News and Guidelines

Introduction & BackgroundAll the blogs in this series were inspired by an internal use case that I worked on a few months ago. The licensing software for Nintex RPA did not have any API for workflow to attach onto, so all automation needed to happen through the user interface. Using a combination of Nintex RPA, Nintex Workflow Cloud and Forms, we automated the trial provisioning process from start to finish. A user can now fill out a form online, which starts the workflow. The Nintex Workflow Cloud workflow takes the user’s input, and uses the Document Generation action to produce an Excel file. That Excel file is dropped into a cloud drive, such as OneDrive, for Nintex RPA to pick up and process. Nintex RPA recognized the file, scraped the data from it to provision the license needed. After the licensing software produced the product key, Nintex RPA passed that back off to the running & waiting workflow. From there, the workflow “unpaus

What is RPA?RPA is a configurable software tool that uses business rules and sequences of actions to automatically complete processes in any number of different applications the same way a human would, with the help of people for exception management. So, a less technical definition of RPA is simply this. It's a class of software that allows you to transact in any IT application or website typically in the same way a human would, to perform complex rule-based work. What is RDA? What about assisting people, by handling specific tasks in a larger process? Well, this is also commonly referred to as RPA, but there's an interesting twist. For software to react quickly to a person calling it into action, it most often needs to reside on the person's desktop. So as a result, this form of automation is becoming known as robotic desktop automation or RDA. RDA is a configured software that works in real-time with a human operator by present

If it’s a static link for the image they can follow the instructions below:      Add Rich Text Control on form      Open Control and click the insert ribbon      Click Image and select either computer or from address      Select the image (if from computer) or input the url (if “from address” selected)      Image should be available now. Click ‘Edit Source’ in the ribbon      Append <a href=”http://yourlink.com”> </a> around the image source html in the box

We have just completed the release of the September update of Nintex Forms for Nintex Workflow Cloud. Watch the video below to see all the changes. 

Well it was an age old question.. As an IT Pro using Nintex, and also once I joined Nintex I was asked quite a lot "Can we capture signatures in this process ?"  The answer was almost always the same, "It depends !" When diving in and really looking at the question though, as a consultant or IT Pro in an organisation you had to ask. "Do you really need a legally binding digital signature, or do you just need a hand written signature on a form to satisfy a particular stakeholder ?" I'm not speaking on anyone's behalf, except my own; in my experience the answer was normally that a handwritten signature was needed as part of the process because that was how it is done, and will continue to be.Now I had some success in arguing that the process didn't require a signature, up until the very final phase. Thus removing 4 or 5 signatures from a process and with some strategically placed usernames and date time stamp entries from a workflow, you could removal all signatur

 The Nintex Migration White PaperAs more organizations move from on-premises solutions to cloud-based services it is critical that their path to the world of SaaS is as obstacle-free as possible. To help in this effort, the team here at Nintex has developed a new migration guide that is meant to provide tips and considerations for Nintex customers looking to migrate their business processes from SharePoint on-prem to SharePoint Online. This content is designed to assist in planning your migration, understanding the technical considerations of moving to the cloud with Nintex, and taking advantage of the capability improvements in the cloud platform. At the end of the guide, we also highlight some additional tools that can be used to identify migration resources (such as migration partners) that can help streamline and accelerate your journey to the cloud!   Download 

Using the Entire Nintex Stack… In one automation project. Sounds daunting, doesn’t it?With three simple blog posts, I will break down the Nintex solution stack into three core elements, and more importantly, show you that an automation project is rather easy. In this series, you will be shown how to:  Effectively create and map processes important to your organisation Easily build forms and workflows to the processes you have Integrate RPA into legacy platforms and existing systems. In doing so, you will see different parts of the Nintex Offering, they are as follows: Nintex Promapp (Part 1) Nintex Workflow Cloud and The Workflow Generator aka the "Magic Button" (Part 2) Nintex Foxtrot (Part 3) And the best part? At the conclusion of this series, you will have your own copy of this to test in your own environment. To Au

Intro:This solution will enable users to select a day and see the available appointments for that day. Environment:It uses SharePoint on-premise (I'm using 2013 but any on-premise environment will do) MS SQL database, Nintex Workflow Enterprise edition, Nintex Forms Enterprise edition(Responsive Form). Reason for this post:I have seen many posts on the community asking about creating an appointment system or another type of system where once a selection has been submitted from a dropdown that selection will not show for the next user.  This solution will be for appointments but you could easily use it to reserve a room or car from the fleet for a day using the same concept. I have made it self maintaining so there should be little to no need for an administrator to have to intervene.  There will be 16 appointments a day from 9:00am to 4:30PM (every 30 minutes) but this c

