Nintex Automation K2: Back to basics
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Over the last couple weeks, a few customers have asked how to access the Nintex Live actions for O365. Here is a short tutorial on how to do so. What is Nintex Live? Workflow action that uses the Nintex Live service. Connects to an internet-based application exposing web service APIs for public or contracted consumption. Examples: Google Drive download file, Dropbox query files. How do you access Live actions on O365?To add actions to your toolbox from the Nintex Store In the Nintex Workflow designer, click Store in the ribbon. For instructions on accessing Nintex Workflow designer, see Accessing the Nintex Workflow designer. http://help.nintex.com/en-US/O365/Default.htm#O365WorkFlow/Creating%20workflows/Accessing the Nintex Workflow designer.htmThe Nintex Store dialog box appears. Search and browse: To search for an action or pack, type in the search box and then press ENTER. To browse packs, click the categories under the search box. Clicking a category filters the displa
The other day I thought I'd have a bit of a play with the Amazon button I ordered AWS IoT Button and since I had been testing out the Nintex Workflow Cloud Advance Preview, 'External Start feature'. Why not try and hook them up. There was a bit of a learning curve here as I had never used AWS at all. For this blog post, I'm not going to go into too much depth here as to be honest, I'm pretty sure I didn't do everything right I just fudged my way around until I got something to work.. Who needs instructions ? Right !! lol .. What I'm playing on doing is to execute a Nintex Workflow Cloud workflow by pushing an AWS button. There a nu,mber of possible scenarios for this, but for my example I'm just going to have a workflow run and send me an email.. Before we dive into AWS and the IoT button, we need to setup a workflow inNintex Workflow Cloud that has an external start end point configured. For the rest of this post, I'm going to refer to Nintex Workflow Cloud as NWC.. Log into your
So, we all know that it is possible to start a workflow externally. (Thanks to Eric Harris Externally start Nintex workflows in seconds with Zapier!)The other day I was thinking of: How cool would it be, to start a workflow with a proper button?After a short research, I ordered two buttons from bt.tn. They are fully supported by Zapier so in no time I had my first (by a button startable) workflow. Ok, geek stuff. But what can they be used for in a real life scenario? I am thinking of task list, where new tasks aren't assigned to anyone. With one push, a workflow assigns a task to the initiator.Or let's assume you have a single site-workflow to terminate several different workflows. One push and you are done. (You probably use a big red button for that right!?) I know there are some really creative community members out there. Please share your ideas with me! I am curious to know what you would automate with just one button.
This is probably not news to many on here, but for those un-initiated in some of SharePoint quirks, I present the famous "Calculated Column" trick. Do you want a really easy way to render a piece of HTML in a dataview on your SharePoint list or library? Then here you go.Create a Calculated column that looks a little something like this Be sure to select anything OTHER THAN "Single line of text" Your formula should look a little something like this="<a href='www.google.co.uk'>Click Here to Approve</a>" You can in fact use this for an number of other functions including Concatenates and IF's, for more details check out this link. SharePoint will render this HTML as a clickable link for your users. "What's the Nintex angle?" I hear you ask. Well by creating a column called Approval URL or WorkflowMapURL and using the Nintex common properties to write to that column, you can then include that URL as your hyperlink, thus giving your users a link to the approval task straight fr
We want to make it as easy as possible for you to automate your processes. And with automating processes comes the need to support the work habits of different users. Imagine you can create apps that let you interact with your business process without writing a single line of code. Imagine you can distribute those apps without going through the (sometimes) lengthy process of distributing them via a mobile device management (MDM) platform. Enter Nintex Mobile Enterprise and it's newest feature, App Deploy. I can hear some people ask, what's App Deploy? It's most commonly known as over the air deployment/programming. I won't get into much detail but if you are interested in the topic, you can read up here. In a nutshell, partners and customers don't have to have an MDM anymore. All you need is love...and Nintex Mobile Enterprise...App distribution works via a link that you send to your end users. App Deploy currently supports iOS and Android, with Windows to follow soon. Let's take a tou
Currently in Nintex Forms for Office 365 you cannot open old form versions as you can on the on-premise version.While we wait for this feature I want to share how me and my team work with forms while we are sharing it.We opened on the designer the same form with different users (User1 and User2) and made changes and then User1 published changes and then User2 published the other changes.Finally we saw that the last published form is the current version without the User1 's changes.Although we imagined that result, the Nintex designer does not show any message for the form opened at the same time or that another user made changes. With that said, we decided to implement a simple idea that is helping us without losing changes of another designer/developer/user on the form design. The simple idea is: - Add a label on the right upper corner of the form-When the form is opened by an user, we set the convention to edit that label and set it with something like this: "I am User1 and started e
