Designing a workflow for performance using SharePoint 2013 workflow

Question

Hello, and thank you in advance.  I am in the process of designing a workflow and this variation I thought may improve performance. This is a multi-step workflow which will have 8 workflows (instead of packing it all into one). Each workflow will be executed based on a dollar amount in the list item.

When a list item is created do all 8 workflow files get stored in memory? Will there be performance issues? I'm more curious what happens behind the scenes. 

Thanks.

Answer 1

Here is the behind the scene

http://blogs.technet.com/b/sharepointdevelopersupport/archive/2013/03/11/sharepoint-workflow-architecture-part-1.aspx

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/sharepointdevelopersupport/2013/03/12/sharepoint-workflow-architecture-part-2/

http://blogs.technet.com/b/sharepointdevelopersupport/archive/2013/03/12/sharepoint-workflow-architecture-part-3.aspx

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Answer 2

Your workflow design doesn't have any impact on your performance.

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Answer 3

Would it be more efficient if I had a parent workflow execute the sub-sequent 8 workflows? My concern is that by running 8 workflows consecutively they all get stored in memory at once, possibly causing a performance spike. By only loading 1 parent workflow, it could reduce this spike. Any thoughts on my theory? Thanks.

Answer 4

Hi AdamDoubleYou,

If you create workflows using SharePoint designer everything will be stored in the content database.

Testing has confirmed that a SharePoint web server can activate a maximum of 6 workflow instances per second. This number is cumulative, and therefore scales with the number of web servers in the farm. For example, 2 web servers can activate 12 workflow instances per second, and 3 web servers can activate 18.

More information:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/SharePoint/install/software-boundaries-and-limits#Workflow

Given your situation, running 8 workflows at the same time doesnot cause performance issues.

And it's a good idea to execute the sub-sequent 8 workflows through a parent workflow.

Best regards

Itch Sun

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Answer 5

Hi ,

Has this problem been solved?

If you think the replies are helpful to you, please remember to mark them as answers. It will help others who meet the similar question in this forum.

Thank you for your understanding.

Best regards

Itch Sun

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Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they helped. If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [e-mail].

SharePoint Server 2019 has been released, you can click here to download it.
Click here to learn new features. Visit the dedicated forum to share, explore and talk to experts about SharePoint Server 2019.