Export a SharePoint Designer workflow to Visual Studio in SharePoint 2010

Common situation when designing workflow is that you start to design workflow in SharePoint Designer and then you want to add some code in Visual Studio.

In the following example, I will go through the procedure to create a workflow in SharePoint Designer and then open it and deploy it from Visual Studio.

Let’s start by creating a reusable workflow in SharePoint Designer

Enter the workflow information

and then just implement one step to set the document status to approve:

Next, in order to be able to reuse it in all the sites from site collection in SharePoint, publish the workflow globally:

Save the workflow and then Save it as a template :

You should see the confirmation :

Now, if you go to the Site Library, you will see this:

Save the .wsp localy and then, open Visual Studio and choose to import a workflow:

You can deploy it as a sandbox:

and select your .wsp and all the elements included in the .wsp:

Wait for importation to be completed:

Then deploy the solution:

If you have already saved it in SharePoint Designer, you will have a conflict and see this:

Just select Resolve Automatically to delete the workflow deployed by SharePoint Designer.

From the website, you should now see that the feature corresponding to this workflow is activated:

Then add the workflow on a document library:

Then, start a workflow on a document: