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• Logging Workflow Activity in SharePoint Designer

  Last week, I was working out how to loop and implement a state machine using SharePoint Designer and mentioned, as an aside, that I would probably write a blog post about better workflow logging. Well, Sanjeev Rajput beat me to it. Have a look . Saving... Posted May 18 2008, 07:15 AM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• The Trouble With Tribbles ... err .. KPIs

  This past week I finished off a proof of concept project for a client in Manhattan. While implementing the solution, I ran into another shortcoming of MOSS KPIs ( see here for a previous KPI issue and my workaround ). Background : We used SharePoint Designer... Posted May 17 2008, 08:57 AM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• Mea Culpa -- SharePoint Designer *CAN* Create State Machine Workflows

  I've recently learned that it's possible and even fairly easy to create a state machine workflow using SharePoint Designer. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that good stuff and I had a need this week that looked for an invention. Coincidentally... Posted May 14 2008, 08:45 PM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• Use Semaphores in SharePoint Designer Workflow to Prevent Endless Loops

  It's possible to cause an endless loop in a SharePoint Designer workflow. A common implementation pattern like this causes the problem: Create a workflow and associate with a list. Indicate that it should start on create of new items and update of... Posted Apr 23 2008, 06:24 PM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• Walk-through: Fix Employee Training Template Available Seats Unregister Bug

  As many people know , the Employee Training template provided by Microsoft here has a bug that we can reproduce following these steps: Create a class with a max size of 10 students. Register --> Total available seats properly decrements by one. Result... Posted Apr 16 2008, 11:18 AM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• Towards SharePoint Technical Design Patterns: SharePoint Designer Workflow + Event Receiver = High Potency Cocktail

  One of the emerging patterns I find in crafting SharePoint solutions leverages SharePoint Designer workflow and an event receiver. Here is a business scenario to put it in context: I upload a document to a doc lib. I kick off multi-step workflow created... Posted Mar 25 2008, 06:58 PM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• Observed Behavior: Moving SPD Workflows Within a Site Collection

  I'm giving this post a slightly oddball "Observed Behavior" lead since I'm a little leery of drawing conclusions from it. SPD workflows are ... temperamental. People are often asking / wondering / fretting over moving SPD workflows from... Posted Mar 17 2008, 07:10 PM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• Quick and Simple: Workflow-only Update Field

  It's often useful to store status information in a custom list such as an approval code which should never be directly manipulated by end users. This is a common business scenario. I have been working on a project this year that generates various... Posted Mar 17 2008, 07:36 AM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• Create Sites (SPWeb) via SharePoint Designer Workflow

  This blog entry is more of an "in the real of the possible" entry vs. concrete info. We have a technical design that calls for us to create a site in a site collection via a manually launched workflow process. Basically, users enter data into... Posted Mar 13 2008, 07:53 AM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• Integrate SharePoint Designer Workflows with Web Services

  I've been playing around with custom actions for SharePoint Designer for some time ( see here for some detailed stuff, if that interests you). In my current project, we need to do some fairly heavy lifting and we want to use declarative SPD workflow... Posted Mar 10 2008, 05:43 PM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• SPD Workflow "Collect Data From A User": Modify the Generated Task Form

  I'm working on a project that uses five different SharePoint Designer work flows to handle some document approvals. SPD provides the "collect data from a user" action so that we can prompt the user for different bits of information, such... Posted Feb 13 2008, 05:28 PM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• Solution (sort of): Set Priority on a Task Using SharePoint Designer

  I have a business scenario like this: A user uploads a document to a document library. She selects a content type and enters meta data as needed. One of the meta data fields is a flag, "Urgent". This triggers a SharePoint Designer workflow that... Posted Feb 04 2008, 06:07 PM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• Quick and Easy: Automatically Open InfoPath Form From SharePoint Designer Email

  We often want to embed hyperlinks to InfoPath forms in emails sent from SharePoint Designer workflows. When users receive these emails, they can click on the link from the email and go directly to the InfoPath form. This monster URL construction works... Posted Jan 04 2008, 08:26 AM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space: Blog Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• MOSS Tells Me "Access Denied" to Edit a Workflow Task, But I Really Do Have Access

  I've implemented a workflow using SharePoint Designer in a site which is mainly read-only to "NT_AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users" (i.e. everyone). There is a forms library for an InfoPath form. There is an associated workflow tasks list as... Posted Dec 18 2007, 09:11 PM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space: Blog Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• SharePoint Designer, Current Item's "Encoded Absolute URL" and HTTPS

  We often want to send an email that includes a hyperlink to the item or document that triggered the workflow. We can use current item's "Encoded Absolute URL" for this purpose. However, it always seems to use "http" for the URL... Posted Dec 18 2007, 07:21 PM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space: Blog Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• SharePoint Designer Email Sends ???? in an Email

  Forum users occasionally ask: Why does SharePoint Designer put ???? into my email instead of a field value? One reason this happens is because the variable to which you refer is null. This can happen because you are trying to reference a field from the... Posted Dec 13 2007, 06:10 PM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space: Blog Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• Compare / Test for Blank Dates in SharePoint Designer Workflow

  Scenario : In a SharePoint Designer workflow, you need to determine if a date field is blank. Problem : SPD does not provide a direct method for comparing dates to anything other than a date. You cannot create a condition like this: "If [ DateField... Posted Dec 11 2007, 06:58 PM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space: Blog Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• SharePoint Designer Workflow Custom Action -- Observation About <FieldBind Designer Type="StringBuilder" ... />

  Just a quick observation that there's a very important difference between these two definitions: <FieldBind Field="InParam1" DesignerType="StringBuilder" Id="2" Text="Input parameter #1"/> versus: <FieldBind... Posted Nov 27 2007, 10:05 PM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space: Blog Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• Premature Workflow Activation -- A Non-medical Solution

  I have a document library that supports eight content types. I have a SharePoint Designer workflow that wants to calculate and assign a "reminder date" by simply subtracting 30 days from another column, "due date". This should only... Posted Nov 27 2007, 08:33 PM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space: Blog Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• Quick and Simple: Send an email with embedded hyperlink from SharePoint Designer workflow

  Once or twice month, someone posts a forum question: "How do I include hyperlinks to URL's that are clickable from a SharePoint Designer email?" Presented without further comment: Technorati Tags: SharePoint , Workflow , SharePoint Designer... Posted Nov 19 2007, 06:54 PM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space: Blog Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• Quick and Simple: Enable SharePoint Designer workflow to update an InfoPath form

  Scenario : I have an InfoPath form that front-ends a workflow process implemented using SharePoint Designer. At one point, a manager must approve the form. Since I cannot count on workflow history to meet my auditing requirements , I decide to store my... Posted Nov 06 2007, 08:20 PM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space: Blog Filed under: SharePoint Workflow

• SPD Workflow custom action - get the <WorkflowInfo> tag right to avoid frustration

  Part of the process for creating a custom action for SharePoint Designer involves create a ".actions" file. I've found and tried to use a sample template which starts off as: <? xml version = " 1.0 " encoding = " utf-8... Posted Oct 28 2007, 09:40 PM by Paul Galvin's SharePoint space: Blog Filed under: SharePoint Workflow