SPD 2013

How to Create a Timer Job with SharePoint Designer 2013

Maria Grazia Merlo12 Comments

In this post I’m going to show you how to create a no server side code timer job using a SharePoint Designer 2013 site workflow.

Scenario

We have a SharePoint Online (Office 365) site with a task list in it and we need to send daily alerts to users that have overdue tasks assigned to them.

sp_task_list

Problem

The obvious solution would be to create a timer job to do that… Unfortunately we are in an Office 365 environment so we do not have the possibility to implement a standard timer job using server side code.

office_365_red

Solution

We can simulate the behaviour of a timer job using a Sharepoint Designer 2013 site workflow.

Steps

1. Create a New Site Workflow in Sharepoint Designer 2013

Open SharePoint Designer 2013 and create a new site workflow

site_wotkflow

2. Get All Overdue Tasks that are not Completed

In the first stage (let’s call it “Getting Overdue Tasks”) build a dictionary to store the accept header for our rest request and get results in json:

accept: application/json;odata=verbose

tj_build_dictionary

tj_accept_header

Put the current date in a DateTime variable (let’s call it “today”).

tj_today

Then call the SharePoint REST Service to get the overdue tasks.
To do so insert the “Call HTTP Web Service” action in the workflow (in an App Step to avoid permission related problems).

tj_call_service

The action url must be constructed dynamically  using the “today” variable like this:

tj_request_endpoint

tj_today_iso_formatted

Set the action verb to GET, the request headers to the headers dictionary previously built and the response content to a dictionary to store the request result.

tj_rest_call_properties

Get and store the returned tasks in a separate dictionary to count them and loop through them later.

tj_store_tasks

3. Send Alerts to Overdue Tasks Assignees

Create a second stage (let’s call it “Sending Alerts”) to send alerts and then link the first stage to it.

Insert a loop and inside it extract the task id from the rest response and send an email to each overdue task assignees.

Use a loop index variable to address the current task and remember to initialize it to zero and increment it properly at the end of the loop.

tj_loop

tj_mail

To get the email address of the recipient (the task assignee) use the task id previously extracted from the rest response like this:

tj_recipient

4. Wait One Day and Start Over Again

Insert a pause action and configure it to wait one day.

Link the “Sending Alerts” stage to the “Getting Overdue Tasks” stage to start over again.

tJ_pause

Conclusion

Here is how the complete workflow will look at the end of the process:

tj_complete_workflow

Publish the site workflow and start it (you can access the “Site Workflows” page from the “Site Contents” page).

tj_start_wf

It will send the alerts daily as expected.

tj_receive_mail

References

Fabian Williams

How to Create a List Item Inside a Folder Using a SharePoint Designer 2013 Workflow

Maria Grazia Merlo11 Comments

In this post I’m going to show you how to create a list item inside a folder in a SharePoint Designer 2013 workflow even though the “Create List Item” built-in action and even the new rest api do not allow us to do that.

Scenario

We have a folder inside a custom list and we need to automatically create items inside it using a SharePoint Designer 2013 workflow.

Item in Folder- Folder

Problem

In a SharePoint 2010 workflow we used to simply set the “Folder” property in the built-in action “Create List Item”… and it worked! Our item was correctly created inside the specified folder.  Unfortunately in a SharePoint 2013 workflow setting the “Folder” property has no effect. Even the new SharePoint 2013 rest api does not come to our rescue.

Solution

We can use the old listdata.svc service to achieve our goal making a rest call to it inside our SharePoint Designer 2013 workflow.

Steps

1. Create the headers dictionary

We must build a dictionary to store some headers, specifically the following ones:

Accept: application/json;odata=verbose
Content-Type: application/json;odata=verbose

Item in Folder- Headers.png

2. Create the data dictionary

Next, we need a dictionary that will contain our request data.

The dictionary must have an entry for each item mandatory fields and an entry to set the item path.

Title: Item 1
Path: <list url>/Folder 1

Item in Folder- Data

The item path must be constructed dynamically to point to the folder we want to place our item in.

Item in Folder- Path

3. Call the SharePoint REST service

Finally, we are ready to call the SharePoint REST service to create our item inside the list folder.

