How to move reusable workflows between SharePoint farms

Reusable workflows, which  are introduced in SharePoint 2010, are cool!
You can create your workflow in development / test environments and then move it to production like a solution, it is very easy.

You should create the workflow as a reusable workflow from the start if you want to use it on other farms.
When you finish your workflow:

1- you have to export the Resuable workflow via SharePoint Designer. this could be done using the ribbon. select the Workflow you want to export.

Click save as template from the ribbon (as shown in the screenshot above)
Save it on your computer.


2. Open  the site you want to import your reusable workflow.
Navigate to Site settings > Galleries > Solutions
Click upload  solution from the Solution Ribbon. Select your solution and upload it.

3. Activate the solution you have just uploaded.

4. Now go to the site settings, site features. Activate the feature as well.

and your reusable workflow is ready to go!

How to keep Workflow History data more than 60 days in SharePoint

I am not sure if it is officially declared by Microsoft or not, but SharePoint is set to delete/purge workflow history from database after 60 days. That means you can't find anything more than 60 days old in Workflow history list by default setting.

If you are using custom developed workflows that could be annoying because you'll have to keep approval workflow info vs. more than 60 days according to your company policies etc.

There is a simple way to prevent this behaviour. Just log on to Central Administration and Go to Timer Job Definitions on Operations page.

Find the "Workflow Auto Cleanup" timer job that belongs to the web application you want to preserve.
Disable it, thats it..