Send reminder e-mail with Sharepoint Designer

We  have requirement to send e-mail on the specific date, for example, notification for Project Timeline or Report Submit, or yearly clearance of assets, documents, or whatever else. SharePoint designer has action "Pause until date", and we can send reminder e-mail when the specific date comes.


Below we demonstrate how to create such reminder e-mail.


Lets see wee have [Attention time] field in [Time reminder] List. [Attention time] should be date field.

Open SharePoint Designer, choose Time reminder list and choose create new workflow.

Insert Action of [Pause until Date]

You choose [Current Item] - [Attention time] for the date to pause. 

 

Just save and publish the workflow. Then you will receive e-mail on the time specified in [Attention Time]


This workflow, however, has several restrictions.






Restriction 1. Configuration is all included in SharePoint designer workflow configuration.


Email body, chosen list, etc.. all only seen in SharePoint designer, so other people who do not familiar can not find what kind of reminder workflow is set on the list.






Restriction 2. Workflow will send the date specified the field when the workflow start.


Workflow only checks the date on the field when we create the item, or manually start the workflow. This is because it will calculate the time duration from now to the specified time,  and pause the workflow for that time. It can not automatically detect the time change later.






Restriction 3. Repeating E-mail not be easily created.


In addition to this item specific reminder, sometimes there are requirement to send specific e-mail on every Monday, for example, remind for weekly report submit. We only can create list and create dozens of items and set date for every Monday.








There are Sharepoint add-in product to cover these restrictions. MoriApps also releases the e-mail assistant add-in with free usage of basic function. Please consider visit our website and download.

Calculation field formulas on Sharepoint

Sharepoint can use calculate formula like as Excel, so that field value can be calculated with other field values. Using formula, calculation of date, string, numbers and logics are all possible. For example, with two fields as start date and end date, duration can be automacally calculated and displayed in calculated field.

About Formula

Formula for calculated field can be entered within field configuration. Same as Excel, the formula start from equal character (=). As Excel's A1, B2, other fields can be referenced with field name.


Functions can be also used same as Excel. For example, [IF] for determin by field value, [Date] to transform to string to Date or [Substitute] to crop the part of text string.


[SUM] function, which is most frequently used in Excel, can be used for calculated field as well. But it can only refer to values in same item ("row" in excel) and can not refer to other items ("column" in excel), so it might not be useful as excel.

 

Example of formulas which results in Yes/No (Boolean)


MoriApps Simple Workflow also uses calculation field for conditional approval tasks to determin whther the approval task is required or not. It uses the calculation field to result in Yes/No value (Boolean). We here explain three example.

Example One

Thare are [Category] field and if [Category] is [Computer] or [Keyboard], the field [Requre IT approval] become [Yes].

1. Create [Category] field with Choice type, and add choices like  [Computer], [Keyboard], [Desk] and [Chair].
2. Create [Require IT approval] field as calculated field and enter the formula as below.

=OR(Category="Computer",Category="Keyboard")

Example Two

Thare are [Price] field and if [Price] is more than 50000, the field [Requre IT approval] become [Yes].

1. Create [Price] field with Number or Currency.
2. Create [Require IT approval] field as calculated field and enter the formula as below.

=Price > 50000

 

Example Three

Thare are [Category] field and [Price] field and if [Category] is [Computer] or [Keyboard] and [Price] is more than 50000, the field [Require IT approval] become [Yes].

1. Create [Category] field with Choice type, and add choices like  [Computer], [Keyboard], [Desk] and [Chair].
2. Create [Price] field with Number or Currency.
3. Create [Require IT approval] field as calculated field and enter the formula as below.

=AND(OR(Category="Computer",Category="Keyboard"),Price > 50000)

 

 

Issues on Sharepoint Designer Approval Workflow

In this post we introduce how to use Sharepoint Designer for Approval Workflow. But there are some issues on this way.

