Migrating workflows: breaking and functional changes

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This article summarizes the breaking and functional changes that occur when migrating workflows from the Workflow Designer as a Desktop app to the web-based Workflow Designer, and outlines the actions required to update your workflows.

Breaking changes

The breaking changes may cause validation errors or functional differences or require manual redesign after migration by user.

Removal of system variables

What has changed

In the web‑based Workflow Designer, the following system variables are no longer supported in the system activities of new web-based Workflow Designer, they are removed automatically during migration:

  • WF_ASSIGNED_TO

  • WF_NOTIFICATION_DATE

  • WF_EXPIRATION_DATE

  • WF_LOGGED_IN_USER

  • WF_RECEIVED_ON

If any of these variables are referenced in a system activity, they are migrated as NULL, which can create logical gaps.

At a glance: activities with variables removed

The variables are removed from all system activities in the workflow:

  • Email activity:

    • Subject

    • Body

    • Conditional outputs - Simple query - first and third column

    • Conditional outputs - Advanced query

  • Condition activity:

    • Condition - Simple query - first and third column

    • Condition - Advanced query

    • Conditional outputs - Simple query - first and third column

    • Conditional outputs - Advanced query

  • Assign data:

    • System variable source

    • Expression source

    • File cabinet source/ File cabinet destination - where clause third column

    • LDC source - where clause third column

    • File cabinet source/LDC source - match rows - expression

    • Index table source - where clause third column

    • Conditional outputs - Simple query - first and third column

    • Conditional outputs - Advanced query

  • Web service activity:

    • Soap :

      • Parameters

    • Rest:

      • Route

      • Query parameter

      • Http header

      • Http body

    • Conditional outputs - Simple query - first and third column

    • Conditional outputs - Advanced query

Example:

Workflow Designer as a Desktop App: expression with a variable WF_ASSIGNED_To

New, web-based Workflow Designer: When the same expression as above is migrated, WF_ASSIGNED_TO has been removed.

What is the impact

Workflows referencing these removed variables may:

  • Fail validation

  • Lose expected runtime behavior

  • Produce incorrect routing or decision logic

The variable values are permanently erased during migration.

Required action

To restore the workflow after migration and republish it, follow these steps:

  1. Go to DocuWare Configurations > Workflow Designer and open the migrated workflow.

  2. Identify all usages of the removed variables.

  3. Replace them with one of the following options:

    • Use custom workflow variables

    • Use alternative logic patterns

    • Use the new Trigger User variable, if applicable:

How-to preserve WF_ASSIGNED_TO values depends on how it was configured.

If the variable WF_ASSIGNED_TO was used after any task, follow these two steps:

  1. In web-based Workflow Designer, store the assignee in a global variable within the Task dialog.

  2. Use that global variable in subsequent activities.

If the variable WF_ASSIGN_TO was used after the Start activity and before the first task, replace the variable WF_ASSIGNED_TO with the new system variable Trigger User.

WHERE clauses not supported in trigger conditions

What has changed

The Workflow Designer as a Desktop App allowed WHERE clause conditions for Document triggers. The new designer uses a query builder instead.

Expressions previously allowed as values in trigger conditions are not supported in new, web-based Workflow Designer.

What is the impact

During migration, any trigger condition that used a WHERE clause is imported as a plain string and checked for unsupported operators and symbols.

If no unsupported operator or symbol is found:

  • The workflow can be published, but the WHERE logic is not applied.

  • These conditions should be manually reviewed and rebuilt in the new Workflow Designer.

If any unsupported operator or symbol listed below is found:

  • The condition is marked invalid and a validation error is shown: “Trigger condition uses a WHERE clause not supported in the new designer, so it must be rewritten to proceed.”

  • The condition becomes read‑only; only Delete is available.

  • These conditions should be manually rebuilt in the new Workflow Designer.

At a glance: unsupported operators and symbols in the web-based Workflow Designer

Case‑sensitive (must match exact case):

  • AND

  • OR

  • NOT

  • LIKE

  • CURRENTDATE

  • CURRENTDATE()

  • CURRENTDATETIME

  • CURRENTDATETIME()

  • CURRENTUSERSHORTNAME

  • CURRENTUSERSHORTNAME()

  • CURRENTUSERLONGNAME

  • CURRENTUSERLONGNAME()

  • CURRENTUSEREMAIL

  • CURRENTUSEREMAIL()

  • COUNT

  • COUNT(...)

  • CURRENT_DAY

  • CURRENT_HOUR

  • CURRENT_MONTH

  • CURRENT_YEAR

  • CURRENT_YEARMONTH

  • VARIABLE

  • VARIABLE(...)

