News and Guidelines

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 such we deployed a messenger/worker to each Commander (i.e. which is ou

Part 1 - Overview Part 2 - Accessing Your Tenant Part 3 - Users and Roles Part 4 - Adding Custom Connectors Part 5 - Building a Workflow Part 6 - Additional Resources Prepare for SuccessYou must have at least the following permissions within Nintex Workflow Cloud to complete this step Designer  Building WorkflowsEvery Nintex Workflow Cloud tenant comes with several draft workflows loaded in the dashboard. This part will walk you through configuring a couple of the workflows as a training exercise. My First Workflow{Template 1} My First Workflow demonstrates how to use a workflow to let people know when a business process has started. The workflow collects an email address and message from a form and then sends the message as a pre-formatted email. This simple workflow is actually a very powerful prototype that you can reuse in an enterprise workflow. By immediately replying to users, you set their expectations and give them the confidence that the Submit button has actually

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 Import text box, enter the following text:Nintex.Forms.SharePoint.FormControls.PeoplePickerFormControlV1, Nintex.Forms.SharePoint, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=c52d764dcf7ec8834.       Click Import. The control is now listed on the Manage Form Controls page and it is available in the Forms Control pane in the Nintex Forms Designer.

 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.    Please note do not turn off this service "Microsoft Sharepoint Foundation WebApplication Service" in Production. Please talk to Microsoft Support  before making any major topology

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 for 20 seconds (Nintex rounds up to the minute for display purposes): Note: Avoid pausing the workflow for long periods of time as it may result in the workflow batch timing out. ​You can obtain the PowerShell action here: NTX PowerShell Action - Initial Beta Release

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'Repeat this process for the 'Save and Submit' Both these buttons save the information back to the list.. Difference being; when I use the 'Save as Draft' button the 'Draft' column value is set to 'Yes' So this is great you say, now this is where we head to the workflow and place in some rules to han

If you wanted an action to do something that is not original provided by Foxtrot actions, what will you do? Well, I came across this challenge shared by a partner questioning if Foxtrot can call an external function provided by a dynamic link library file. The answer to me is obviously yes as you may use the advance actions such as C#, VB.NET, VBScript, etc. This is what i am going to share providing a step by step instruction on how I did that using the VBScript action of Foxtrot. First thing first, I don't think you should take any DLL and include it in your project without knowing the source, that would be too risky to do that. So we going to start building a simple dll for the testing purpose, and later to include this dll in our VBScript action call. 1. Create a C# Class Library project with your Visual Studio. I named my project FoxFunctions as captured in the screen below 2. For the exercise, we going to simple create a Class Library with just one public method "factorial". This

Since my previous sharing on Why Should I integrate Nintex Workflow Cloud?, I've been thinking to invest more time in giving additional example(s) on how I have used NWC API to integrate the workflow into the project I have been helping out for a partner. As the project is still in stealth mode, I thought maybe I can still share pieces of concepts or works we have done bringing over the NWC tasks to a custom portal built on Node JS. Nintex Workflow Cloud has been a great platform for us to automate business processes, due to it's focus not as an end user portal to host business data. Integration scenarios always brought to attention on how to leverage the NWC workflows in a custom portal. In this article, I am trying to share an actual example on one of the projects using Node JS. The portal's events of adding or modifying it's content triggering the NWC workflow to run, as all the users are with the custom portal instead of NWC portal, we have brought over the NWC task into the custom

The Office 365 REST API provides a very useful way to interact with SharePoint data from any system able to create REST API requests. And one of those systems is our beloved Nintex Workflow for Office 365. In this post, we'll see how to use the Office 365 REST API to create SharePoint lists from a Nintex Workflow.As in every REST API request, the first thing you need to do is to have a look at the reference documentation of that API, to understand the list of requests available and the values you need to provide for those requests. In our case, you can start with the SharePoint REST API documentation in this link.Now, let's focus on the request we want to create. The following example, taken from the previous link, shows how to create a list:  With that, we know exactly all the information we need to get for our request. Creating a RESTful HTTP request in Nintex Workflow is easy if we know how to get that information, we just need to go through these 5 steps:Create the Workflow variabl

