Key Pitfalls While Migrating Legacy Workflow to Flow Designer

[rhutika24]

Hello Community ,

Recently, while migrating legacy Workflows to Flow Designer in ServiceNow, I came across a few limitations that are good to know before starting migration.

 1. Wait for Condition on Future Records

In Flow Designer, we cannot wait on records that do not yet exist (for example, records created later via integration).

 Recommended approach:

Create a separate flow with an Insert trigger on the target table and use it to update or signal the main flow.

 2. Stage Transitions in Sub flows

Stage transitions added inside sub flows do not reflect in the main flow.

 Tip: Return values from subflows and apply stage transitions in the parent flow.

 3. Comment Change Conditions

Flow Designer does not support “comment changes” directly as a condition.

Requires alternative logic or custom handling.

 4. Before Zurich patch 3 – Iteration Context Issue

In the Zurich release, Flow Designer may fail to correctly identify the record context during iteration.

 Always validate loops carefully.

 5. Calling Legacy Workflow

Legacy workflows on sc_req_item cannot be called directly from Flow Designer.

A separate action or workaround is required.

Final Note

Flow Designer is powerful, but migration from Workflow is not a 1:1 conversion.

Understanding these gaps early helps avoid rework.

Hope this helps fellow learners and contributors!

Happy to learn from your experiences too 

[Sue L]

We noticed recently that we cannot create a notification to a servicenow group, only an email; this seems like we are missing something, why is notification to a group not in Flow, or what do we need to do to enable this?   

[rhutika24]

@Sue L  

ServiceNow does not send notification to group directly you must notify users Within the group using "User in group", assignment group logic or classic notification.