Intro & LinksThis blog post will continue a small series that I have planned, focusing on how Foxtrot RPA and Nintex Workflow Cloud are better together. The intention is to provide ways to integrate the tools until we get the built in functionality that is coming. I will focus on ways to do this using each tool’s built in functionality, rather than any extensibility capability, to emphasize the “no code” philosophy that Nintex aims for. I will update each post with links to the other posts in the series. Starting a Botflow from a Workflow (with Document Generation) Workflow Waiting for a Bo

Recently the topic of a state machine came up with Sean Docherty. I wanted to put thoughts to paper so that I can share my experience with the community and see what others view points are. The ScenarioIn this example I am creating a workflow for a software acquisitions process. Below is a high level view of the steps taken:1. The user fills out a basic form requesting software2. The planning team updates the form with the PRODUCT ID     a. The workflow checks to see if it has been CANCELLED3. A task is generated for the requester's supervisor to approve     a. If approved, the planning team schedules an INSTALL date and completes the request     b. If denied, the requester is notified with details on why     c. If no action is taken with 24 hours, the request is automatically cancelled For t

I would like to share my solution to a little problem that I recently encountered in a project.  I was using tabbed forms and noticed that submitting the form, if you re-open the form in view mode you will see that the form is not appearing with first tab selected. It is selecting the tab last viewed and displaying the visible panel for that tab. What’s happening here is the choice control is saving the value internally of last option (Tab) selected before the form is saved and that’s why when you are trying to view the form it’s selecting the last value it reached and displaying the required panel that is visible for that value. (Incidentially, if you’d like to know more about choice controls and rules, go here.)

With the Introduction of the Modern View in SharePoint for O365 and ShaerPoint 2019, Microsoft have made it relatively easy to utilise their new feature which allows formatting of columns and views using JSON.Information about column formatting can be found on the Microsoft Docs site. When a Nintex workflow is published in SharePoint for O365 a workflow status column is created in the list.  I wanted to utilise the Microsoft column formatting feature to help colour code this column to make it easier to see the status of workflows at a glance. The workflow status column is not populated by default so "Set Workflow Status" actions need to be added to the Nintex workflow to update this column, which a lot of users already do. My Journey:I started off with the below sam

Click HERE to see the recorded webinar from May 29th, 2019, hosted by Daniel Shai, T4 Manager, and Ayelet Gazit, Training Manager. This webinar we covered the following: • How to choose the right processes to automateWhat questions you should answer before you start How to define your parameters for success How to discover, map and implement the right processes for successful RPA • Abracadabra! Step-by-step wizard creation for contact centersWhat’s important when developing your wizards Customer use cases

We are soon to introduce some new functionality in the Rules Engine of NIntex Forms for Nintex Workflow Cloud. We are allowing rules to execute anytime without user input to make Form Input rules more dynamic and improve Submit Rules. Along with this, we are removing the Form Load rules. Check out the video below to learn more! 

With any automated process that contain approvals sometimes they can be conditionally needed to speed things up. For example, in a sales type use case let's say a Rep is allowed to give a 10% discount on any deal without approval needed. Approval then is only needed if the Rep goes rouge and gives 25%. Let’s say whenever the discount is greater than 25% then the Boss's Boss needs to get involved. This type of process is really common and creatively configuring your workflow can make something like this error free. In the picture below I am using a "Run if true" action and renamed it "Need Approval?". If you look at the configuration on the right its looking at a "OppNeedsApproval" variable and only proceeding with the actions in the box if the logic equals true or Yes in this case.  "Run if true" is great to use i

In a previous blog we discussed How To: Extract XML Data from a Repeating Secion. This time I wanted to take a look at how we can inject data into that same repeating section and form to add more lines without having the user manually enter them. We can accomplish this once we understand the data structure and how it is being built. From there, we can simply create new items within the data and post it back to out list. Let's dive in! ScenarioI have multiple items that I need to inject into a repeating section within my Nintex Forms. This will allow for a single view of items for approval or review. If you followed along on

There are many requirements where Approvers need to upload attachments on task form, which need to be uploaded on main item instead of task form.I have achieved it using REST and JS. Major Steps :1. Create RichText Control on Text Form to show attachment and add attachment button.2. Add JS which use REST API to add attachments Requirement Result Screen : On click of Show Attachment button, it loads attachments of Related item with add attachment link as shown below on Add attachment it opens below screen and we can upload attachment by selecting file.  Solution1. Drag a Task on workflow. Click on Edit Task form.2. Add a Rich Text Control on form as shown in below screen3. Edit Properties of Rich Text add below HTML in Rich text as shown below

