Tag : wait for

Workflow – Using the ‘Wait-for’ instead of tasks

As a beginner I found it difficult to deal with tasks and forms simultaneously. Although the tasks and documents/forms were directly related, the users also found it confusing to switch between the two as they preferred to make any decisions regarding the future direction of the form directly on the form itself. Enter the ‘Wait for field change in current item’ action. From my reading I deduced that workflows in this state have no impact on the overall performance of the site. Not only that, but it simplified my approval flows and form management considerably.

In general terms, this is how I used this action to get updates:

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  1. When the workflow reaches a point at which user interaction is required, I use the ‘Update List Item’ action to set two variables in the Form/SharePoint list item; the Boolean field ‘Continue’ is set to false and the integer field ‘Outcome’ is set to 0.
  1. Generally, although this is not shown in this example, it is at this point I also write the account ID’s to a field that specifies who is entitled to perform the update. Because the view of the form is set to have this People field filtered to ‘[Me]’, this item will only appear to the users that need to perform the interaction (In many of my SharePoint sites, I do not allow the user to change the form in these libraries. I also validate within the form itself if the user has rights to view the data)
  2. In the next statement in the workflow, I add the ‘Wait for field change in current item’ action as follows:209-2
  1. The workflow then remains paused until a valid user interacts with the form and sets the field Completed to yes. This is done within the form itself and the action of the Approval button also sets the ‘Outcome’ field so that the option selected in the form can be used to decide on the flow within the workflow
  1. In the statements that follow the ‘Wait for’, I generally log the name of the user who updated the form as well as the date that the form was updated. I then examine the field ‘Outcome’ to determine what action to take within the workflow