Issues on Sharepoint Designer Approval Workflow

1. Need to be familiar on Sharepoint Designer

As Sharepoint Designer is not included in standard office suite, it needs to be separately downloaded and installed on PC. It requires to conntect to Sharepoint Server, choose list and choose or create new workflow, which is not much difficult though, requires some days for new people to get familliar with it.

2. Workflow configuration is not very visible

As we introduced, workflow variable needs to be used when the approver or departments needs to be set from the content of request. That will be already excess the standard IT knowledge level of business worker and requires the way of thinking of IT engineer or programmers. If those kind of workflow mainteined by business people, and those people left or move within organization, it is almost very hard for new people to understand existing workflow, especially the variables within workflow specifies what kind of value. It is always headache for IT support department to handle those kind of help.

3.  Permission issue

The biggest and may be critical for certain case is that permission is not controlled by Sharepoint designer workflow. This means 1. approver can edit the request body before or even after the approval. 2. Anybody who know the link can approve the request and also can change the comment or other content after approval. These behavior are usually not preferable, but it may very hard to overcome this issue with Sharpeoint designer standard function (requires impersonal step with 2010 workflow)

Sharepoint Add-in(s) to overcome those issues

Many company chose to introduce Sharepoint workflow add-in as Sharepoint Designer itself still has issues above, which still remains for Sharepoint 2013 and Sharpeoint online. MoriApps Simple Workflow is the one which provide easy and quick creation of Sharepoint approval workflow. It is free for standard function and designed for simple requirements and even for business users.

Create Approval Workflow with SharePoint Designer

1.  Create Two Lists on your sharepoint site.

• Puchase Request
• Departments

2.  Departments List has field "Manager" (People type field)


3.  Purchase Requests List has "Department" field, which is Lookup field to Department. Also you can add contents field, price field or anything elese you need.


4.  From Sharepoint Designer, choose List Workflow - Purchase Reuqest.

5.  From Ribbon, click "Workflow variables" and create two new variable.

• Deparment (type String)
• Approver (type String)

 

 

6.   Insert "Set Variable" action and Choose Departments as Field from Source.

7.  Insert "Set Variable" action and set Approver field. Choose Departments as Data source, then "Find the List Item" Section appears and choose Title as Field, and click Fx button on the right, then choose Workflow Variable "Departmens" as value.

Then the Manager of chosen departments will be set in workflow variable "Approver".




8.  Insert Start Approval Process and set "Task Process Participants" with Workflow Variables:Approver






9.  Set Email Body. You can insert field value from the Item.







10.  Then set the workflow step to as "End of Workflow", and set the Workflow as "Start automatically when new item created". Then save and publish the workflow.


11.  Once new item created, request for Approval email will be sent the the Manager of the Department which requester selected.





 12.  Then Manager can go Approval Page from the link in the email.

MoriApps SimpleWorkflow

About MoriApps SimpleWorkflow

MoriApps SimpleWorkflow is addin for Sharepoint Online and Sharepoint Onpremise which enable for users to easily apply approval process on their exisiting or newly create list. SimpleWorkflow is available in Sharepoint App Store for Sharepoint Online and download available for SandBox solution for both Sharepoint Online and Sharepoint 2013 On-Premise installation.
MoriApps SimpleWorkflow will provide the settings link to the existing List or Document Library, where site owner can choose the simple workflow template which include single or multiple Approval Step, and they can also edit the e-mail Subject and Body.

Intelligent Features

MoriApps SimpleWorkflow has intelligent people picker where site owner can set the approver for each workflows which include direct people picker, people on the current list field, or people in the related field. For example, if your list has "Department" field which is lookup to another list named "Department" where has depatment name as title field and department head as people field, MoriApps SimpleWorkflow will give you to choose this field as Approver ( as well as Email To or Email Cc), on simple select, and workflow will automatically pickup the Department Head from this related list. You do not need to work on Sharepoint Designer to configure the lookup or people with complicated interface and operation.
MoriApps SimpleWorkflow will provide the settings link to the existing List or Document Library, where site owner can choose the simple workflow template which include single or multiple Approval Step, and they can also edit the e-mail Subject and Body.