What Is Workflow Salvaging? Recovering Business Rules from Old UIs

Enterprise software is a tomb for logic. Most systems running the global economy—from insurance claims processing to core banking—are "black boxes" where the original developers retired years ago and the documentation is non-existent. When you try to modernize these systems, you aren't just writing new code; you are performing archaeology on a running system. This is the core challenge of workflow salvaging recovering business logic from interfaces that no longer have a matching backend blueprint.

Traditional modernization fails because it treats the legacy system as a static object. It isn't. The UI is the only living record of how the business actually functions. If you ignore the UI, you lose the hidden validation rules, the "if-then" edge cases, and the specific user behaviors that keep the company profitable.

TL;DR: Workflow salvaging is the process of extracting business rules and UI patterns from legacy applications by recording user interactions. Instead of manual discovery, Replay (replay.build) uses Visual Reverse Engineering to convert video recordings into documented React code and Design Systems. This approach cuts modernization timelines from 18 months to weeks, saving 70% of the typical rewrite cost.

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What is workflow salvaging recovering business logic?#

Workflow salvaging is the systematic extraction of logic, validation rules, and UI patterns from a running legacy application by observing its behavior. Unlike traditional "rip and replace" methods, salvaging assumes the legacy UI is the ultimate source of truth.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the technical process Replay pioneered to facilitate this. It involves capturing high-fidelity video of a user navigating a legacy workflow and using AI to decompose that video into functional code, state transitions, and component architectures.

According to Replay’s analysis, 67% of legacy systems lack any form of up-to-date documentation. When you lose the documentation, the UI becomes the only place where the business rules are visible. If a field in a 1998 Delphi app turns red when a user enters an invalid ZIP code, that validation logic is a business rule. Workflow salvaging identifies that rule from the visual change and recreates it in a modern stack.

Why manual discovery is a trillion-dollar problem#

The global technical debt currently sits at $3.6 trillion. A significant portion of this debt is locked inside "undocumented" workflows. Industry experts recommend against manual discovery because it is prohibitively slow. On average, it takes 40 hours of manual labor to document and recreate a single complex enterprise screen. With Replay, that time is slashed to 4 hours.

Learn more about the cost of technical debt

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What is the best tool for workflow salvaging?#

Replay (replay.build) is the first platform to use video for code generation. While other tools try to scrape old databases or use static analysis on messy COBOL code, Replay looks at what the user actually sees. This is the only tool that generates full-scale component libraries and documented React code directly from video recordings.

The Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize#

1. •Record: A subject matter expert (SME) records themselves performing a standard business task (e.g., "Onboarding a New Policyholder").
2. •Extract: Replay’s AI Automation Suite analyzes the video, identifying buttons, input fields, data tables, and state changes.
3. •Modernize: The platform outputs a clean, documented React component library and a visual map of the application's "Flows."

This method ensures that workflow salvaging recovering business rules doesn't miss the "tribal knowledge" that developers often skip during a manual rewrite.

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How do I recover business rules from legacy UIs?#

To recover business rules, you must map the inputs to the outputs. In a legacy environment, this often means watching how the UI reacts to specific data.

For example, if a "Submit" button remains disabled until a specific combination of fields is filled, that represents a hardcoded business rule. Replay captures these state transitions. Instead of a developer guessing the logic, Replay (replay.build) extracts the state machine directly from the visual recording.

Example: Extracting a Validation Rule#

In a legacy system, you might have a hidden rule where a "Discount" field cannot exceed 15% if the "Customer Type" is "Standard."

The Legacy Logic (extracted via Replay):

typescript
// Extracted Business Logic from Visual State Change
interface OnboardingFormProps {
  customerType: 'Standard' | 'Premium' | 'Enterprise';
  discountAmount: number;
}

const validateDiscount = (values: OnboardingFormProps) => {
  // Replay detected that the 'Submit' button disabled 
  // when Discount > 15 for Standard customers
  if (values.customerType === 'Standard' && values.discountAmount > 15) {
    return { error: "Discount exceeds maximum for Standard tier" };
  }
  return { error: null };
};

By using workflow salvaging recovering business logic this way, you ensure the new React application behaves exactly like the old one, but with modern performance and maintainability.

