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Ashima Saigal - Summer 14 MVPAshima Saigal - Summer 14 MVP 

Exporting a Visual Flow using Eclipse's Force.com IDE

I'm strugging to figure this out. I've got the .flow files exported and on my computer. I try to upload the .flow file and I get an error that the file is not valid. So, I must be doing something wrong.

I want to move the flow I created in the sandbox to production. I'd rather not recreated it or use a changeset to move it across. I want to provide the .flow file to the organization and they can upload it themselves.

So, what I did was to use Eclipse to log into my sandbox. I grabbed the FLOW metadata from Salesforce onto my computer. Then, I take the last version of the flow and attempt to upload it, and I get an error.  I can tell something is wrong with the file (well, at least from what I can see) in that I have another .flow file that does work (downloaded from a site) and it looks entirely different than my file.

 I must be doing something wrong with that as I know that there is a Flow definition file. I've dug around to see answers, but I cannot seem to figure this out myself. Can anyone help me out here?
James LoghryJames Loghry
What error are you getting? A few things I would look for is whether you are using the latest version of the Force.com IDE.  At the very least, your package.xml file should have version 33 in it, which will tell it to bring down and deploy spring '15 components.  Visual workflow has been around longer than that of course, but it won't hurt.

The next thing is that using the API, like you are doing with Eclipse (MavensMate supports this as well), you can download and upload Flow files.  These are found as files under the "src/Flows" folder with an extension of ".flow".  

The caveat is that while you can override a Flow, you cannot currently activate a flow through the API (Please go and vote on this idea: https://success.salesforce.com/ideaView?id=08730000000DhHjAAK).  

So perhaps your production flow is updated, but you just need to go in and activate the correct version? 
Ashima Saigal - Summer 14 MVPAshima Saigal - Summer 14 MVP
I found those files however when I try to upload to production or a sandbox I get an error that the file is not the correct format. There are the various versions of the flow available to me. I always pick the one that was active. I have the latest force.com IDE. I keep thinking I'm missing a step. I compared my flow to one that I downloaded and they looked entirely different. The flow i downloaded had a design tag and lots of ids. My flow had a flow tag and lots of text. Has anyone done this before? Peace, Ashima Database Sherpa http://www.databasesherpa.com The wisdom of a Sherpa. The reward of your practice. Please excuse the typos and brevity of the msg