Once a workflow has been created and is in use, it may be necessary to change it. If the workflow is not yet in use (e.g., there are no active tasks for the workflow, or the workflow is in a test state only and not yet released for production), editing a workflow is does not require any special considerations.
General information on creating and editing workflows can be found in the Getting Started with STEP Workflows documentation, specifically in the Creating a Workflow
This topic provides guidance specifically on editing workflows that are already in production and/or contain active tasks.
Important considerations before editing a workflow in use
- When there are objects in a workflow, certain changes to the workflow are prohibited as they could cause disruption to the tasks within them. Thus it is not possible to rename, delete, or change the state characteristics of any states that have tasks within them. In addition, states with active tasks cannot be moved inside or taken out of a cluster or parallel, and parallels may not have new clusters added.
- It is best to receive advice and guidance from a STEP expert before making changes to a live workflow.
- It is always recommended to duplicate the existing workflow, do the necessary modifications in the duplication, test it, and then apply the same changes to the workflow in use.
- If the required changes are significant, it may be best to process all existing tasks in the workflow, and make sure that no new tasks are added, before the changes are made to the workflow.
- Already existing business rules should be taken into consideration when editing a workflow. It is possible for a rule to rely on a state that is deleted, event that is changed, etc that could prevent the rule from working following updates to the workflow. It is important to evaluate all existing business rules following changes to a workflow, and to test those that may have been impacted.