*not all of course, but how about one with dynamic forms, flexible stages and no restarting should you make a change to the workflow or stage? I won't be showing all the detail in this post but hopefully enough if you want to start playing. The following came about after an instruction to build a form to go through multiple stages. Early on, it became apparent that a lot of the text on buttons, emails and stages would be constantly changed and tweaked. So I had an idea for using a lookup list that the workflow would use to see what stage the form was at, the stage name, who owned it, relevant email text, form button text and what stage was next. This gave me the flexibility of quickly changing a large amount of text the workflow and forms use, without having to make changes to forms or the workflow. The list to be used to store all of the items is connected to the lookup stage list by way of a normal lookup field. Note I have created a central top site list to hold the stage info. By
There are so many applications to using the Nintex Mobile App. You can create items from forms, respond to tasks. Then we were given Mobile Enterprise to create our own apps with specified forms. To add to this we learned how to link directly to a form on our mobile app using the methods described in Dude you're so deep, Nintex Mobile deep linking that is.. As seen in the details of the help documentation, Nintex mobile linking uses the format nintexmobile://[{ACTION}][?{PARAMETERS}] You can build Nintex Mobile links that perform the following functions.Form navigation: Display a specific form in Nintex Mobile. Authentication: Launch Nintex Mobile with pre-populated authentication fields. Use Nintex Mobile links to ease deployment of Nintex Mobile in your organization.Customers and employees can quickly access forms with form navigation-enabled links. They don't have to remember the form name or location. All they need to do is tap or click the link on their mobile device and then sig
Still using Lotus Notes? Interested in Migrating to SharePoint? Watch my () interview with Brad Orluk to learn more about why companies are wanting to migrate away from Lotus Notes, obstacles in migrating form Lotus Notes, tools to help migrate, and so much more.. Video Link : 1298
When you build a workflow on a SharePoint list, you can configure it to start manually. That means you click on the item you want the workflow to run on, select Workflows from the drop down menu, click on the workflow and then you click the "Start" button to start an instance of that workflow. If you have start form workflow variables, then this makes sense. But if you have no start form variables, it seems like it'd be nice to just click the name of the workflow and it just starts the workflow. To get this to work, we are using Nintex Forms with Nintex Workflow. When you have your workflow design open, in the ribbon, click on Workflow Settings. When that pops up, click the drop down called "Edit Task Form" and then select "Edit with Nintex Forms". We aren't going to do anything with the form design, because the plan is to not really see it.When the Form designer comes up, click on Form Settings and expand the Custom Javascript section. The Javascript is below. NWF$(document).rea
I recently had a requirement where I had two lookup fields on my Nintex Form where one had to be filtered by the other, and both had to allow multiple selection.I thought that this was going to be really difficult to implement, and was using all sorts of disconnected controls in order to try and achieve the result, and then I discovered that Nintex Forms just works when you use list column types "Lookup".Wanted to share with everyone how powerful this was, and hoped it may help with this thread:https://community.nintex.com/message/45415?et=watches.email.thread#comment-45415 So I have the following lists:Custom List: luDivisionsFields: TitleCustom List: luBusinessUnitsFields: Title, Parent DivisionParent Division = Lookup to luDivisions:Title Finally I have my main list, where I want to use the Nintex Form to capture data:Custom List: Demo LookupsFields: Title, Division(s), Business Unit(s)Division(s) = Lookup to luDivisions:Title, allow multipleBusiness Unit(s) = Lookup to luBusi
If you've ever thought -- "Could I kickoff a Nintex workflow from... " -- then now's the time to start generating external start URLs and connecting your workflows to the Nintex Zap. You can connect your site workflows to Nintex accounts in Zapier and trigger those from the 200+ SaaS connections they have available. Save time, save resources and save your sanity by externally starting your workflows without writing a single line of code or reading some API documentation. Sounds exciting eh! Keep reading on how you can implement this today! Dan Stoll wrote a blog about the release of the External Start feature that allows you to create a REST endpoint for your workflow which then allows you to kick it off outside of SharePoint. This means you can interact other systems/platforms such as SAP, Salesforce, Twitter, Swagger, Slack, Box, Zapier and more to start kicking off your on-premises workflows. How awesome is this? The real benefit is seen when you connect the systems and workflows in
