SharePoint 2010 Workflows on a SharePoint 2016 Farm
March 4, 2016
[This is a quick post – it will be updated with more information soon]
During a recent client meeting, I was asked if SharePoint 2010 version workflows, developed on a SharePoint Server 2013 farm, will continue to work if the server farm is upgraded to 2016. SharePoint Server 2016 has not been released at the time of this writing, but we do have the Release Candidate to test with, so I went about testing.
On a SharePoint Server 2013 farm (version 15.0.4719.1002, which is SP1 with May 2015 CU) I created a SharePoint 2010 version workflow and associated it with a document library. I took a SQL backup of the content database and restored it as a database named Site_SP13_to_SP16RC.
On the SharePoint Server 2016 Release Candidate (RC) machine, I ran the Test-SPContentDatabase PowerShell cmdlet to check the database for any issues that might be encountered during the upgrade.
Test-SPContentDatabase 2016 RC on SharePoint 2013 DatabaseThe cmdlet ended without even a peep – which is a good sign. So, I performed the upgrade and it ran without error.
Mount-SPContentDatabase 2016 RC on SharePoint 2013 DatabaseI loaded the newly upgraded site and was greeted by an old friend…
Working On It…and he (Working on it) stayed a while. It took several minutes for my simple team site to become available.
The website loaded and it was ‘wonderful' ha! (see site name).
SharePoint 2013 Site Upgraded to 2016 RCThe workflow I created on the SharePoint 2013 farm is configured to kickoff when the document is modified or a new document is added. So, I simply changed the title of the Test document that was already in the library. The workflow successfully started and did assign a task as it should. However, I noticed something on the workflows screen for the document – within the Completed Workflows section, the history of the workflow when it ran on the 2013 farm was listed. This isn't a huge surprise, but it is really nice to see that the history is there after upgrading!
Workflow History SharePoint 2016 RCIn summary, a SharePoint 2010 workflow (a very simple one in this case) created on a SharePoint Server 2013 site, will continue to work when upgraded to a SharePoint 2016 RC farm via database attach.
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