To limit the maximum length of input field during typing you have to assign a Control CCS Class to an text box. The class name is a concatenation of string 'kob-maxtextlen-' and a number giving the maximum text length.After assigning the Control CCS Class and activating the javascript you will find below, a little box is shown during field input on top and on left of the input control counting down the yet available input characters: Javascript code:NWF$(document).ready(function () {   NWF$("body").append('<div id="charCounter";></div>');  // create div for counter   var zaehlerFeld = NWF$('#charCounter');   // save as jquery object   zaehlerFeld.hide(); // hide the div   NWF$("[class*=kob-maxtextlen-]").each(function () { // for all html elemts with class name begi

This blog post will kick off a small series that I have in mind about how Foxtrot RPA and Nintex Workflow Cloud are Better Together. The intention is to provide ways to integrate the tools until we get built in functionality on both ends.  I will focus on ways to do this using each tool’s built in functionality, rather than any extensibility capability, to emphasize the “no code” philosophy that Nintex aims for. I will try to update all posts in this series with links to other posts for easy reference. Starting a Botflow from a Workflow (with an Email) Workflow Waiting for a Botflow to Finish-------

I am sharing one of the possible ways to Trigger Foxtrot RPA from Nintex Workflow Cloud. Before we get into the scripts on how to do that, maybe it's a good idea to explain a bit further in the following paragrah, on how from the architecture perspective this is done. ArchitectureAssuming you have a troop of robot soldiers (i.e. FoxBot) lead by a commander (i.e. FoxHub), ignoring the number of soldiers you need to have to form a troop, in our scenario it could be as little as 1 or 2. Since the army is deployed to the battlefield, the location of the army is changing (i.e. without a fixed IP), we are not able to reach out to the Commanders to send orders. Since we are not suppose to enter the military zone, central general office can only use special communication where messages are being broadcasted over the encrypted radio frequency, and the army should have worker on duty to pick up and decrypt the message(s). As

Part 1 - Overview Part 2 - Accessing Your Tenant Part 3 - Users and Roles Part 4 - Adding Custom Connectors

Newer versions of Nintex Forms* use the modern People Picker control by default.*Used by Nintex Forms 2013 (2.2.0.0 and higher) and Nintex Forms 2010 (1.4.0.0 and higher). You can import the legacy People Picker control for use with these versions of Nintex Forms: Nintex Forms 2013 (2.2.1.0 and higher) and Nintex Forms 2010 (1.4.1.0 and higher).To import the legacy People Picker control 1.       On the Central Administration home page, click Nintex Forms Management.2.       On the Nintex Forms Management page, click Manage Form Controls.3.       Under the Form Control Types table, in the I

 Nintex workflow designer and Nintex forms designer looks for the servers running Microsoft Sharepoint Foundation WebApplication Service. This also applies to Sharepoint 2016 and 2019 servers setup using Min-Role. If the server has this service listed as "Microsoft Sharepoint Foundation WebApplication Service" running , it is considered as a Web Front end and handles the user traffic and needs to be licensed.   For example, if the workflow designer is loaded from a server running the Microsoft Sharepoint Foundation WebApplication Service and it is not listed on the Nintex workflow license then you would recieve an error that this server is not licensed. This applies to Nintex Forms Designer as well.  Here's a screenshot of Nintex Forms Designer being loaded from a server that is not listed on the License.  

We often see requests of how to pause a workflow for less than 5 minutes. Until now this has not been possible as the pause action relies on the SharePoint Workflow Timer Job to wake the workflow instance back up (occurs every 5 minutes) after the indicated amount of time. Utilizing PowerShell you can effectively pause a workflow all the way down to 1ms. While a PowerShell script is running it will hold up the progress of the workflow until it completes. To set this up you simply need to set the PowerShell action to execute this command: PowerShell Script [System.Threading.Thread]::Sleep(20000)  Note: 20000 would be a 20 second pause. Here is a screenshot of the action blocking fo

This is a simple trick that I've been using for a while that allows you to have some of the Draft capability without having to turn on Content Approval and versioning. Which let's be honest is a little much in some cases. The trick is to use 2 buttons on a form, one "Save as Draft" the other "Save and Submit". In the list, create a hidden column and call it "Draft".  This column needs to be a "Single line of text" field (It doesn't need to be hidden this is just my preference.) Now lets configure those buttons.Firstly let's configure the "Save as Draft" button. Under 'Advanced' connect the button to the new field 'Draft'Once you have connected that, type "yes" into the field 'Value returned'