News and Guidelines

Many of you, like me, will have seen and used this feature many times.  What does it do?  Well it allows you to add a shortcut to your start workflow page directly on the item context menu.These are the settings you need on workflow settings: This then, when the workflow is published, displays as such on the item context menu: Now I have been using this awesome feature for many years and then Paul Crawford‌ asked me why he seemed to be limited to only adding four workflows to the menu?!  I have never needed to add this many before so wasn't aware of any limitation... I won't pretend I solved it, because I didn't, but he came up with a quick fix that I wanted to blog about so that neither of us forgot this simple trick: Rather than using Menu item position: 0, 1, 2, 3, etcHave Menu item position: 100, 101, 102, 103, etc

Office 365 with SharePoint Online has excellent custom form and workflow options, that is a known fact.Those who love InfoPath Designer 2013 and SharePoint Designer 2013 can do A LOT of customized workflows, with multiple approval paths, parallel approvals, conditional task and anything else you can think of or not, with the OOTB actions and steps in SharePoint Designer 2013. I love InfoPath Designer and I love SharePoint designer, there is no secondary thought about that. But what you love need not always be what is loved by all. So in comes Nintex. My first time with Nintex Form and Nintex Workflow.Straight forward request this time.There is a Sofware Request form, when a user submits request -> Approver A->Approves->Approver B->Approves->Approver A again for further actions.Creating the custom sharepoint list with the identified fields is nothing new. Once the list is created with your columns(lookups, person/group, multiline textbox, datetime etc.,) Look at your List

With the new Nintex Document Generation action in Nintex for Office 365, it is now possible to create an Excel Report from Sharepoint List items. With the output options of either its original format (i.e. Excel file in this case) or PDF in the defined destination of Sharepoint folder, you can then automate the generated report document for approval as usual in Nintex Workflow. In the following diagram, I have my Expense home page consists of Expense Items (i.e. Customer List) and Create Expense Report query form. Create Expense Report Query form is a simple form one can use to specify report filter criterial (i.e. Title, Start Date and End Date, etc. of the items to be included in the excel report to be generated). The Create Expense Report query form is nothing but just another custom list to trigger a Document Generation workflow (i.e. "Process Expense Report - Demo" workflow in this case) to export the filtered list items to an Excel document with the newly available Document Gener

In my last post I already talked about how I migrated my Nintex for Office365 tenant to Europe and how I faced the challenge to find all the sites where the Nintex Workflow for Office365 app has been activated in order to re-publish my workflows. PowerShell to the rescue!It was obvious, that only PowerShell could help in this challenge. So let's walk through this step-by-step. At first we need to find all the sites where the Nintex Workflow App has been activated.$userName = "[username]@[mydomain.fqdn]"$siteColUrl = "https://[tenant].sharepoint.com/sites/[mysite]"Add-Type -Path "d:Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll"Add-Type -Path "d:Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll"$cred = Get-Credential -UserName $userName -Message "Enter SPO credentials"$spoCred = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials ($cred.UserName, $cred.Password)$ctx = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($siteColUrl)$ctx.Credentials = $spoCred$web = $ctx.Web$ctx.Load($web)$addInIn

When designing a Nintex form, it's common that there is a part of the form that should only display to certain users. These sections are usually contained in their own panels within the form. It could be IT administrative details, financial information, or actions for HR to complete. In Nintex On Premises, it is easy to hide this panel based on the current user by using a rule and the inline function fn-IsMemberOfGroup. Unfortunately, that function is not available yet in Nintex Forms for Office 365.This function is available in O365 Forms, it just does not appear in the Runtime Function list. If you manually type it in, it will work. Here is a list of all supported inline functions. To accomplish this task, I created a hidden text field called "txt_HiddenIsUserAnAdmin" in the form and assigned it the JavaScript variable named jsvar_HiddenIsUserAnAdmin. I then created a rule on the panel that would hide it whenever txt_HiddenIsUserAnAdmin does not equal "Yes". To obtain the groups that

Hi Friends! July has been a busy month here at Nintex Workflow Cloud (and the whole of Nintex). I want to take the opportunity to highlight some of the key features and capabilities released and why you might want to use them. Express approval support for task escalation - you now have the ability to escalate the task you have assigned or choose to complete the tasks by setting it to the default outcome after the original task has not been responded to timely manner (you can set the time of escalation of course). Disabling (and enabling) actions in the designer - as a designer you'll be able to disable both unconfigured and configured workflow actions. Very handy when you're progressively designing your workflow or troubleshooting / testing your workflow. If you're asking "Can I publish a workflow with disabled unconfigured action(s)?", Yes! You absolutely can. So if you're stubbing out your workflow and want to progressively build it out - you can most certainly do that. When you're r