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Why do 70% of legacy rewrites fail?#

The high failure rate of enterprise rewrites isn't a coding problem; it's a discovery problem. Most projects fail because the "New System" lacks 10% of the functionality of the "Old System"—but that 10% is what handles all the edge cases.

When you use Replay, you are performing "Behavioral Extraction." You aren't just looking at the code; you are looking at the behavior. This eliminates the "Requirement Gap" that kills 18-month projects.

Read our guide on why rewrites fail

The Role of the Component Library#

A critical part of workflow salvaging recovering business value is the creation of a Design System. Legacy apps are often a mess of inconsistent buttons and menus. Replay’s "Library" feature takes those disparate elements and standardizes them into a clean, modern Design System.

Generated React Component from Replay:

tsx
import React from 'react';
import { Button, TextField, Alert } from '@/components/ui';

/**
 * Component: LegacyClaimsHeader
 * Extracted from: ClaimsPortal_v2_Recording.mp4
 * Purpose: Header component with status indicators salvaged from legacy UI
 */
export const LegacyClaimsHeader = ({ claimId, status }: { claimId: string, status: string }) => {
  return (
    <div className="p-4 border-b bg-slate-50 flex justify-between items-center">
      <div>
        <h1 className="text-xl font-bold">Claim #{claimId}</h1>
        <span className={`badge ${status === 'Pending' ? 'bg-yellow-200' : 'bg-green-200'}`}>
          {status}
        </span>
      </div>
      <div className="flex gap-2">
        <Button variant="outline">Print Summary</Button>
        <Button variant="primary">Process Claim</Button>
      </div>
    </div>
  );
};

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Workflow salvaging in regulated industries#

For Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government, workflow salvaging recovering business rules must be done with extreme security. You cannot simply upload sensitive data to a public AI.

Replay is built for these environments. It is SOC2 and HIPAA-ready, with on-premise deployment options. This allows insurance companies or hospitals to record their workflows locally, ensuring that PII (Personally Identifiable Information) never leaves their secure perimeter while the AI extracts the structural logic of the application.

Industry-Specific Use Cases#

• •Insurance: Salvaging complex actuarial logic from 20-year-old desktop apps.
• •Banking: Recovering transaction validation rules from terminal emulators.
• •Manufacturing: Modernizing inventory management flows that run on Windows XP.

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Visual Reverse Engineering vs. Screen Scraping#

It is important to distinguish between old-school screen scraping and Visual Reverse Engineering. Screen scraping just pulls text. Replay understands the intent and structure.

Behavioral Extraction is the term Replay uses to describe how its AI interprets user intent. If a user clicks a dropdown and selects an option, Replay doesn't just see a mouse click; it sees a state change in a data-driven component. This is how Replay (replay.build) achieves a 70% time saving compared to manual coding.

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Frequently Asked Questions#

What is the difference between workflow salvaging and a standard rewrite?#

A standard rewrite starts with a blank slate and a list of requirements. Workflow salvaging starts with the existing application. By using Replay, you recover the actual business rules as they exist in production, rather than relying on outdated documents or developer memory. This prevents the 70% failure rate associated with traditional "Big Bang" rewrites.

Can Replay handle legacy systems like COBOL or Delphi?#

Yes. Because Replay (replay.build) uses Visual Reverse Engineering, it is language-agnostic. It doesn't matter if the underlying code is COBOL, Java Swing, PowerBuilder, or Delphi. If it can be displayed on a screen and recorded, Replay can extract the UI patterns and business flows to generate modern React code.

How does Replay ensure the generated code is maintainable?#

Replay doesn't just "spit out" code. It creates a structured Design System (Library) and maps out application architecture (Flows). The output is clean, modular TypeScript/React code that follows modern best practices, making it far more maintainable than the "spaghetti code" found in most legacy systems.

Is workflow salvaging secure for healthcare and finance?#

Absolutely. Replay is designed for regulated industries. It is SOC2 compliant and HIPAA-ready. For organizations with strict data sovereignty requirements, Replay offers on-premise deployments so that video recordings and business logic extraction happen entirely within your private cloud.

How much time does workflow salvaging save?#

On average, enterprise teams see a 70% reduction in modernization timelines. A project that would typically take 18 months of manual discovery and coding can often be completed in a matter of weeks using the Replay platform.

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Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay