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Sometimes, you have a need to pull back a date from Active Directory to use in your workflow. Maybe you're querying for Account Expiration dates, or maybe you want to know when that employee last logged in. And maybe you need to store that in a column for some reason. If that's the case, then you'll be met with a bit of grief.   Active Directory has decided, for whatever reason, that 100-nanoseconds is the super cool way to store a date/time.  And SharePoint does not care for that. It would much prefer that you give it a format it understands, if you wish to view it as a date. But, using the action Query Excel Services in our workflow, we can get a readable date.  It's super simple -- the workflow, not the math -- (and I'm a workflow person not a math person) -- so let's dive right in. The formula in Excel to convert the returned Active Directory time into a Date looks like this: (Where A1 = the cell containing your timestamp) =IF(A1>0,A1/(8.64*10^11) - 109205,"")Source: TechNet  1)

In my environment we are using host named site collections for a service that we offer to our clients. Each client has their own site collection and for security and data isolation we use dedicated content databases for both the SP and the Nintex databases. Occasionally a workflow or two will start acting wonky (usually after we upgrade our 3rd party software that we use Nintex to interact with). With over 160 clients you can imagine that it can be more than a couple having trouble and while we do get notified when workflows fail, sometimes a failing workflow is elusive. That's where PowerShell comes in. It may be possible to do this via CSOM but I've not experimented with that much. Using CSOM would let you write a script on your desktop and run it against your farm. It really depends on your permissions. The trick to finding these workflows is looking at the workflows that are running on an item. Workflows in our environment run against SPItems though we also have a few that run on S

Dear all:It's a simple workaround to assign a temporary "unique" value to an element before create it in the list. When you are creating an new element using Nintex Forms, you don't have the "ID" value until you "save" the element the first time. Imagine you want to link some child list elements before save the parent element the first time. You need the parent element "primary key" to link with the child, commonly the "ID"(Check Forms: Parent / Child structure using List view Control to know how to link a parent element with a child elements in a separate list) I don't know how to generate a "unique value" into Nintex Forms in a easy way , so the workaround could be to generate a temporary "ID" as a "fake unique value"   to assign to the new child items. Then, when you save the parent element and run the workflow, it could re-assign the "ID" just created to the child elements,  getting the child list items in a collection variable, looking for the elements with the "fake unique value"

Scenario: I want to query items that were modified in the last 7 calendar days. How can I query the list to return record IDs: 208, 209, 210Here with alternatives/tricky solution in creating your workflow.First solution:1. Go to workflow designer, drag Calculate date action:2. Configure the Calculate date as below: 3. Pass the Data and time variable in Query List action: Second solution:1. Before creating your workflow, go to your list setting and create a new column (Calculated type) named “Last 7 Days” and formula as "=[Modified]+7" Note: If you want Date range of 2 days, then you can + 2.  2. After that, the column will be auto shown in your list with formatted value.Note: The Modified column is auto updated if any changes to the item, the new column that been created will be auto updated as well. Both are not editable. 3. Go to Nintex workflow designer, drag the action Query List and create a “Today date” variable by click on Variables option from Query List action’s ribbon.4. Cli

Recently I started playing around with the nintex O365 workflow rest api (http://help.nintex.com/en-us/sdks/sdko365/). Although not everything is possible (as saving new workflows), because web request action does not support passing of binary strings and cuts off null bits (0x00), so the passed file is found by the API as incorrect BUT first thing I faced during my exercise was: HOW TO OBTAIN FedAuth security cookie? I read articles, reviewed stackoverflow forums and similar looking for an answer how to achieve it using JavaScript. I was a bit upset with the results but then I found this precious article: Remote authentication in SharePoint Online | … And All That JS and everything went clear on how to obtain the cookie inside Nintex Workflow  The following post is showing how to obtain 3 important security variables, that SharePoint requires from requester to "trust":fedauth cookie rtfa cookie requestdigest token Security Cookies First, the cookies. To get them I must simulate authen

You can access to the workflow Service Health on this page >>> "/_layouts/15/WorkflowServiceHealth.aspx" , and you will see the current status including the workflow queue length. Then you will see a table with the columns:Workflow name Started Suspended Canceled Terminated Completed Total , showing the number of those status   Also you can click on the information button  and will see Details of this specific workflow, showing the Most recent update and also a link to Terminate all instances of the workflow.