A bit over a year ago, we released Nintex Mobile Enterprise as was written about by Brad Orluk. At it's core what it allowed customers to achieve was simple branding and deployment options for their Nintex Mobile Apps. Over the year, we've listened to our customers and continued to innovate, with a steady pace of improvements. This latest release, however, is significant and an opportunity to give the service a new name.. So without further adieu I introduce you to Nintex App Studio. Nintex App Studio is the next generation of Nintex Mobile. Whilst Nintex Mobile still remains available to the relevant app store. Nintex App Studio goes beyond the free app, allowing to you:brand, using out of the box templates or bring your own colours.. Automatically preview how your App will lookCustomize what forms to include or filter out Specify one or many platform accounts to use, including the new Nintex Workflow Cloud which will be available for Pick and choose which platforms you want to deplo
In SharePoint 2007 it was fairly easy to obtain the id for a list (the end of a URL when browsing to a list). In SharePoint 2010/2013 this trick no longer works. Below are several methods to quickly obtain the list id: Method A Navigate to the list and click Workflow Settings dropdown. Select Manage Workflows With Nintex Workflow. In the browser address bar at the end of the URL you will find the list id (Guid Format). Example: http://contoso.com/_layouts/15/NintexWorkflow/WorkflowGallery.aspx?ListId={00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} Method B Navigate to the list and click List Settings. In the browser address bar at the end of the URL you will find the list id (Guid Format with URL encoding). Example: http://contoso.com/_layouts/15/listedit.aspx?List=%7B00000000%2D0000%2D0000%2D0000%2D000000000000%7D Replace the following characters as follows: %7B to { %2D to – %7D to } Method C Open Microsoft SharePoint Management Shell on a SharePoint server in the far
I got super lazy today, and recorded a video rather than do the screen shot and typing thing... Enjoy and happy holidays..
There are a number of ways to have a Nintex Workflow start in a SharePoint 2010 or 2013 environment. Manual StartIn the Workflow Settings, you can also check the box for "Start Manually". This gives users the ability to click on an item, select Workflows, and select the workflow they want to start. This gives them a nice graphical view of the workflow they are going to start. In case you need it, it will also give them a form to fill in, if that workflow has some Start Form variables. This behavior is the same for both List/Library workflows and Site workflows. Event Driven List/Library WorkflowThe most common way to have your workflow start, is to set it to be event driven.The two events that are supported, are On Created and On Modified. Regardless of whether you have a List workflow or a Document Library workflow, if one of those items/documents is created or modified, it will kick off a workflow.The image above shows the workflow settings of a workflow. You'll notice that the "
For those of you in the 2016 world, or getting ready the migration.. The Hawkeye team released the 2016 data collector last night .. This joins the existing 2013 connector and will in the future join O365 also. For those of you who are trying to figure what I'm actually talking about.. Nintex Hawkeye is better explained here What's New From Nintex - Nintex Hawkeye! with further in depth detail here Getting Started with a Nintex Hawkeye Process Intelligence Lens.. If you are using Hawkeye or currently evaluating it, be sure to upgrade your existing 2013 data collector as well. As there have been some enhancements and fixes release as well.The Release notes can be found here Nintex Hawkeye - Release Notes Happy Days, Dan..
Hi all, today I've discovered a very interesting setting in Global Settings section in Nintex Workflow Central Administration and I want to share it with you . The setting is called Task form properties view and "Workflow Task View" is the default value, that you change if you want.. This is the name of the view that specify which properties are shown in a default task form, if you don't have a view named like that, then all the properties will be shown (it's the most common scenario I've seen). If you create or edit such view, you can choose what you want to show or hide in task, so that user doesn't see all the "hidden" fields you can have in your list/library that are useful for the workflow but not for him/her.. Unfortunately this settings is global for all the farm and if you want to have different view for different tasks that run on the same list/library, you can't .. if you think this could be an interesting feature, I've also created a request on uservoice: Move Task form pro
Problem:Think about a situation where authorised user can view, add and delete the attachments and unauthorised user can only view the attachments inside a form. They will not have any rights to Add or delete any attachments from the listing. You can think that it could be easily handled by NINTEX rules. Yes, off course but there is a problem. The unauthorised user can download and view the attachments in IE but they can’t download or view from Chrome and Firefox. And yes I found it’s true when I was doing my last project. So how to download and make viewable to all the attachments to all unauthorised users from Chrome and Firefox browser restricting them to add and delete any more. Let’s see… You can think the File attachment control has two sections inside in it(for sake of understanding right now). One is the name of the file where it gets displayed after uploading and the second one is comprised of two buttons i.e. ‘Delete’ and ‘Add’.Putting the NINTEX rule to File Attachment cont
