Item Naming: Known Restrictions and Limitations

KB002544

There are limitations and character restrictions when naming items such as workflows, forms, views, and SmartObjects. Use the information in this article as guide when creating new items in K2 Designer, and when using K2 for SharePoint to create K2 applications in SharePoint.

Workflows

Workflow names are made up of the name you assign to the workflow when creating it, along with the location (category/folder) of where the workflow was created. This name and location are combined to create a Fully Qualified Name (FQN) for the workflow, in the format {Folder}{Name}.

The following known limitations apply when creating and naming workflows:

• The workflow Name cannot exceed 128 characters
• The Folder cannot exceed 248 characters
• The FQN cannot exceed 260 characters.
• You cannot use the following characters when naming your workflow:
  / : * ? " < > , | ( )

When using the K2 for SharePoint app to create workflows, the same restrictions apply, however you may not experience character limits until you attempt to deploy the workflow using the K2 Designer or Package and Deployment. SharePoint-based workflow names are generated as follows:

• Name: {List.Title}{space}Workflow (128 characters maximum). 
  • The default name of the workflow is {List.Title}{space}Workflow (in other words, 9 characters in total are added on after the List Title). You can edit the default name of the workflow in the application page as well as the workflow designer, using the title bar. If you do want to rename your workflow, we recommend doing so before you deploy the workflow for the first time.
• Location: {Site.Title}{space}{List.Title} (248 characters maximum)
• FQN: {Site.Title}{space}{List.Title}{List.Title}{space}Workflow (260 characters maximum)
• You cannot use the following characters when naming your workflow: 
  / : * ? " < > , . | ( )

Forms and Views

SmartForms Form and View names have the following known limitations:

• Form/View Name cannot exceed 200 characters
• No character restrictions apart from carriage returns and newlines ( & ), both of which are converted to newline ( ) characters

SmartObjects

SmartObject names have the following known limitations:

• SmartObject Name cannot exceed 450 characters (but it is recommended that you do not exceed 200 characters)
• You cannot use the following characters when naming your SmartObject:
  # % & * | : ; " / > < ?
• You can use other special characters when naming your SmartObjects, however each special character is converted to underscore (_) for the internal system name.
• Sometimes, the underlying system might use characters or naming not supported by SmartObjects. This can affect behavior when SmartObjects or Service Objects are generated by K2. For example, you might encounter issues when a SharePoint List or Library contains a special character, as described in the article Unable to expand Service Object category when SharePoint List or Library name contains forward slash. In cases like these, you may need to rename the underlying data source's objects to allow the SmartObjects/Service Objects to work as expected.

Resolving Errors due to invalid naming

You may encounter issues due to unsupported naming, for example when deploying workflows. This section describes some issues you may encounter and the proposed workarounds for those issues.

Issue: Workflow name more than 128 characters

You may see the following error when deploying your workflow: "Missing reference at K2Process '{workflow name}'. Error: The value cannot be more than 128 characters in length."

Resolution: Edit the workflow name to make it shorter. In K2 for SharePoint you can use the application page in the list/library, or the workflow designer using the title bar. In K2 Designer, use the title bar to change the workflow name. For considerations when renaming a deployed workflow, see the Help topic Rename a Workflow.

Issue: Folder name more than 248 characters or FQN more than 260 characters

You may see the following error when deploying your workflow: "The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters."

Resolution: The path name for a workflow is always inferred or generated based on where the workflow is created and cannot be changed in K2. When using K2 for SharePoint, you must change either the Site or List Title (or both) in SharePoint to make sure that the generated Path name is less than 248 characters and that the Fully Qualified Name is less than 260 characters. When building a workflow directly in K2 Designer, you can rename or re-structure the folder where the workflow exists to avoid exceeding the character limits.