Nintex Forms allows a Forms Designer to set conditional formatting and validation within their task form using the outcome values (Approve, Reject and the other custom outcomes) the form designer may have made in the Flexi-task action. For information on how to configure the Formatting Rule, please read the following post: Using validation rules to ensure a comments box is not left empty However, one question that comes up is, why is the Formatting/Validation rule written around an outcome equaling a number and not the value 'Approve' or 'Reject'? For example, in a Nintex Task Form, you may see a Validation or Formatting Rule that looks like this: Well, what is the '1' that we are talking about?  Why not the term 'Approve'? In the Nintex Workflow Config database, you will find a table called 'dbo.ConfiguredOutcomes'. That table stores the Id as well as the associated Name for the outcomes used in the 'Decision' control of the Nintex Task Form. When writing a Formatting/Validation rule

Electronic Signature can greatly speed up those processes which rely on a signature and where waiting for a wet signature can add days, often weeks to that process such as contract and invoice generation.  Leveraging the data captured from an initial Nintex form passed into Nintex Workflow, no longer do we need to duplicate recipient and initiation information, and thanks to the Nintex Document Generation action, we don't even need to update a standard document each time. We can keep that template secure in a centralised SharePoint location without the risk of end users editing the source of truth.Adobe provides the entire signing platform and handles the whole process securely online. Coming to Nintex Workflow for Office 365 on the June release is the Adobe Sign action:The Adobe Sign action is the perfect partner to the Nintex Document Generation action in Workflow for Office 365, for more information on that, see Dan Stoll introduction post at https://community.nintex.com/community/t

Over the last few weeks Nintex has been talking about and showing a new Enterprise service called Nintex Hawkeye. Nintex Hawkeye gives you an unprecedented view into your process portfolio enabling you to monitor your business, get answers quickly and make informed decisions. Businesses can use Nintex Hawkeye to identify which processes yield the best business results and target those that are ripe for improvement. Nintex Hawkeye brings a new generation of analytics for human-centric processes, the people who use them, and the content they create. A key aspect to this capability is the Nintex Hawkeye Process Intelligence lens. The Process could be 1 or more workflows across multiple system, that contribute to a single "Process". With the Process Intelligence Lens, we want to dive into the information, not just about the workflow/s but also the context information that is involved as well. The first thing you need to do to get the ball rolling is to decorate the workflow. Now by decorat

I have a partner asking how to bring the URL of an attachment from a list item to the task form, allowing the approver to click the url to open the attachment. I recalled something I have done before which I haven't got a chance to blog it for sharing. So, here I am trying to extract part of the previously done workflow that is relevant for the objective of the discussed topic - "Assigning the attachment URL to a column of the same list item". 1. In the solution, I have a list with a column named "PictureUrl" (i.e. Single line of text) as shown in below diagram (i.e. this column is what I will need to store the attachment URL). 2. Upon the form saved, a workflow will be triggered to perform series of actions, I am capturing only the main logic here that are relevant to the objective of updating the list item with the attachment Url. The workflow starts with the below actions and its respective configuration as shown in the table followed:Workflow Action Configuration  

IssueI just discovered that renaming a repeating section on a form is not something that you should do if you already have items submitted into a list. Below is what the repeating section looked like originally.And this is what was displayed after I changed the name of the repeating section and re-published. RecoveryThe fix is to change the repeating section back to its original name. After doing that, the contents displayed correctly once again. So, if you (or someone else on your team) renames a repeating section, please be sure to capture its original name before you publish the change.

In this blog post I'd like to show how you can use the data submitted by Hawkeye beacons to create meaningful Power BI dashboards.  The emphasis being on pivoting the table data to use the beacon properties as columns. Before you create a Nintex Hawkeye Process Lens, you need to add some beacons to the processes you want to analyse.  These process beacons will log additional data and properties about the item based on what business rules were applied by the workflow.  In my example, I transmit the following properties using workflow beacons:Buyer Name City Country Purchase Classification Gender Purchase Amount Requested Discount Percentage Discount Amount Discount Applied Approval Status Once my workflow is running, Nintex records all this process beacon data and allows me to create a process lens in Hawkeye and export the Power BI template to Power BI Desktop.  For more information on how to do this, see Dan Stoll's blog post on Getting Started with a Nintex Hawkeye Process Intelligen