I came upon a stumbling block a few days ago during an effort to re-engineer some old InfoPath forms into Nintex for O365 forms. The culprit was the Choice Field Control. It does NOT work the same in both applications. Initial Control DisplayI got this when I dragged and dropped the choice control onto the Nintex Form for O365 canvas - and was initially stumped. Where are my choices?? Looking at the control's properties, I knew it had more than one choice. So, I figured that it must be a sizing thing - and I was correct. I was able to see all of the choices by re-sizing the boundaries of the control. Vertical vs. Horizontal LayoutThat's great, but I wanted the layout of the choices to be horizontal, not vertical. That was easy in InfoPath. Each option was separated by a carriage return. Simply deleting the carriage returns between choices produced a horizontal line of choices. Unfortunately that's NOT the case with Nintex forms. In Nintex, you have to do a few more steps. On the form c

Updated: Aug. 2, 2017  Please note that Scheduled workflows feature has been released as of July 2017. Please see  for more details on this fix.As many of you are aware our product teams are working hard in extending the capabilities of Nintex Workflow for Office 365. Some features might currently be missing but will certainly make it to the product soon. In the meanwhile, most of the features you might miss can still be implemented, simply by thinking a bit outside the box.One of these features is scheduled workflows. In this post I will show you how you can use existing workflow actions, SharePoint features and quite simple logic to allow workflows to run on a schedule power users can easily maintain themselves. What do we need?I provided the templates for the following as part of this post. Feel free to download and use them. A SharePoint ListThe list will contain one item per workflow you want to schedule. Each item will represent one scheduled workflow and consist of the following

I'm very excited to see the new Scheduling features for O365 Workflows. As first read from Tee Up Your Work - Scheduled Workflows Are Available for Office 365!‌ we learned the basics of scheduling site workflows. So I ran a few site workflows myself and could not find the history that they executed. My first test workflow would send me an email, since I received the email I knew it was working. But there was no evidence. Typically, I would go to Site Contents from the suite menu gear, then click on Site Workflows.I then see my normal screen of available site workflows to run, and which are still running or completed. Notice in this view I don't see anything in the completed section, yet I had the Email Site Workflow scheduled to run and it executed.What I found was, by clicking on Show All Workflows, I then see the completed scheduled workflows. Clicking on the workflow name will then display the workflow history associated.  The reason this was required is that the workflow executed u

Question:I absolutely love the option of creating ‘pages’ in a form, which is an option in InfoPath. I start with the first page to ask the user a question. Depending on the selection they make, it will flip to a new page to ask additional questions or asks the user to fill in information. Once complete, they click submit and it flips to the final page saying thank you and provides any additional information.I also like the ability to create new pages based on what the user is doing, i.e. new item or edit item. If it is a new item, I start with Page 1. If I am editing an item, it starts with Page 8, which has all the information in read only format. Simple and easy to work with.However, the concept of ‘pages’ in Forms does not exist. It looks like I have to add ‘sections’, and then determine which one should be active based on a ‘value’. That does not make any sense to me. Why is such a simple concept so difficult to implement in Forms? Answer:  There are a few ways that this can be im

Author Palesa Sikwane‌ Long Description An update on Nintex® Workflow Microsoft® Dynamics Live Actions and Native CRM Actions Affected Product(s) Nintex® Workflow 2013 Nintex® Workflow 2016 Nintex® Workflow for Office 365  Release Notes Nintex Workflow 2013 - Release Notes  Nintex Workflow 2016 - Release Notes  Nintex Workflow for Office 365 - Release Notes  Screenshots Nintex® Workflow 2013         Nintex® Workflow 2016     Nintex® Workflow for Office 365 ®    Greetings everyone,  I'm pleased to announce an update on both the Microsoft® Dynamics CRM Connector as well as the Nintex® Live Microsoft® Dynamics CRM Actions   So how do you get this new update? On premise (2013/2016)Download and install the latest setup files and follow the update guides below: Updating Nintex - What you need to knowProduct Update Process Office 365The update is deployed automatically to our Nintex® Workflow App What's special about

Question:  I’m trying to make task due dates dependent on the day the task notice is sent, so that if a completed task approval leads next to an additional task being created for someone else, and that 2nd person has 3 days to complete it, I’m expecting to find a way to make the Due Date = (Task Creation Date) + 3. Is there a way to program that?  Answer: In the Approval Branch for the initial task, add an “Add Time to Date” action and set it to 3 days with the date set at ‘Use date when action is executed.’ From there you can configure the task due date in the next Task to use the workflow variable you created in the previous action. 

This is just information published on the SharePoint 2016 help page  The following form controls are supported for use in Nintex Mobile form layouts. Attachments controlBorder controlCalculated Value controlChoice controlDate/Time controlGeolocation controlHyperlink controlImage controlLabel controlList Lookup controlMulti Line Textbox controlPage Viewer controlPanel controlPeople controlRepeating Section controlSingle Line Textbox controlYes/No control

This list is based on information published on http://help.nintex.com/en-US/nintex2016  External Data Column controlThe External Data Column control enables users to add data from external content types to standard SharePoint lists. Just like an external list, the external data column can display data from any configured external content type. Change Content Type controlThe Change Content Type control enables users to change the content type for a list item in a SharePoint list where there are multiple content types on that list. The control populates itself based on the context of the list. At runtime it relies on the form being run in edit full desktop mode and hence will not work when running in mobile mode. Web Request controlEnterprise Edition for Nintex Forms 2016 is required for this feature.The Web Request control allows you to look up data using external web services. Use this control to populate form fields using data managed in business applications and cloud services. Call