When deploying Nintex App Studio apps to iOS there are really good walkthroughs in the following posts.Generating a distribution certificate‌Generating a provisioning profile ‌Introducing Nintex App Studio‌ But I use a regular developer account with Apple when testing an App before deploying it using the Apple Developer Enterprise Program  There are very minor changes to the steps to follow when deploying the app using a non Enterprise account. The simple benefit is that I am just using an individual account, and can only deploy the app to a select few devices before the app goes out to the rest of the user base using the Enterprise profile. NOTE: you must use an enterprise profile to deploy for production purposes. In using the steps outlined in the linked articles, you get the certificate the same way but in the provisioning steps you get to step 10 and instead of selecting In House under Distribution you select Ad Hoc. Then continue the steps 11-14 (14. On the Select certificates pa

Assigning a task in Nintex Workflow Cloud or NWC is a great way to speed up the part of a business process where a human interaction is needed to get to the next step. Examples like approvals for quotes or verifying/capturing data are just a couple examples where this action can be a great value.  Once dragged onto the canvas you can select what type of task you want to run.  Express approval will allow you to use a '"lazy approval" process where one can simply respond to an email to interact with the workflow. This is great for approvals (for example a leave request) but can really be used for anything where a free will decision is needed.  Once in the Assign a Task Action you will see several required fields to interact with from task name to email body. I have a link below that goes into more detail about the fields. Here I will focus on the "Outcomes" menu. *Pictured Above.  Link: Assign a task - Help Article Outcomes are what the recipient of the express approval will type and rep

Using Dan Stoll‌'s excellent walkthrough in Nintex App Studio for the win‌ I started looking at the new custom content functionality in Nintex Mobile App Studio.  It was all going absolute great guns; I had a custom home page with links that would open various apps on my phone (to call, text, read documentation etc) but I had this rather odd issue when I clicked on the sms link that was constructed similar to that below:<p><a href="sms:+1-111-222-3333&body=Love%20your%20work." class="button">SMS JOGA HQ</a></p> My android phone (used for testing only - I am an apple girl through and through) kept giving me this error once I returned to the app from sending a message:I did a search on here and on Google for "net::ERR_UNKNOWN_URL_SCHEME" and lots of things came back actually which was a little overwhelming trying to work out which advice to listen to, so I went with the simplest first which was in this resource:http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24697429/getti

A while back you may have heard that Nintex aquired Enablesoft and now offers a RPA solution with Foxtrot. If you have not, go read this article, we'll wait. Since then we have been busy getting Foxtrot integrated with all of the other great products that Nintex has to offer and some of them are being released next month! Here is a quick breakdown of all of the new updates coming to Nintex Foxtrot! BrandingBranding may not seem that glamorious, but have you ever used a set of products that did not feel consistent or look like they all belonged together? Well we wanted to make sure that Nintex Foxtrot got the same amazing look and feel that our other products have so we updated them. You can now change the theme of your Nintex Foxtrot tools to the Nintex colors! Also, you may start to see the updated logo as well.  Nintex Workflow Cloud IntegrationFor those that are using Nintex Foxtrot today, you already know that you can connect your Nintex Foxtrot projects to Nintex Workflow Cloud co

LIke all good stories, this one has a beginning, a middle and an end. In this case data capature, data process and data reporting. facilitated by the Nintex platform for Microsoft Dynamics 365.Before we can jump into the data capture, we'll need to set a foundation for the solution. A connection to a Dynamics 365 environment. Pretty quick and easy to do here in Nintex Workflow Cloud. Setup a connection as follows:Give your connection a sensible name; add the CRM tenant URL; login with relevant credentials - remember, the account you use here relates to the levels of information you'll be able to pull into your workflow - 'introspection'. It doesn't nnecessarily need to be an Admin or Service Account. Set the permission levels for who can Edit and Use the Connection in the tenant and we're done. We've got a solid foundation upon which to begin building a workflow for Dynamics CRM now. So let's Create workflow And configure the Start event to point to our Dynamics CRM connection we just