Nintex Forms 2013, Nintex Forms 2010If your SharePoint farm is enabled for Nintex Live access to Nintex Mobile, then users can register with Nintex Live​ for remote access to Nintex Mobile. When a user registers with Nintex Live, a Microsoft account is associated with the user’s SharePoint account. By default, new Microsoft account associations are enabled for access to Nintex Mobile. For information on enabling Nintex Live access to Nintex Mobile, see the installation guide (2013 | 2010). Steps for managing remote users (Microsoft accounts)This section describes how to view, enable, disable, and reset Microsoft account associations for your SharePoint farm.To view Microsoft account associationsOn the Central Administration Home page, click Nintex Forms Management. On the Nintex Forms Management page, click Manage Live Mobile Users. The page lists all SharePoint accounts on the farm that have associated Microsoft accounts.To enable Microsoft accountsAccess the Manage Nintex Live Mobile

Question: I would like to have a repeating section in my leave request form that contains 4 fields.  When I put the fields into the repeating section, the fields lose their link to the list columns in SharePoint.  Could you direct me to a video or send me some documentation on setting up repeating sections?  Also, is it possible to have each repeating section create a new entry into the SharePoint List? I’m going to be build 3 separate forms (leave request, compensatory leave earned, and overtime earned) that are attached to 3 separate lists in SharePoint.  Can one workflow be configured to process items from all 3 lists? Answer:  For question 1, they can extract the information from the repeating section using a workflow then use that workflow to push the information in to a separate list.  I’ve included links below for the process to extract the data and a help files reference for the O365 create item action. Extract Data from Repeating Section: http://vadimtabakman.com/nintex-workfl

This post intends to show printing correctly filled out Nintex forms without validation error summary messages and highlighted fields. Nintex form validation warnings were still visible when I printed the successfully validated form that pictured below.  I have added the lines of JQuery codes that before the window.print() call listed below.        NWF$('.nf-validation-summary').css('display','none');       NWF$('.nf-error-highlight').removeClass('nf-error-highlight'); Finally, I have printed the correctly submitted form without any validation warning on the printout that shown below. 

Question:  Can I use “Is Edit Mode” to lock a form during editing? For example – someone submits the form and the workflow sends it to a group for review – group is Reviewer A, Reviewer B, Reviewer C. If Reviewer A opens the form can it be locked so Reviewers B and C cannot not edit it simultaneously. Answer:  Because there is no Check In / Check Out functionality on SharePoint lists, this one would need to get a bit creative.  There are a couple of ways you can go about it, but this is the way I would set it up: Create two additional columns in the list “Check Out” (with option for Checked-In or Checked-Out) and “Checked Out To” (people or group) Create a calculated value control on the form and connect it to the “Checked Out To” control, and set the formula to “Current User” Add a save and continue button (can be renamed check in /check out) Create a Disable rule and apply it to the Save and Continue button and the “Check Out” control. The formula will be targeting If the control is

This month marks a new milestone for Nintex as we introduce Nintex Document Generation for O365. Personally I am super excited about this. For years I've built workflows and then had to craft something to wrap the outputs up in nice way. Now in office 365 land with the absence of Sharepoint Word Services in O365, crafting that output document has become that much harder. With the rollout of the next version of Nintex Workflow for O365, all Nintex O365 customers will get Document generation action with some trial Doc Gens right out of the box.  Let me introduce this new capability by way of a story............... As a Business Analyst for Crestan, I need to create a solution that allows Safety Inspectors to fill in a form on their mobile. The inspection information not only needs to come back into SharePoint but it also needs to be presented into PDF format to be archived. First thing we need to do is create the list and build out the form and mobile application..Now because this has be

(Community manager's note: If you'd like to learn about the value of Workflow Constants, please see Tomasz's post in the Nintex Product Blog‌: Did You Know: Workflow Constants ) There are a lot of challenges when migrating Nintex from on premise to Office 365, even using Sharegate to help you. The most important one in case of Workflow Constants is… there is no such feature available in Nintex Workflow for Office 365 at all. And that basically means migrating them requires many manual operations. When attempting to do a migration with Sharegate, application will show you all the issues it finds in the process, also telling you, that you do have Workflow Constants used by your workflow that are not supported in migration. Workflow will be migrated, however won’t be published, as it contains references to variables not defined in target environment. To overcome it, the best way is to create (depending on the scope of your variables) in a current Web or Site, a dedicated “WorkflowConstant