To do this we need to insert the “Call HTTP Web Service” action in our workflow.
The action url must be constructed dynamically like this:

https://site/_vti_bin/listdata.svc/SimpleList

Item in Folder- Endpoint.png

The http method must be set to POST.

Item in Folder- Method

The request headers must be set to the headers dictionary.
The request content must be set to the data dictionary.

create_list_folder10

Conclusion

This is how the complete workflow should look like:

Item in Folder - Workflow

Now we can publish and run it and see that a new item is correctly created inside our folder.

Item in Folder- Folder Workflow Completed

Item in Folder- Item Workflow Completed

References

MSDN

How to Approve a List Item Using a SharePoint Designer 2013 Workflow

Maria Grazia Merlo11 Comments

In this post I’m going to show you how to approve a list item in a SharePoint Designer 2013 workflow even though the “Set Content Approval Status” built-in action is no longer available in SharePoint 2013 On-Premises.

Note: the issue this post is about has been solved in Sharepoint 2013 Online (Office 365).

Scenario

We have a custom list that requires content approval for submitted items and we need to automatically approve them when they are created using a SharePoint Designer 2013 workflow.

ApprovalList

Problem

It seems quite simple, like in a SharePoint 2010 workflow there should be a built-in action to do this… but unfortunately this is not the case. In a SharePoint Designer 2013 workflow there is no such action as the old and dear “Set Content Approval Status”.

So we need to find a different way to achive the same result and as always with SharePoint 2013, the REST API comes to our rescue.

Solution

We can use the SharePoint REST API to update a list item and set its approval status.

Now we only need to know which particular property of the item sets its approval status…
We can find that by inspecting the item properties through a rest call via a browser like this:

https://site/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('listname')/items(ID)

ApprovalStatusProperty
You can see that the only property that could do our job is the one called “OData__ModerationStatus” (note the double underscore before the “ModerationStatus” string).

The possibile values for this property are the following:

  • Approved: 0
  • Rejected: 1
  • Pending: 2

So now we need to update this field.

Let’s see how to do that in detail…

Steps

1. Get the list item type

To get the list item type we need to use the SharePoint REST API via a browser like this:

https://site/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('listtitle')

and get the value for the “d:ListItemEntityTypeFullName” element.

In the example below the list item type is “SP.Data.Test_x0020_ListListItem” (the “_x0020_” string replaces the space inside the list name).

ApprovalListItemType

2. Create the headers dictionary

We must build a dictionary to store some headers, specifically the following ones:

Accept: application/json;odata=verbose
Content-Type: application/json;odata=verbose
Content-Length: <length of post body>
X-HTTP-Method: MERGE
If-Match: *

create_list_folder5

3. Create the metadata dictionary

Next we need to create a dictionary to store our metadata.
This dictionary will contain only one entry for the list item type we’ve obtained previously:

type: SP.Data.Test_x0020_ListListItem

ApprovalMetadata.png

4. Create the data dictionary

Next, we need one more dictionary that will contain our request data.

The dictionary must have an entry with key “__metadata” (note the double underscore before the “metadata” string) with its value set to the previously created metadata dictionary.

We also need to add another entry in the data dictionary with its key set to “OData__ModerationStatus” and its value set to 0 (Approved).

__metadata: <metadata dictionary>
 OData__ModerationStatus: 0

ApprovalData

5. Call the SharePoint REST service

Finally, we are ready to call the SharePoint REST service to update our item approval status.

To do this we need to insert the “Call HTTP Web Service” action in our workflow.
Put it inside an App Step to make sure the REST call is executed with elevated privileges.

To see how to enable the use of App Steps in your workflow and give it elevated privileges see this article.
To see pending items in the same web of the workflow you need to follow the above procedure with Scope=”http://sharepoint/content/sitecollection/web”.
To see pending items in the same site collection of the workflow but in a different web you need to follow the above procedure with Scope=”http://sharepoint/content/sitecollection”.

The action url must be constructed dynamically to point to the current item like this:

https://site/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('listtitle')/items(n)

ApprovalEndpoint

The action verb must be set to POST.

create_list_folder9

Set the request headers to the headers dictionary.
Set the request content to the data dictionary.

create_list_folder10

6. Change workflow default settings

At this point it is very very important to uncheck the “Automatically update the workflow status to the current stage name” option, otherwise during the workflow execution the item will be updated and its approval status reset to “Pending”.

