I'm having a problem relating to Sharepoint workflows and the associated task list.
I have 2 custom workflows that we created for our product. They both use the same Task list that has a custom content type that inherits from the Task content type.
Now I have a case where a running workflow has been deleted via the list has been deleted or the document, this results in orphaned tasks.
I want to overwrite the Task lists OnDeleting event, so that users can cleanup their tasks so that it won't contain unneccessary orphaned tasks. So my item deleting looks like this
public override void ItemDeleting(SPItemEventProperties properties)
{
SPListItem currentListItem = properties.ListItem;
}
The problem is that when I go into debug mode and check the currentListItem.Workflows.Count field then it's always 0. It doesn't matter which workflow I initiate or what task i look at, the SPWorkflowCollection returned is always empty :(
I was wondering if this might be related to a bug in our custom workflow where it's not wired up properly (but it finishes correctly and tasks are deleted when a workflow is terminated) or am I looking at this the wrong way ?
The currentListItem you have in scope here is the task item itself, not the list item that the workflow is running against. The task doesn't have a workflow running against it, so the zero count is expected.
If you're trying to get to the workflow tasks associated with workflows on an item you're deleting you'd need this kind of event handler on each list the workflow is activated on, not on the tasks list the workflow uses to store its tasks.
Related
I want to know if we can have a parent workflow which when called leads to spawning of multiple child workflows. Is there a way we can actually implement it in SharePoint. So basically I want to use a part of my parent workflow to trigger another workflow - this particular workflow can be associated to the same list and sometimes they can be associated with different lists and libraries...will that cause any problems.
It would be awesome if you guys can share your thoughts and ideas regarding this topic.
So how I expect it to work :-
Let's say when something triggers workflow A it goes and spawns multiple items in the SharePoint list which triggers workflow B. And all the newly created items are running workflow B. Also if there is a way to call another workflow C which is linked to another library.
If you are using SharePoint 2013 or later:
Add a column to the list with a name like WFBtrigger or WFBstatus. Set it to default to "" or "Not run" or similar.
Create your Workflow A. When it's finished have it update WFBstatus to "Pending" or similar.
Create your Workflow B. Set it to start when the item is created. Add a Loop. In the loop wait for WFBstatus to change to "Pending". Do "B's" work. Update the WFBstatus field to "Done".
Now when A is triggered, B will shortly there after run.
To trigger C in another list, just have A or B update a "WFCstatus" column in the C list and have a workflow C waiting for that column to change.
So I have got some great news ! I was able to figure this one out but It is not exactly very direct
So SharePoint Designer allows you to create an item in another list using the create function. I have attached a screenshot
click here to view
So using this functionality you can create an item in a completely different list or the same list. But this has one problem- Once you actually create an item on the child list using a 2013 workflow it will not trigger the workflow in the child list. So this has been explicitly disabled to prevent a condition called Workflow recursion. So is there a way around it ?
Yes ! you have two options:-
1.Call the Rest Endpoint for the child workflow, Sample approach : https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sridhara/2014/08/21/fix-sharepoint-2013-workflow-recursion-prevention-part-2/
2.Use MS Flow to create the flow in the child list
Hopefully it helps someone out there !
PS: For some weird reason for our company we cannot create 2010 workflows- apparently 2010 workflows are not supported in modern sites (I maybe misinformed)
I'm currently making a pretty simple approval workflow in sharepoint using sharepoint designer. One of the design goals that we have for this workflow is that we want to minimize the amount of custom coding that we have to do so I'd appreciate answers that involve using sharepoint designer instead of whipping out VS.
So the workflow should start when a person adds an item to a list.
When the workflow kicks off it would create a task and and assign a due date of +2 business days and assign the responsibility to a group of users
When a user completes the task then it would record the individual person who completed the task as well as the date it was completed.
It's pretty easy to add fields to the list but the purist in me kind of balks at this since these fields would be null and it violates first normal form. Ie a list that went to Task1 but not Task2 would have four fields Task1ApprovedBy, Task1FinishedDate, Task2ApprovedBy, Task2FinishedDate and both the Task2 fields would be null.
