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Greetings. We are creating an approval workflow for Time-Off Requests. The workflow will be applied to a calendar in each Unit's sub-site of the Division's parent site. As our Exchange environment does not have the Manager field populated, we have a Contact list in the parent site that contains each worker and their manager. Rather than create a Contacts list for each site and have to maintain them, we would like to reference the Contact list in the parent site in each of the sub-site worklows.

I found a tutorial on how to use CAML in the Query List Action, but am having trouble figuring out how to form the query to retrieve the Manager of the person requesting time off. Here is the tutorial: Nintex Workflow – Query a List in Another Site - SharePoint Blog. The tutorial helps, but I need to retrieve the name of The Manger from the list when the RequestorName from the Calendar list matches the Name of teh Worker in the Contact list.

In any event, any help on how to accomplish retrieving teh Manager Name of a Worker from a list in another site would be helpful. Thanks.

James,

The biggest issue is that you are creating a custom solution to something that should be automated. 

Hard way but doable with a central managers list.

Step 1: Create a variable to capture the user name (worker)

Step 2: Query the list identify the worker in the list

Step 3: Store the output of the query to including the Managers Name from the Collection variable called Manager

Step 4: Use the Manager variable to assign a task or whatever is needed.

Easy Way using AD with Manager Name field in....

Step 1. Create a variable called WorkerManager and set it to person or group type.

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Step 2. Select the value "Workflow Context" then choose "Manager Name" from the drop down.

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By doing this you can capture the managers name for the person running the workflow.

Hope that helps.

Eric

Hi Eric,

Very helpful. Agreed that using the Manager field from Exchange would be a layup, unfortunately there are no plans in our organization for updating and then maintaining this data.

The "hard way" you descirbe is what I am looking for. However, I am very new to Nintex Workflow and need a little more detail on the steps required.

We are already using a Set Variable action to retrieve the Display Name of the Requestor to use it throught the workflow where the full name needs to be included in an email and calendar entry. Could I use that same action for Step 1?

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Thanks, Jay.

Yes you could, the other thought on that would be to store the user name for easier filtering in the lookup, then grab the email address stored in the list.

The conflict comes in that the query list cannot pull people ID values, but plain text, so in using it, you would end up having to pull the plain text (email address), store that as a variable, then use that variable to email or assign a task to.  The email address is important because without it you wont be able to notify anyone.

Thanks again for the help. Although I understnad the concept, I do not know the detailed steps involved.

James, I assume you are on SharePoint 2013.  Care to share your export your workflow and upload it here? 

‌ did you find a solution in the end?

Yes. We populated the Manager field in AD. Thanks.

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