Workflow Designer Print Zoom to view Reporting and Management User-based workflow tracking Summary statistics, reports, and charts Individual workflow history & verbose logging Log in the history list User access control Workflow change approval Logic and Flow Action set Filter, switch action User interaction Delegate workflow task Approval, review, and multi-outcome tasks Email based natural language approval String operations Site, Libraries and Lists Create/delete sites and site collections Check In/Check Out/Cancel Check Out on items Create list Set approval status Customization & Re-Use Content Types, User defined actions Custom c
Recently we had the problem that workflows stuck on iterating state machines, pause for...-actions, etc. The WFE's owstimer.exe ran continously on 25% by occupying about 330 MB and the workflow timerjobs were displayed stuck on 0% on running jobs page in central administration.By doing the steps in the blogpost https://community.nintex.com/community/build-your-own/blog/2015/08/26/tracking-and-resolving-stuck-workflow-timer-jobs#c… by Andrew Beals I could find the responsible workflow which was a running instance containing a state machine that had two identical named states as you can see here: I have no idea how the workflow designer did that, maybe by renaming and moving the states around at the same time.If published and running, this workflow seems to produce an infinite loop inside the workflow timerjob.I could delete the workflow instance on list's Workflows / Remove Workflows-page:
Hi Nintex Community,This summer I was able to go to Anacortes near the Orcas Island in Washington State and climb Mount Eerie. It is the tallest point on Fidalgo Island at a towering 1,273 feet. But instead, I spent most of my time wading into the Nintex Forms/Workflow 2013 SDK and Nintex Forms/Workflow 0365 API to work on some walkthroughs that will provide step-by-step instructions on export and publishing workflows and forms, designing your own custom workflow actions, and creating custom form controls.Over the next month, I will post the results of this effort. This will include the following walkthroughs: Use of the Nintex Workflow and Forms 0365 API to export and publish workflow and forms using Postman (a REST client). Probably the most complex part of the Nintex 0365 API is getting all the information you need to execute the call in order. This walkthrough lies out that parts, and then shows you how to contact your list to grab the Form XML, and then how to take your Form XML
FORMATTING AN HTML EMAIL WITH LIST ITEMS USING NINTEX “CALL WEB SERVICE” There are a few to many different ways to accomplish this, and I assume as long as you know how to use a Web Service, you can somewhat figure out how to do the same thing as what I’m about to show you even if you don’t own Nintex. I’ve always wanted to be able to do this and had some requirements given to me that required it. It took a lot of research and I combined a few different ways noted by other bloggers. I also had to research and find some specifics for myself. Hopefully this will help someone out.CALL WEB SERVICESo, what you are going to want to do is…Create a site workflow in Nintex. Add a “Call web service” action In the URL add, “Web URL/_vti_bin/Lists.asmx” For the UN and PW – Use an account that has administrative rights and a non-expiring pw/account Click “Refresh” Web method drop down should’ve populated. Select – “GetListItems” Change the editor mode to “SOAP editor” – I haven’t had much luck with
As a current Nintex Account Manager for the East Coast, I receive a lot of customer questions, because I am the first line of defense for a lot of their concerns. Our Support team handles the majority of the issues, but for the rare few that are not support related, I do my best to leverage the resources I have around me to answer their questions. This blog post below is in regards to the functionality of our current Forms product, and it's differences to InfoPath, as asked by a customer in the insurance industry. Nintex does not seem to support multiple views to view the same fields in different arrangements. To implement it in Nintex, we need to create hidden sections using panel controls or tabs. I am not sure if that type of implementation method can create long delays when loading forms with large number of controls and rules into a single view. Not necessarily, it depends on the number of controls. Make sure to test your Form before you put anything into production. Best Pract
I was asked a lot in the past, since in Sharepoint by default supports creation of workflows to support business process automation, why is there a need to consider Nintex Workflow? In this write up, I am trying to revisit the approaches and steps involved in Sharepoint workflows. With the summary on that, I am hoping to identify key challenges one might face, or benefits one could get if Nintex is in place for the same purpose. Let's revisit the approaches in implementing workflow in default Sharepoint environment. To simplify, I grouped the approaches into three as summarized in the table below: Approach Description Tool Out-of-the-box (OOB)Workflows Automate common business tasks such as getting approval or collecting feedback on documents Within Sharepoint environment via browser Custom Workflows Define from scratch with customer business process logic or states. Opportunity to assign own workflow actions that are made avail
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