Picture
    Andre Margono 2,602 on at
    RE: Editing active workflows, best practice

    Down time would be inevitable I presume.

    To minimise it is to make sure that you contain the workflow in a small solution that doesn't have unnescessary components.

    I would suggest a formal change process, where the IT team need to have an outage window at an agreed time (usually after work hours/lunch time to reduce the down time). Outage/maintenance is common for any kind of system.

  • Verified answer
    ashlega Profile Picture
    ashlega 34,477 on at
    RE: Editing active workflows, best practice

    Hi Riley,

     When importing that solution from dev, you will be able to ask that all processes be activated.. to your point, I am not really sure if there will be downtime or not, though I am guessing there can be, for a few seconds. That's unless there are errors during the import.

     If there is an error, you can get deactivated workflow as a result.

     Ideal scenario - create a copy of production in dev, do what you need there, test your import in uat(must be a copy of production as well), then put that solution to production.

     One of the main gotchas with workflows is, likely, the usage of data references. For example, if there is contact that exists in dev and does not exist in prod, and if you reference that contact in your workflow, you will end up with deactivated workflow after reimport.

     As for capturing the downtime.. there is no maintenance mode in the on-Prem version, but you might temporarily disable all users while deploying updated workflow if that's critical enough.

Under review

Thank you for your reply! To ensure a great experience for everyone, your content is awaiting approval by our Community Managers. Please check back later.

Helpful resources

Quick Links

Daivat Vartak – Community Spotlight

We are honored to recognize Daivat Vartak as our March 2025 Community…

Announcing Our 2025 Season 1 Super Users!

A new season of Super Users has arrived, and we are so grateful for the daily…

Kudos to the February Top 10 Community Stars!

Thanks for all your good work in the Community!

Leaderboard

#1
André Arnaud de Calavon Profile Picture

André Arnaud de Cal... 292,516 Super User 2025 Season 1

#2
Martin Dráb Profile Picture

Martin Dráb 231,430 Most Valuable Professional

#3
nmaenpaa Profile Picture

nmaenpaa 101,156

Leaderboard

Featured topics

Product updates

Dynamics 365 release plans