So one of the questions I am often asked is from folks that would like to automate a process that is task driven but does not necessarily conform to a simple Approve / Reject set of outcomes. In Nintex Workflow for Office 365 there aren't the same task actions as there are on premises. That being said, you will just need to roll up your sleeves, build a new content type and you'll be all set. Not sure exactly how to go about building that content type and configuring the Assign Task action to create this single outcome effect? Not a problem. Below are the steps necessary to make your dreams a reality!* *Please note that you will need appropriate site owner permissions to accomplish these steps and I cannot guarantee ALL of your dreams will come true. At least the ones that involve tasks assigned with Nintex Workflow.  Navigate to Site settings in the context menu under the cog / gear. Click on the Site content types link. Click on Create. Go ahead and give your new task content type a

Description:  How to add Adobe Sign text tags in the Nintex Document Tagger for electronic documents requesting information and signature to use in a one step process. Scenario: Customer X has an incorrect address on-file with Company Y and needs Customer X to update this information.  Company Y sends Customer X an electronic document requesting for their most current address and signature.  Let's walkthrough the following scenario of how we would set this up within our workflow. HOW TO SETUP TEXT TAGSDocument TemplateOpen your template where you will want to add your Adobe Sign text tags. Once tags have been added, save file to your document library.                                           TEMPLATE                           TAGS 1.       Name:  {{Name1_es_:fullname}}  2.       Email: {{Em1_es_:email}} 3.       Address:  {{Address}} 4.       Zip Code:  {{zip_es_:zip4}  Configure Workflow - Generation Document ActionOpen your workflow. Add the Generation

 Looking for the old Product Downloads page? Product Downloads can now be found within your Customer Central site under 'Product Releases' in the left hand navigation. If you are using your corporate email to access Community, you can use the same email to sign into your Customer Central site. If you do not have access to Customer Central, please reach out to your Nintex administrator and they should be able to add your user to Customer Central via the Contacts section of the site. If you have any questions or feedback, please email Community@Nintex.com!   

I came across this issue on a few environments lately where ALL workflows in a farm on premise stopped working. Or more specifically, all workflows reported "Failed to start" when triggered to run.  It appears that it is being caused by a .Net Update. One of my colleagues Ozell Walcott found this post from Rodney Viana who details the issue and solution at https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/rodneyviana/2018/09/13/after-installing-net-security-patches-to-address-cve-2018-8421-s…  I have not run the powershell script linked in the solution.  Recent update by the original posterImportant - Recent update by the original poster RodneyAs some companies cannot make changes based on Blog posts, we worked on a public KB that can be found here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4465015/sharepoint-workflows-stop-after-cve-2018-8421-security-updateThe KB has a watered down version of Joe's script. If you have Nintex workflows, favor the scripts on this post.SymptomAfter applying .NET Security

See post on SimplifyingProcesses.com Planning for BPM implementation In Part One of this blog series, I attempted to identify a common problem with digital transformation efforts – they are often driven by technological advancements instead of supported by them. This can result in several negative, unintended consequences (monetary losses, increased cultural resistance to change, and processing errors and defects which require human resources to repair). If we are to avoid jumping the gun in implementing a new technology and thus, experiencing these consequences, we must first clearly understand the people and processes this technology is intended to support. The assertion As I posited previously, business process management (BPM) can be the mechanism by which we “learn to see” opportunities for improvement and change within our existing work structures, allowing us to maximize the value generated by implementing a new technology. As the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a g

You asked, and we listened! Another huge improvement to the Nintex Workflow Cloud Forms designer Introducing the ability to divide the designer into six columns. Importance/ Objective:With this new addition to the Nintex Workflow Cloud forms designer, users will no longer be limited to just 4 columns, which has placed a slight constraint on process designs. Live Use Case: In this example, Vadim Tabakman is the incredible owner UnBeadable Fashion Car Services. As part of being in SOC compliance and keeping up with the Excellence of Services to work at UnBeadable Fashion Car Services, he requires that all of his mechanics perform daily inspections on all vehicles serviced at his place of business. His all-star employee Will Knowles will be performing a routine vehicle inspection on a 2015 Mercedes-Benz. Before we fill out the inspection form, lets cover a few basics on how we architected this form: Vehicle Inspection Form:1. In Nintex Workflow Cloud click on Start event:2. Start Event co

