Customize OOTB Approval workflow and deploy in other environments

Question

I would like to customize the OOTB approval workflow of a 2010 site and change the email bodies to include column values from lists in the site. The site is in a QA environment. How would I go about deploying the workflow to the site in the production environment?

Also, the site in QA environment is a root site because I am not able to modify OOTB workflows in sub-site (apparently SharePoint designer limitation) and the production site is a sub-site. Is there a way to modify OOTB workflows in sub-sites?

Any help will be appreciated.

Answer 1

With SharePoint Designer 2010, you can export a new or customized workflow into a solution package. You can then deploy the solution package into the sandbox solution gallery (or deploy it as a farm solution, if you'd like). Once it is in the site collection, you should be able to attach the workflow to a list. It should not matter whether the list is in the root site or in a sub site.