SharePoint News & Development Resources
DevSharePoint.com provides the latest SharePoint news and resources. Stay up to date with SharePoint 2010, MOSS 2007, WSS, SharePoint Designer (2007/2010), InfoPath.

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InfoPathSharePoint.net provides the latest InfoPath development tutorials, InfoPath Form Services administration tips, tricks and how to’s. InfoPath SharePoint Integration: Integrate InfoPath Forms with SharePoint lists, libraries & workflow.

SharePoint & InfoPath News & Resources
SharePoint Administration, Development, Design & Customization Resources from around the internet. SharePoint & InfoPath News. InfoPath SharePoint Integration. InfoPath Form Template Design. InfoPath Form layouts, design tips & techniques.

SharePoint InfoPath Forms

InfoPath forms can be a powerful tool for collecting organising, processing and submitting data of various types. Data Connections allow an infoPath Form to pull data from multiple data sources, including sharePoint. SharePoint InfoPath Forms can provide a rich interface and additional functionality when manipulating data in SharePoint lists and libraries than when using OOB browser forms.

When using InfoPath to open and complete forms, complex priocessing can be performed without impacting on performance of the SharePoint server as the procing is done by the client. Using SharePoint InfoPath Forms as an Interface to control workflow can provide greater functionality and control over the workflow process. Using an infoPath form to submit data to SharePoint lists can allows data from multiple lists to be updated once processed.

SharePoint InfoPath Forms

SharePoint Workflow Errors: Descriptions, resolutions and Workarounds SharePoint Workflow Errors

There are many cases where a workflow developed using SharePoint Designer will stop due to a workflow error. A number of factors can cause a workflow error, including list permissions, data types, incorrect lookups to items that don’t exist based on the criteria specified or document libraries and lists with Force Checkout and Content Approval enabled.

Workflow errors can also be used intentionally to break / stopping a looping workflow sequence. For example, a looping workflow that is configured to processe all items from a list will stop once all items have been processed as it will not be able to find the next item to process. The result will be a “List item not found” error which will cause the looping workflow sequence to break / stop.

For more information about workflow errors in SharePoint including examples, common causes and workarounds / resolutions, see SharePoint Workflow Errors.

Common Workflow Errors:

• List Item Not Found
• Error updating a list item
• Access Denied
• Failed on Start (retrying)
• Document must be checked out
• Error Deleting a list item

By default, SharePoint Designer (2007) doesn’t allow you to retrieve the
details of the user who started / initiated a workflow.  The only option
available using OOB workflow activities is to get the user who created the list
item or to retrieve the user who last modified the list item, which in most
cases will be the user who initiated the workflow, but not all.

To retrieve the account details of the user who triggered the workflow, you can
create or modify a separate list item, then retrieve the account details of the
item from either the Created By field or the Modified By field.  As the
workflow runs using the credentials of the user who initiated the workflow, when
an item is created or modified by the workflow it will be done using the account
of the workflow initiator.

For more information, see SPD Workflow: Get account details of the user who initiated the workflow.

How to configure a workflow to start at specific time, then loop / repeat periodically (Daily, Weekly)

The following method can be used to start a workflow at a specific time, then repeat periodically (each day). Periodic Workflow Processing (send daily email notification or reminder) A useful implementation of this technique allows you to configure workflows to run as background tasks at a specific time instead of being triggered by a user manually, or after creating or modifying a list item.

How to configure a workflow to start at specific time, then loop / repeat periodically (Daily, Weekly)

Q: How do i get the current time in a SharePoint Designer Workflow?  When I try to test if the due date and time is less than two hours away, the condition doesn’t work as I am only able to select [today] from the options, which seems to ignore the time component of the current date.

A: You can create or modify another list item using the workflow, then get the ‘Created’ or ‘Last Modified’ date of the item to get test against the current time.
This may result in the current time being a few minutes late, but works well.

See Get current time in Sharepoint Designer workflow for details.

How to integrate InfoPath forms with workflow in SharePoint to give greater control over the functionality and user interface.

Use an InfoPath form as the interface for a workflow in SharePoint to allow greater control over the user interface and functionality. Code can be used in the form which is processed by the client if completing a form using Microsoft InfoPath, or in a browser based InfoPath form supplied using SharePoint Forms Server. This reduces processing requirements of the SharePoint server(s), as well as allowing processing using code without worrying about code blocks in SharePoint.

Integrate InfoPath Form with SharePoint Workflow

Use a SharePoint Designer workflow to test if any item in a list has a specific value for a field without the workflow stopping due to a List item not found error.

Ever needed to just check if an item exists in a list in order to perform different workflow actions if the item is not found without the workflow crashing? For example, when building a workflow using SharePoint Designer, you may want the workflow to test if there is an item with the required title that already exists in the list. If the item exists, the workflow can be configured to update the existing item. If no item exists in the list with the required title, the workflow would usually stop due to a List item not found error. To overcome this, the value from the required field in each list item can be concatenated into a single string which then allows the workflow to test using string comparison, which does not result in a workflow error if the item is not found in the list.

How to configure a Workflow in SharePoint to monitor the date/time field of a list item and respond at a specific time. The article also explains how to configure a Looping Timer Workflow using SharePoint Designer which sends an email daily until a specific date, or condition is met. See (Looping) Timer Workflows Using SharePoint for details.

Related

SharePoint Looping Workflow – How to: Loop through and process all list items

How to configure a workflow to start at specific time, then loop / repeat periodically (Daily, Weekly)

Create How to wait for a change in any list, wait for multiple field changes in the current item (SharePoint Workflow)

The article explains how to configure a workflow which uses Standard (OOB) workflow actions and is developed using SharePoint Designer. Instead of using the “Wait for field change in the current item” action, the components of the workflow which are completed after waiting is finished are added to a separate “On Change” workflow, which uses standard conditions in the first step to determine if it can continue. If the conditions are not met for the field in the current item, the workflow will stop. If another instance of the workflow is running, new instances will also stop by setting a “Workflow_running” field to yes while an instance is running.

Using this technique gives you more control when waiting for specific criteria to be met. This includes being able to wait until a field in another list item is updated, or waiting for multiple fields in the current item. See How to wait for a change in any list, wait for multiple field changes the current item (SharePoint Workflow) for more details.