What is the difference between flow designer and workflow?
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03-16-2020 12:59 AM
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03-16-2020 01:11 AM
Here are my thoughts about flow designer and workflow-
Both have almost the same functionality that is trigger on a condition specified and then perform activities in sequence.
Flow designer is having better UI as it is newly introduced by ServiceNow few releases back and is added keeping non-technical people in mind.
There are considerable number of bugs at the moment.
Workflow is traditional way of doing things in sequence, is more powerful, tested and trusted.
It's is used by and built for developers.
Having said that I would suggest using flow designer wherever possible.
-Tanaji
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03-13-2022 11:24 PM
Flow Designer enables users to use natural language to automate tasks, record operations, notifications, and approvals without having to write it in code. It enables various process automation capabilities in a consolidated design environment.
On the other hand, Workflow is the tried-and-true method that requires a more advanced developer but allows for more complex scenarios, including plenty of readily accessible scripting blocks.
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03-14-2022 06:03 PM
Flow Designer is the newer flow tool offered by ServiceNow. The major advantage is it is more low code enabling end users to create and maintain a flow. Flow Designer supports Spokes to enable OOTB features to be used in flows. Flows can be broken up into sub-flows with sub-flows maintained by other teams. That is, each flow is usually much shorter than those written in workflow.
Workflow is a traditional flow engine used in ServiceNow. There are still many features that uses workflow. It is more similar to BPMN and requires some technical knowledge compared to Flow Designer.
ServiceNow has been moving more toward low-coding in the past few years. This is not just with Flow Designer but with AppEngine Studio as well.
ServiceNow has been strongly recommending to use Flow Designer instead of workflow for new developments. More new features are being added to Flow Designer compared to workflow with each new version.
Finally, Flow Designer can integrate with workflow so it's not either one but both can be used.
It's like still using C programming language when most have moved on to newer languages such as Java and Python. It's still possible to write application programs in C language and C language is enables developers to better control memory usage and resolve performance issues, but it requires more time to developed and maintain. As such, most developers have moved on to languages that offer higher efficiency and just use C language in parts that requires better performance.
C language is still being used so it's not a dead language. Likewise, workflow probably won't die. It's just that it'll be used less.
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04-28-2023 12:55 PM
We have been using the traditional Workflow for years, and have done some pretty advanced things with it. Trying to transition to Flow Designer has been painful. It seems great for basic, easy stuff, but we seem to have a tough time trying to do anything beyond the basics with it. I don't know if it is because it cannot handle advanced stuff well or we are just not experienced enough with it yet (or some combination of the two).
