Question

Workflow act on field changes - compare hidden stamps first?

Workflow Version 10

Updated April 26, 2019

asked on September 26, 2018

Problem with workflows controlling New Mail notifications via shortcuts in our User InBoxes:

WORKING: Workflow is successfully creating shortcuts in User InBoxes when a name is added (picked out of a list) on a multi-value field;
PROBLEM: But we don't want it to create all new shortcuts for every user's name in the multi-value field if, a month later, someone adds another name in the multi-value field. We only want the new person to get a shortcut. The original names already got their shortcuts and may have deleted theirs as they no longer need to deal with that entry.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION?

I'm thinking of having WF add a hidden stamp to the starting entries for every shortcut it gives for these New Mail notifications, and alter the WF so that it will check for the hidden stamps to compare names before creating any new shortcut. The WF would:

Activate upon field changes,
Check the field's current values against the names in the hidden stamps,
and only create a shortcut if it finds a value in the field that doesn't have a matching name in the stamps.

QUESTIONS (regarding WF stamp behaviours):

Is WF going to create a new stamp every time? Is this a problem?
Or is WF going to create it's own stamp and be able to access them for future times with those names? Do we care?
There is an option for Private stamps. Are they private to WF only? I want to be able to see them. How do I access the settings for these stamps so that WF and I can read them, but no one else?

BEST PRACTICES? OTHER OPTIONS?

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Replies

replied on September 26, 2018

Another possible solution is to create an SQL table with an EntryID column and an UserName column. Then have workflow run a query for entryid and loop through the users in the DB. If the name is found, skip it, but if it is not found, create the shortcut and then add the entryid/username to the DB table.

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replied on September 26, 2018 • Show version history

WHAT DIDN'T WORK: While waiting for responses on this one, I decided to go ahead with the testing and discovered that I cannot get workflow to create and use it's own private stamps, even though I opened a LF Client window logging in as the workflow user and created and tested the stamps successfully.

WHAT DID WORK: So, I switched to Text Boxes and this appears to be working. It will not create the shortcut if it finds the "Current Entry" (user names) of the "For Each Value" activity (running through all the user names listed) if it finds the text box with the name in it.

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replied on September 27, 2018

I assume you have individual folder of user where the shortcut is. If you can loop through multi-value field and search for the shortcut based on current row value. If the shortcut does not exists then create and send out notification.

I hope I understood your requirement correct.

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replied on September 27, 2018

Ashish

They said that some users have gotten the shortcut, did their work and removed the shortcut already and they do not want to resend the shortcut to those users. So they can not just loop through and place shortcut where it is missing.

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replied on September 27, 2018 • Show version history

The original workflow did already check for existing shortcuts and successfully NOT create any additional shortcuts. This post was for trying to find a way for workflow to know that even though the shortcut isn't in that user's inbox, we might still NOT WANT one there, because they have already responded and then deleted their shortcut.

The case scenario is for a month down the road. For new mail, an administrator figures out who all needs notice of this new mail. A month down the road, our CAO might decide that someone new needs to view this and add another name to the list.

Thanks for your responses! There have been a lot of posts with people trying to find a solution to not having a way to get the workflow to only activate if a specific field is changed and to only respond regarding the one change. Hopefully, this post will help anyone else looking for a solution.

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replied on April 26, 2019 • Show version history

This workflow is still not perfect for me. It is working, however, I'm finding that a month down the road if someone goes in and adds metadata not related to the New Mail Notifications field, more shortcuts get put into people's user inboxes. Example: Today, I spotted that a document did not have an Employee Name in the field on a WCB Claim letter. I added it. The wf then activated because there was a template change! It then gave shortcuts again to everyone listed in the New Mail Notifications field!

I could alter the workflow and have it check how old the entry is and tell it not to do anything if the document is older than five days. However, that would stop shortcuts being created when someone actually wants one done even though the entry is not really new mail anymore.

I really need Workflow to be able to activate ONLY IF this one field is changed! Doesn't have that ability yet. :(

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Workflow act on field changes - compare hidden stamps first?

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