--edit--
Sorry If I'm not being clear about the question. I'm using Sharepoint Designer and I would like to update a list item in a lookup when a user completes a task item. How do I select the last task for a particular item that was completed and update that last task two values "Completed By" and Completed Date values? I'd prefer to do this on the Task list since that would also make reporting easier. I'd just create a view on the Task list instead of doing some type of join between the two list to when a particular task was completed.
Thank you for the help!
Jason
It sounds like you need two workflows here. One on the "Main" list and one on the "Tasks" list:
The first workflow is tied to the "Main" list. It fires when a user creates a new list item in the "Main" list. This workflow simply creates a new item in the "Tasks" list (with the correct people assigned, description, dates, etc...)
The second workflow is tied to the "Tasks" list. It fires whenever an item in the Tasks list is changed. The workflow checks to see if the status field is "Complete". If it is, then assign the "Completed By" field to the current person editing the task and assign the "Completed Date" value to today.
(Note that, in a SharePoint Designer workflow, there is no way to evaluate the properties of the list item prior to the update. If a completed task is updated, the SPD workflow will be unable to determine that the task was already completed. Basically, each update to a completed task will update the Completed By/Date fields. If you want a more complex workflow - which only updates when the status is changed to "Complete" - you will need to use Visual Studio).
I have created state workflow in Sharepoint.
My idea is:
1/ when workflow is started create copy of list item on which workflow was started, this copy is created to another web list within current site collection - that's working
2/ monitor changes on parent item and propagate them to copied item - that's working
3/ monitor changes on copied item and propagate them back to original item - that's not working
I was trying to use IListItemService, but apparently it canno watch for changes on different then current web ? Is there any other way how to do it ?
I was thinking about SharePoint 2010 Pluggable Workflow Services - but in my class which derives from SPWorkflowExternalDataExchangeService method CallEventHandler was called twice even when only one call of SPWorkflowExternalDataExchangeService.RaiseEvent was made (this was called from custom event receiver) - another problem with this solution is when I recycle app pool I lost my singleton class which is responsible for maintaining list of state information needed for RaiseEvent method.
There is an event mechanism built into SharePoint just for this purpose. There's no need to use workflows or copy items.
Example: Creating a List Item Event Handler
Does anyone know how you can modify the fields in an out-of-the-box (OOTB) Workflow Task (specifically Priority and Due Date)? The OOTB Approval workflow doesn't allow you to set these fields (it allows setting a due date, but not a due time).
I had a cunning plan to create a custom workflow in Visual Studio to set these fields automatically. This involved attaching my custom workflow to the tasks list and editing the tasks as they were created by the Approval workflow. However my custom workflow doesn't fire when new tasks are added to task list by the Approval workflow. And it seems you are unable to manually trigger a workflow on an item in the task list that was created by a workflow.
So in order to set the task fields as they are created by the Approval workflow I'd have to somehow hook into the OOTB Approval workflow directly, which I'm not sure is possible.
Obviously another option would be to recreate the Approval workflow from scratch with InfoPath and Visual Studio, but this seems like overkill to just add priority and time fields to the instantiation form.
Any thoughts?
I've just realised you can edit field such as priority and due date (time) from the task list by selecting Actions > Edit in Datasheet. This works for normal task list items and those created by workflow.
I'd still like to know why a custom workflow that is set to trigger on new items in a task list doesn't fire when a workflow adds items to the task list.
Note: To edit the time a task is due you need to modify the OOTB task list so that the Due Date field is a Date and Time rather than Date Only.
Has anyone had success with adding an onWorkflowItemChanged Activity inside a replicatorActivity? It seems to only fire when outside the Replicator.
Scenario is the following:
Several users are assigned a task inside the replicator. If the Workflow Item is modified then we want to cancel all the tasks and assign new ones based on the change that was made. Problem is that onWorkflowItemChanged doesn't get fired when placed inside the replicatorActivity.
Yess, there is a solution (a workaround?)!