Case‑insensitive (any case)

  • STARTSWITH

  • ENDSWITH

  • CONTAINS

  • IN (only when followed by PARAMARRAY(…))

  • IS EMPTY()

  • IS NOTEMPTY()

  • EMPTY()

  • NOTEMPTY()

  • PARAMARRAY

  • PARAMARRAY(...)

Case‑agnostic symbols

  • =

  • >=

  • <

  • <=

  • <>

Required action

To restore the workflow after migration and republish it, follow these steps:

  1. Go to DocuWare Configurations > Workflow Designer and open the migrated workflow.

  2. Locate trigger conditions imported as plain strings or marked invalid.

  3. If a condition is invalid/read‑only, delete it.

  4. Rebuild the trigger using the new query builder (field comparisons and supported operators).

  5. Validate and publish the workflow.

Notes on rebuilding trigger conditions in the web-based Workflow Designer

  • In the web-based Workflow Designer, open the trigger configuration.

  • Rebuild the condition using the Query Builder interface.

  • Validate that the new condition reflects the same logic.
    Examples:

    Workflow Designer as a Desktop App: trigger expressions using operators,
    functions, and symbols were supported.

    • Web-based Workflow Designer: WHERE clauses are not supported in a document trigger anymore and greyed out in the interface.

      Web-based Workflow Designer: Trigger conditions can be rebuilt using the new query builder. Delete the invalid conditions with Minus (delete) button.

      Web-based Workflow Designer: the validation panel notifies you, if a trigger condition including a deprecated WHERE clause is used.

  • You can use the IS operator to replicate WHERE-clause intent. IS lets you explicitly compare field values and reproduce the logic of classic trigger conditions.

  • Do not use escape characters such as “\”. Escape sequences are not required in the web‑based Workflow Designer.

    • In the Workflow Designer as a Desktop App, Escape characters were required for brackets:
      If during migration no unsupported operators or symbols are detected in the trigger condition, then

      • \( is automatically replaced with (

      • \) is automatically replaced with )

      This preserves expected behavior.

      If during migration any unsupported operator is detected alongwith, no replacement is performed, the condition is marked invalid and must be rewritten.

Functional changes

This section outlines intentional functional and behavioral differences when migrating from the Workflow Designer (Desktop app) to the web‑based Workflow Designer. These are expected product changes, not defects, and may alter how configurations appear or behave. Most adjustments are applied automatically during migration; no action is required.

New global variable: DecisionMaker

The new DecisionMaker variable is system‑generated, read‑only, and cannot be reused; it is provided solely to handle user assignment during migration:

Because Assign To is no longer available in the web-based Workflow Designer, all Assign to activities are automatically converted to Assign Data activities during migration.  

  • The assignment logic is migrated through this system variable with no change.

  • The assignment source remains the same as in the classic Workflow Designer.

  • All decision makers for a Task are mapped to the DecisionMaker system variable in the web‑based Workflow Designer:

  • After an Assign To activity is migrated to Assign Data, the history in the web‑based Workflow Designer no longer shows the data assigned to the decision maker.

Timeout with out-of-office rerouting

Because Assign To is no longer available in the new, web-based Workflow Designer, the assignment in the Escalations section is replaced by an additional Assign Data activity during migration.  

If in the Workflow Designer as a Desktop App the option Escalations > Rerouting > Enable rerouting (Timoeout) is active, a new Assign Data activity is created after the timeout exit in the web‑based Workflow Designer:

Worfklow Designer as a Desktop app: example for a timeout

Web-based Workflow Designer: timeout with the additional Assign data acitivity

The assignee is set via the DecisionMaker variable in web-based Workflow Desinger - using the rerouting configuration:

Match codes: Sort order option has moved

For table assignment, the Sort settings previously located on the Match Rows tab are located under Main Tab > Sort source in the new, web-based Workflow Designer.

Workflow Designer as a Desktop App: Sort options for match code conditions  

Web-based Workflow Designer: sort options for match code conditions

Index table assignment: source column mapping has changed

The assignment of index table has changed: If only one column was selected in a table source, the destination changes from Table (Desktop app) to Column (web‑based).

In addition to that, if only two columns have been selected in the web-based Workflow Designer, then the Assign data tab is available for these two columns only:

Email notification settings relocated

In the web-based Workflow Designer, Email notification settings have moved to Task > Behavior. They are grouped with reminders and escalation settings:

Fixed‑value assignments with missing references

If, in the classic Workflow Designer, a user, role, or substitution rule value is missing and used as a fixed‑value assignment source, the fixed‑value field is cleared during migration.

  • For users, roles, and substitution rules, you are prompted to reselect missing items after migration in the dependency dialog.

  • For other dependencies (e.g., file cabinet fields, web services, missing PDFs), migration fails with an error. Deleted configurations inside Assign To dialogs cannot be recovered once removed.

Supported versions: DocuWare Cloud