Sharepoint Designer Workflow Reminder Email
I am working on a SharePoint list to maintain the regular yearly maintenance activities in the organization.The list contains, Activity Name, Status, Reminder Date, Next Maintenance Date, Primary Contact. I had a bit of more research after the post and found some links similar to my problem and changed the workflow as below with the help of information in my research. StepsIf Status equals CompletedStop Stop Workflow and LogIf ReminderDate equals TodaySend Email Primary ContactElse If ReminderDate greater than TodayPause until ReminderDateSend Email Primary ContactSo till now it worked well, I am posting this here so that if any one can find any issues in the solution you can let me know of the same.Thank you.
Introduction: Many times when designing workflows there is a need to use a Workflow Timer. As you may know a workflow timer will process workflows at a specified time or interval. While SharePoint Designer does not provide an out of the box (OOTB) capability for creating workflow timers, still, there is a way to create a workflow timer using SPD workflows.2. Scenario: In our simple scenario we want our example workflow to run every five minutes. Now, given this is not a very realistic scenario, most users will want the workflow to run once a day, week, month, etc.
Apr 20, 2014 Hello, I am trying to create a list workflow in SharePoint Designer 2013. Basically, there's a column called 'Revision Date' that will trigger the workflow to send a 3 month (before), 1 month (before) and day of email reminder (based on the date entered in the column 'Revision Date'). Instead, you had to create a custom SharePoint Designer workflow. You would create a SharePoint list with a due date. Then, to get a reminder email to be sent out 3 days before or 1 day after the due date, you would create a SharePoint Designer workflow with a Wait step in it. Then you need a step to calculate the proper dates and variables to. Jul 27, 2010 One common requirement in workflow is reminder workflow. Reminder can be anything. It can be a birthday, anniversary or it can be an important meeting. You might want to send a reminder email to attendees, or want to send a reminder email to team members about the.
However, once we have designed the mechanism to run a workflow every five minutes, it’s a simple matter of changing the pause delay to increase that to any duration needed.3. Explanation: Essentially we will have two workflows, running on two separate lists; one workflow, “Endless Loop”, creates an endless loop and the other workflow, “Delay”, one creates a delay or timer. The logic for the Endless Loop workflow looks like this:a.
Calculate (increment) the loop counterb. Update the item in the Delay workflow with the counter valuec. Log the EventThe logic for the Delay workflow looks like this:a. Calculate (increment) the loop counterb. Pause (Delay) for a period of timec.
Update the item in the Loop workflow with the counter value4. Overview: To build a Workflow Timer we will need two SharePoint lists, and two SharePoint workflows. The first list will contain our Loop workflow, and the second list will contain our Delay workflow. For obvious reasons we will call the first list “Endless Loop” and the second list “Delay”. To create the lists follow these steps:a. From the SharePoint site create a custom list, call it “Endless Loop”b.
From the Loop list add a custom Number column, call it “Counter”, set it’s number of decimal places to 0 and it’s default value to 1, finally add it to the default viewc. Create 1 item in the list and title it Endless Loopd.
From the SharePoint site create a custom list, call it “Delay”e. From the Delay list add a custom Number column, call it “Counter”, set it’s number of decimal places to 0 and it’s default value to 1, finally add it to the default viewf. Create 1 item in the list and title it DelayTo create the workflows for these lists follow these steps:a. From SharePoint Designer create a workflow that is associated with the Endless Loop list, call it “Endless loop”b. Set this workflow to be started manually and to start automatically when an item is changedc.
Create 1 step for the workflow, call it “Endless Loop”d. Create a condition – If Created By is not empty – this means the workflow will always rune.
Add a Do Calculation item, set it to Calculate Endless Loop: Counter plus 1 (output to Variable: calc), the configuration should appear as below:f. Add an Update List Item activity, update the Delay list, Delay item, changing the value of Counter to the workflow calc variable’s value, configure the activity as shown below. Test the Workflows: To test the workflow we only need to start the Endless Loop workflow from our item in the Endless Loop list. After a while we will see that the two workflows will keep initiating each other forming an endless loop.6. Now Add Your Activity: Now you only need to add your activity to the loop, the best location being right after the Pause for Duration action in the Delay workflow. Once you add your activity here, it will run at the interval that you set in your Pause for Delay.7. References: Use SharePoint Designer to Email Daily Task Reminders.