We also set our workflow to start automatically when an item is created.

ApprovalWorkflowSettings

Conclusion

This is how the complete workflow should look like:

ApprovalWorkflow

Now we can publish it and see that when we create a new item the workflow will start automatically and correctly approve it.

ApprovalItem

References

MSDN

StackOverflow

How to Create a Folder in a SharePoint 2013 List Using a SharePoint Designer 2013 Workflow

Maria Grazia Merlo10 Comments

In this post I’m going to show you a workaround to an issue with SharePoint Designer 2013 workflows in correctly creating a list folder.

Scenario

We have a custom list and we need to dynamically add folders to it through a SharePoint Designer 2013 workflow.

create_list_folder12

Why

A first question could be:

Why on earth would you need to create a folder in a list? Folders are intended for libraries and files!

There are scenarios when you need to have folders in your list, one of this is to manage permissions at a finer level than the list level, avoiding having to set unique permissions for each list item.

A second question could be:

Why on earth do you need to create folders with a workflow?

There could be scenarios in which folders need to be created dynamically in reaction to some event.

Problem

A list folder is simply a special type of list item.
So it seems quite simple… In the workflow use the “Create List Item” action and set its content type to “Folder”. Yes, it works! The folder is created!

But wait… Clicking on the folder an ugly system name appears in the breadcrumbs (ID_.000)… Oh no! What’s that?!?

create_list_folder2

This happens because there is a mismatch between the title of the folder that we can set in the workflow and its name that is assigned automatically (respectively “Folder 1” and “66_.000” in the example above).

Unfortunately we can’t set the name of a list folder directly using the create or update list item workflow actions.

Solution

We can use the SharePoint REST API to change the list folder name after having created it.

Now we only need to know which particular property of the list folder sets its name…
We can find that by inspecting the folder properties through a rest call via a browser like this:

https://site/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('listname')/items(ID)/FieldValuesAsText

create_list_folder3
You can see that value “ID_.000” is hold by the field “FileLeafRef”.
So now we need to update this field of our newly created folder using REST.

Let’s see how to do that in detail…

Steps

1. Get the list item type

To get the list item type we need to use the SharePoint REST API via a browser like this:

https://site/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('listtitle')

and get the value for the “d:ListItemEntityTypeFullName” element.
In the example below the list item type is “SP.Data.TestFolderListListItem”

create_list_folder4

2. Create the headers dictionary

We must build a dictionary to store some headers, specifically the following ones:

Accept: application/json;odata=verbose
Content-Type: application/json;odata=verbose
Content-Length: <length of post body>
X-HTTP-Method: MERGE
If-Match: *

create_list_folder5

3. Create the metadata dictionary

Next we need to create a dictionary to store our metadata.
This dictionary will contain only one entry for the list item type we’ve obtained previously:

type: SP.Data.TestFolderListListItem

create_list_folder6

4. Create the data dictionary

Next, we need one more dictionary that will contain our request data.

The dictionary must have an entry with key “__metadata” (note the double underscore before the “metadata” string) with its value set to the previously created metadata dictionary.

We also need to add another entry in the data dictionary with its key set to “FileLeafRef”.

__metadata: <metadata dictionary>
 FileLeafRef: Folder 1

create_list_folder7

5. Call the SharePoint REST service

Finally, we are ready to call the SharePoint REST service to update our folder name field.
To do this we need to insert the “Call HTTP Web Service” action in our workflow.
The action url must be constructed dynamically to point to the newly created folder like this:

https://site/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('listtitle')/items(n)

create_list_folder8

The action verb must be set to POST.

create_list_folder9

Set the request headers to the headers dictionary.
Set the request content to the data dictionary.

create_list_folder10

Conclusion

This is how the complete workflow should look like:

create_list_folder11

Now we can publish our workflow and run it. Once it is over we’ll have our folder correctly created with its title and name matching.

create_list_folder12

create_list_folder13

References

StackExchange

How to Update a Managed Metadata Field using a SharePoint Designer 2013 Workflow

Maria Grazia Merlo22 Comments

In this post I’m going to show you how to bypass a limitation of SharePoint Designer 2013 workflows that prevents us from directly updating a managed metadata field.