How to execute a SP2013 REST API request with Nintex Workflow​With all the Nintex Workflow actions, we can achieve lots of great workflows. Sometimes, we'd like to build more complicated, technical, reusable workflows. For these workflows, we need more actions and possibilities that can be achieved by calling SharePoint ASMX web services or SP2013 REST API requests.As the ASMX web services are deprecated in SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online, it is recommended to use SP2013 REST API instead when it is possible (not all functionalities of the ASMX web services are available in SP2013 REST API).I'd like to help you building your SP2013 REST API requests.There are two categories of SP2013 REST API requests :POST : to update, create or remove information in SharePoint, GET : to retrieve information from SharePoint.The process to execute these two types of requests is different. How to execute a GET request To execute a GET request, a "Web request" action only is needed. The configuratio

You've asked, and we listened! Introducing Mobile Task for Office 365  What’s newTask participants can now view and respond to workflow tasks via the Nintex Mobile app. What's all the big hype about: In this digital transformation era that we are living in, time is of the essence, so why waste another minute of it, if you don’t have to? Workers need access to information, enterprise business applications and process that they heavily lean on to function on a daily basis. From the Manager who has 15 direct reports, to the VP who has 2 departments that they are in charge of overseeing, to the Safety Operations Manager who has to approve 50 safety inspections at a given time, guess what, this new feature was created just for you!Task assignees will now have full accessibility to all their tasks and can action from any device including the newly updated Nintex mobile app.  In order for tasks to be visible in the mobile app the following configuration must be applied to relevant Nintex Task

Have you ever wondered if you can set a value that can be changed during signature and then update Salesforce once signatures are complete? Here is the use case. Today, I send out a document with your latest infomation from my companies CRM. You have moved since we last interacted and your data is not correct. Your mailing address has changed and you need to update it during the signature process. In this article I will show you how to accomplish this task using NintexSign and Nintex Drawloop.  There are many steps that will need to be done in order for us to accomplish this use case. We will first need to create a few text tags and there is a syntax that has to be used.  Syntax: {{FieldName/Lablel_es_:Signer#:default("Tag From Field Tagger")}}Real Example: {{OpportunityStage_es_:Signer1:default(“<<Opportunity_StageName>>”)}} To accomplish our use case we would have to create a few text tags to capture the address (4 to be exact) Street, City, State, Potal Code. We will pla

The Field Tagger is the key to using Drawloop effectively. It allows you to reach all the data in your environment and push to your template documents. Once you know the data you are trying to pull you simply select the Object and Field to reach the desired tag. Then simply copy and paste your tag into your document. *Make sure to select the correct "document type" you are adding the template tags to.  As you go through the field tagger you will see a "View All" option in the "Field" picklist towards the top. The majority of the time this is fine to use and also very helpful to grab and tag quickly. There are still reasons (you will see below) where you will still need to manually go into the "Field" picklist and select a tag specifically. Formatting and Lookup fields are good examples of this. Question: Why don't I see my custom objects in the "Main Object" picklist?Answer: A relationship needs to be created. *The field tagger tool is a live snapshot of the relationships you have conf

Major Announcement: Nintex ProcessFest 2019!!!!!!!!!!! After a year hiatus, Nintex conference is back and going to be better than ever. Introducing Nintex ProcessFest 2019! This three-day training conference is for our devoted customers and partners. September 30th-October 4th, there is no greater place to be than right here in beautiful downtown Bellevue, where you will enjoy keynotes, hands-on learning, certifications, networking and so much fun! For more information, please visit: Nintex ProcessFest 2019 Calling All Speakers:Have a great process focused topic you would like to present at the conference, or perhaps you have a great speaker in mind? Well, we are calling all speaker submission request! You can submit your request here: Nintex ProcessFest 2019 Session and Speaker Request Once you have submitted your speaker/ session request, our leadership team will review all submissions and make the selections soon, so stayed! Good luck to all the submitters, and if you have any quest