After running into a few issues or errors while building workflows, I wanted to start documenting my resolution to those errors. Almost all were errors that I caused. The trick was determining what I did. I will try to add to this list as they come up, but here is the first one. Error publishing workflow. Workflow XAML failed validation due to the following errors: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. HTTP headers received from the server - ActivityId: a41a30d5-c786-4546-bdde-e03903af1796. NodeId: . Scope: . Client ActivityId : ede2f19c-7043-1000-b4b2-37a9eab76b50. The remote server returned an error: (400) Bad Request. This error occurred when I was publishing a workflow. The background to this workflow is that I exported it from one site and attempted to import it to another site. I thought I had the field names exactly the same from the source list to the destination list, but I didn't. One field was Employee Id in the source list and EmployeeID in the destination l

Sweat drips steadily from your brow as your deadline draws near; months of hard work are moments from fruition, and all that is needed now is your client's signature. Just as you prepare to send them the fruits of your labor, you receive an error: “One or both Username or Password are Invalid”. All the more maddening is that you just confirmed your DocuSign login credentials! While undoubtedly frustrating, this is also an easily resolvable issue, obfuscated by the fact that it's technically neither your username or password causing the error, but mismatched API keys.  In order to resolve, the issue, you'll need to open both your DocuSign Account page, as well as your Drawloop Admin Third Party Integrations screen. 1-Open the DocuSign Admin site. You can navigate here by opening "DocuSign for Salesforce"-->"DocuSign Admin"--> "DocuSign". Once you select "DocuSign", you will be taken to your DocuSign page. In the top right corner, select "Go To Admin".2-On the left hand side, selec

For those of us who tried or in the process of evaluating integrating Nintex Workflow Cloud into your solution(s), eventually you will get to the question "Why should I integrate Nintex Workflow Cloud?" especially if you code your solution from scratch using platform such as .NET or Java, writing code will be the default way to support any business logic or process(es) of the solution you are building with such platform. Here is my two cents worth for that question. Before we get into discussing why, let us get few more examples here. Take another solution platform for the same question - Sharepoint, which is considered as COTS (i.e. commercial out of the box solution) for intranet/collaboration portal. We do not expect lot of coding or customization, by default Sharepoint supports document management with its content type of Document Library, supports creating of custom records using Custom List, when come to automating a document or record created in Sharepoint, it is not going to be

Nintex is becoming ubiquitous in the global IT landscape as adoption increases in their cloud offerings building on top of their highly successful on-premises solutions. Because of this, knowledge of good workflow design and development practices specific to Nintex is paramount.Here below is a short list of key tips to help optimize performance and maintainability of your solutions. Tip #1 - Use Workflow ConstantsOne of the best features with Nintex on-premises is their ability to store credentials for a service account as a workflow constant. When a credential has been created, you can use those credentials without having to know the name and password of the account. The credentials are stored in the Nintex Workflow configuration database and are encrypted with DES encryption. Workflow constants can be created at the Site, Site Collection, or Farm level. You can see how it gets setup in the image below.To use a stored credential, simply click on the 'Select credentials' lock icon and

Video Link : 1353 Hi All! Wanted to do a quick walkthrough on how Reusable Workflow Templates work within Nintex Workflow for SharePoint. Hope this helps in your workflow designing, and if you have any questions, please shoot me a message, or post it in the comments below. Also check out my other videos over on my site Working On It! As a note:  

I had this question asked to me about permissions for Office 365. I found this very helpful table in the O365 help guide​. So if someone asks you, just toss this into an email.This topic lists the minimum permissions required for operations with Nintex Workflow for Office 365.Operation Minimum permissions Install Nintex Workflow for Office 365 Site collection administrator Open the Nintex Workflow designer List: Full control Site: Read Site collection: Read Publish a workflow List: Full control Site: Design Run a workflow List: Contribute Site: Contribute

I am going to demonstrate a Production Planning process that is powered by Nintex Workflow in this blog post. Before we get further into the production planning process, let us recap what we have gone through together in my previous sharing in Part 1 of GKK Compressor Industry (i.e. RFQ to Quotation process). In the Sales and Marketing division, Product Catalog is being used to create RFQ, which in turn generates quotations issued to customers. Every quotation issued to customer updates the Sales Forecast with the increased number of compressor model to be delivered. Being a Lean Manufacturing, Production Planning is crucial to GKK Compressor Industry, the critical success factor is produced only what is needed to be delivered on time. It keeps no unnecessary inventory to minimize the waste of inventory space. Tentative Production Plan is always three months ahead of current month, helps the Procurement to keep the Material Management efficient, knowing what material and quantity of ma