The proposed solution works for both SharePoint 2013 On Premises and Online (Office 365) and uses only the SharePoint Designer 2013 built-in actions.

Scenario

We have a custom list item with a managed metadata (taxonomy) field in it. We need to update the taxonomy field using a SharePoint Designer 2013 workflow.

taxonomy1.png

Problem

When you try to update a managed metadata field through the “Update List Item” action a BadRequest error occurs with the following message:

An unexpected ‘PrimitiveValue’ node was found when reading from the JSON reader. A ‘StartObject’ node was expected.

taxonomy2

This happens because SharePoint is expecting a complex type. However, any value you supply through a built-in list action in SharePoint Designer gets wrapped in quote marks and treated as a string literal…

So, how to get around this limitation?

Solution

When you add a taxonomy field in SharePoint, you are really adding two fields:

  • The first one is the visible field you see and edit
  • The second one is a hidden note field which holds the values for its associated field as plain text

Let’s say you add a taxonomy field called “TaxonomyField”, SharePoint will automatically add a note field called “TaxonomyField_0”.

Here is the solution to all our problems:

If we update the hidden field “TaxonomyField _0” with a well formatted text value then its associated taxonomy field gets updated as well.

Great!

We can update a hidden field in a SharePoint Designer 2013 workflow only using REST with the “Call HTTP Web Service” action.

So, all we need to do now is to get the internal name of our hidden field and set its value with a REST call using the format

Term1Name|Term1Guid

For a multi value managed metadata field we need to separate the entries with a semicolon, like this:

Term1Name|Term1Guid;Term2Name|Term2Guid

Let’s see how to do this in more detail…

Steps

1. Get the hidden field internal name

Finding the internal (static) name of the hidden field can be done by using the SharePoint REST API via a browser using a URL like this

https://site/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('listtitle')/fields

In the example below the static name for our hidden field is “l4ea604b343942df935ba60a0e9dd7ad”.

taxonomy3

2. Get the term name and guid

In the Term Store Management Tool for your site (Site Settings > Site Administration > Term Store Management) find the term you want to use to update the taxonomy field and get its name and guid.

In the example below the name and guid of our term are respectively “Term1” and “6dfad373-fc10-4a84-b83f-efa262c18275”.

taxonomy4

3. Get the list item type

To get the list item type we need to use the SharePoint REST API via a browser again using a URL like this

https://site/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('listtitle')

Then we must get the value for the “d:ListItemEntityTypeFullName” element.

In the example below the list item type is “SP.Data.TaxonomyListListItem”.

taxonomy5

4. Create the headers dictionary

Now we have all the information we need to start working with our SharePoint Designer 2013 workflow.

First of all we must build a dictionary to store some headers, specifically the following ones:

Accept: application/json;odata=verbose
Content-Type: application/json;odata=verbose
Content-Length: <length of post body>
X-HTTP-Method: MERGE
If-Match: *

taxonomy6

5. Create the metadata dictionary

Next we need to create a dictionary to store our metadata.
This dictionary will only contain one entry for the list item type we’ve obtained previously:

type: SP.Data.TaxonomyListListItem

taxonomy7

6. Create the data dictionary

Next, we need one more dictionary that will contain our request data.

The dictionary must have an entry with key “__metadata” (note the double underscore before the “metadata” string) with its value set to the previously created metadata dictionary.

We also need to add another entry in the data dictionary with its key set to the internal name of our hidden field and its value having the format “TermName|TermGuid”.

 __metadata: <metadata dictionary>
l4ea604b343942df935ba60a0e9dd7ad: Term1|6dfad373-fc10-4a84-b83f-efa262c18275

taxonomy8

7. Call the SharePoint REST service

Finally, we are ready to call the SharePoint REST service to update our taxonomy field. To do this we need to insert the “Call HTTP Web Service” action in our workflow.

The action URL must be constructed dynamically to point to the current item like this

https://site/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('listtitle')/items(n)

taxonomy9

The action verb must be set to POST.

taxonomy10

Then we need to set the request headers to the headers dictionary and the request content to the data dictionary.

taxonomy11

Conclusion

This is how the complete workflow should look like:

taxonomy12

Now we can publish and run it. Once it is over we’ll have our taxonomy field correctly updated.

taxonomy13

References

Beau Cameron

Matthew Yarlett

Fabian Williams