Flow history
Summarize
Summary of Flow History
The Flow History feature in ServiceNow allows you to view and manage the history of flow configurations. You can copy, restore, or delete previous configurations, enabling better flow management and tracking changes over time.
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Key Features
- View Flow History: Access detailed information about each flow entry, including configuration, timestamps, and user updates.
- Annotations: Add descriptions to flow history entries to summarize their purpose.
- Favorites: Mark up to 20 entries as favorites to protect them from being overwritten when the history limit is reached.
- Filtering: Filter entries by type or user for easier navigation.
- Entry Types: Understand different operations that create flow history entries, such as activations, deactivations, and autosaves.
- Restore and Copy: Restore flows to previous configurations or create new flows from existing history entries.
- Compare View: Compare two flow history entries side-by-side to identify changes made.
Key Outcomes
By utilizing Flow History, you can effectively manage flow configurations, prevent loss of important settings, and maintain a clear record of changes. This enhances collaboration and ensures that valuable configurations are preserved, facilitating smoother workflow management in your organization.
View and manage the history of a flow. See past configurations of a flow to copy, restore, or remove them.
- View the configuration for each flow history entry.
- See the date and time stamp of when a flow history entry was created.
- See the user name of the person who updated the flow.
- See the type of operation that created the flow history entry.
- Add an annotation for a flow history entry.
- Add a flow history entry as a favorite.
- Filter flow history entries by type or user.
- Save a copy of a flow history entry as a new flow.
- Restore a flow history entry as the current configuration of a flow.
- Delete a flow history entry.
Flow history components
- 1. Flow History view
- Label indicating that you are looking at a particular flow history entry. There's also an option to return back to the flow editing view.
- 2. Name of the flow history entry
- Name of the flow history entry as a unique date and time stamp.
- 3. Flow history options
- Options to delete, save as copy, and restore a flow history entry.
- 4. Flow history list
- List of flow history entries. Each entry has a card listing flow details and options. You can apply a filter to only see history entries that match specific conditions.
- 5. Flow history card
- Card listing the flow details of the flow history entry. Details include the date and time stamp when the flow was created, any annotation describing the flow, the user who made the flow history entry, and the type of flow operation that created the flow history entry. Each card also provides options to add the history entry as a favorite, add an annotation, or delete the flow history entry.
- 6. Flow sidebar views
- Views available to display in the sidebar. The sidebar can display the flow data or the flow history. There's also an option to display the help panel.
Flow history entry types
The system creates flow history entries whenever someone perform one of these operations.
| Operation | Description |
|---|---|
| Force saved | Entry created when someone uses the Force save option to manually save the flow configuration. For more information about force saving a flow, see Save as you go flows. |
| Deactivated | Entry created when someone deactivates an active or published flow. |
| Activated/Published | Entry created when someone activates or publishes a flow. |
| Autosaved | Entry created when someone performs an operation that autosaves the flow. For more information about what operations automatically save a flow, see Save as you go flows. |
| Restored | Entry created when someone restores a flow to a prior configuration. |
| Deployed | Entry created when someone creates a new flow or deploys the flow on this instance from the application repository or an update set. |
Filter options
You can filter flow history entries by type or user.
Select a history entry type to show it in the flow history list. Clear a history entry type to hide from the flow history list.
You can filter flow history entries to show flow history entries from all users or just your flow history entries.
Automatic save overwrite interval
By default, Workflow Studio overwrites autosave history entries that are made by the same user during a 60 minute interval. All autosave history entries generated by the same user during this interval are saved as one history entry. During this interval, the most recent autosave history entry overwrites the previous autosave history entry. The save interval reduces the number of flow history entries generated by one user, which helps prevent reaching the history entry limit. You can set the automatic save overwrite interval using the sn_flow_designer.autosave_version_interval system property. For more information about this system property, see Workflow Studio flow system properties.
Favorite flow history entries
Each flow can have up to 20 favorite flow history entries. Marking a flow history entry as a favorite prevents the entry from being overwritten when the flow history entry limit is reached. You can also use favorites to communicate to other users that the entry contains a valuable configuration that should be saved. When a flow reaches its history favorite limit, you must remove an existing favorite before you can add a new one.
Flow history entry limit
By default, Workflow Studio stores 100 flow history records. When the total number of flow history entries exceeds this limit, Workflow Studio overwrites the oldest history entry that is not marked as a favorite. You can set the maximum number of flow history records to store using the sn_flow_designer.maximum_flow_history_records_per_flow system property. For more information about using this property, see Workflow Studio flow system properties.