Said.Tom, great post! I'm new to this but things are starting to make more sense thanks to your post. I'm trying to integrate this timer loop with a for each loop. But, I do have a few questions about this workflow. In step 4.d., you're creating a custom list called delay. However, in 4.e., you start off with 'From the Loop list.' Do you have a 'Counter' field in both lists?
Also, when creating workflows step m. Adds a calculation 'Add a Do Calculation item, set it to Calculate Endless Loop:Counter plus 1' Could this possibly be a typo? Thanks again for your posts. Anonymoussaid.I was able to create the Endless loop workflow and it worked great but the Delay workflow I created keeps stopping at the Pause for Duration area. Any ideas on what the issue might be?This is what my workflow looks like:If Current Item:Created By is not emptyCalculate Current Item:Counter plus 1 (Output to Variable:calc)then Pause for 0 days, 0 hours, 5 minutesthen Update item in Endless Loopthen Log Delay ran to the workflow history listI am using SharePoint Designer 2010 with SharePoint 2010. Said.Hello,Are you getting any error messages in the workflow history log? If so please post those.Also, a good technique for error catching is to add a log before and after the action that may be causing the error, that way you'll know if the problem occurred before or after that activity in the workflow.It's also possible the error is with the update action that occurs after the pause.
Please put a log after that step as well.Once you have checked the workflow history list and created the additional logs run the workflow again and LMK if there are any additional issues.Thanks!Tom. Said.Hey S,First I apologize for the long delay; I was in crunch mode on a big project and could not find the time or energy to respond.Ok, so for your question, I would try these steps:1) Make sure your added step works - try the same step in a throw away manual workflow, if it works there then we eliminate that as a possibility2) Add a log just before the pause and use it to capture the value of the date field3) Your activity can go in either workflow, but it should go before either of the pausesIf possible please post the design of your workflow, just a simple text version will do. Also, it would help to know more about your list. If you are using a calculated column for the date field then that could be the issue, calculated columns only update when their list/library items are updated.Anyway, I will be more available these next few days so I hope I can help.Thanks!Tom.
Said.Tom,I took a break from working on this, so your comment is perfect timing!I need to check a list called 'Contractor Terminations.' I need to send reminder emails to the manager 14, 7, and 1 day before the termination date, so they can update the date if necessary (they would update the list, and it recalculates), and then send emails 1 day after the termination date and 2 days after to shut off access.I created calculated date fields, and then told the workflow to check all the fields and if they match today, then send the appropriate email for each option.My problem might've been that I created a 2nd workflow step for my activity, after the pause in the first step. I'll change that.Is there a better way to do what I'm trying to accomplish? Said.Hey Sherri,Again, I apologize for the long delay in my response, I have been very busy with a SPS 2010 migration project.To answer your question, I do agree with your new design. If I understand your response, you have simply had the Timer Loop workflow check each of those date conditions from the calculated columns, all in one step rather then multiple steps, and then if the condition is true (and only one can be), your workflow will send the appropriate e-mail. That's exactly how I would do it and that should work well with the timer loop.I hope that helps!Tom.
Sharepoint Designer Email Workflow Examples
Said.Hey Sherri,You should have two workflows, each configured to start on change. Each of the conditions in your first workflow sends an e-mail when it is true, and each condition in your first workflow should also finish by changing a field in an item of the list of the second workflow. Now the second workflow starts, pauses for a day, and then changes a field in an item in the list of the first workflow, which causes the first workflow to run again. Now you have a continuous loop that runs once a day.I hope that helps!Tom. Said.Hello,If the timer quits after a number of iterations try this fix - set the pause duration in the 'Delay' workflow to a higher duration - example 1 to 2 hours.
Then reduce the timer in the 'Endless Loop' workflow by the same duration. Save, republish, and test. Please LMK if that works.I think in 2010 there are some changes with the rehydration settings and that may be causing the issues. There are ways to verify this so if you want to know more LMK.Check your logs as well - are the timer workflows trying to start and then failing, or are they not starting at all?
Sharepoint Designer Workflow Reminder Email
Also check the last run date/times for the workflows, this may shed some light on whats' going on. Finally, ensure the workflows are updating each other's fields properly.I hope that helps!Tom.
West Virginia, United States Team Lead, SharePoint Architect and Software Engineer. Twenty plus years of technical leadership and software engineering experience. Past twelve years working extensively with SharePoint 2013, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2007 (MOSS), SharePoint 2003, SharePoint 2001, SQL Server 2012, SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2000, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, and several related technologies to include C#.NET, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, XMLXSLT, Silver Light, SharePoint Designer, Visual Studio, InfoPath, and XNA.