The June Mission is your opportunity to show us how you'd build a workflow for the following: Scenario:A service team has a SharePoint list where users submit requests that they need to fulfill.  There are currently 5 different types of requests that they can receive and each request type has between 20-30 steps that have to be completed in order to fulfill the request.  The team has been having some difficulty keeping track of the status of each request and knowing whether all of the steps have been completed or not.  This has led to some request falling through the cracks and the users are none to happy about it.  The current request types are:Inventory Campaign Collections Statements Audit This is a sample list of steps for an Inventory request.  Each request type will have it's own unique set of steps.Step # Description 1 Create master schedule 2 Notify the affected departments 3 Purchase supplies 4 Clean all areas for counting 5 Group like items 6 Ensure there

Hi all, Ever wondered how many document generations are already consumed and what your limit is? There are 2 options:This information is written in the Workflow History when using the document generation action. Create a workflow, put the document generation action on the canvas, open it and voilà (see screenshot below).  Cheers,Rick ‌

It has already been announced couple of months ago, during the Nintex inspirex 2017 conference in New Orleans, in February this year, by Vadim Tabakam and Brad Orluk during their presentation "Extensibility on the Nintex Workflow Platform" and later on Nintex Blog. The new, cool feature (that now is in beta preview), called "extensibility framework". The tool that is allowing customers to add to the nintex workflow cloud a custom REST API endpoints, that are "encapsulated" into ready-to-use actions. How does it work?Nintex Xtensions - the basicsIn 3 steps:Obtain your custom rest apijson file with the swagger definition or provide a URL to a Swagger definition. Create new connection if your endpoint requires any kind of authentication. That's it - now you can use actions built on functions defined in the Swagger file. Step by step howtoI will try to present you how to do it. This tutorial is divided into 2 sections. First shows how to create a Swagger file, if your REST API doesn't prov

Following on from the success of January 2017 Mission‌ "What is your Nintex New Years Resolution", which was all about what bad habits you have when using Nintex that you would like to dispel of, we have created a positive spin in this months mission! So what do you have to do to get the loot?  Simple really, share your quick top tip for any of the products in the Nintex suite, easy right?!  A simple couple of lines as a comment below about your top tip will do the job.  For your trouble, you pick up the badge pictured, and 100 points! Why are we doing this?  In the hope that your top tip might be something that users in the community have never even heard about - and imagine if you could save them time and less headaches by simply sharing yours...   Here is mine:  Use the "Log in history list" action.  Simple enough I know, but for the first eight months of developing workflows I didn't know it was there and I used to bombard myself with emails trying to debug my workflow and get the

The Nintex App Studio feature App Deploy lets you deploy apps without using an MDM.Instead, after building your app, use Nintex App Studio distribution lists to send the app to your recipients' email address. The distribution list sends an email containing the link to download the app.  Optionally, you can view reports on your sent and downloaded apps. Currently, App Deploy is only supported by iOS and Android devices. To create a distribution listUnder the App Deploy tab, click Manage distribution lists. The App Deploy tab is accessible from the home page for all apps that are queued to build. Click Add on the Manage distribution lists page. Fill out the fields on the Edit distribution list page. You can copy and paste email addresses from most sources. Only valid email addresses are automatically extracted from the pasted text when you click Add Click the Nintex Mobile logo in the ribbon to return to the App deploy tab. To email your appUnder the App Deploy tab, select your distr

In Part 1 we explored the new Nintex SharePoint Connectors for our Domestic Animal Registration example and successfully published a Public Web Form and added our responses to SharePoint Online which triggered an internal review and approval process.  Part 2 is all about our backend process to save our users even more time and effort. Remember those paper / email received forms our Chris City Council workers received. Well once they've approved them internally they need to update a central CRM (Salesforce) by adding the record. They either do this by typing directly from that paper form or copy and pasting from the email received PDF. We also need to inform the member of the public that submitted the form and provide them with a Proof of Registration which is a council generated document that we also do manually. So let's get started. I'm going to create a backend process workflow in Nintex Workflow Cloud with the Start event of External start. This is going to allow me to initiate thi

The account being used for installation is important. During the installation, the process will deploy or updated dll's and binaries to the operating system at the permission level of that user. So checking these items on the checklist should help to prevent any issues while updating or installing Nintex products.  Checklist: 1: Check that the UAC setting for the account used is temporarily turned down. (You will need to do this on each server that makes up the SharePoint deployment excluding Exchange and SQL.) (Microsoft Reference)   2: Check that on-access scanning is turned off temporarily for SharePoint servers. There are many flavors of anti-virus, some impact and some don't on the installation process. To rule it out, temporarily disable it.    3: Check that the account has Farm Administrator and Local Machine Admin rights. This account will need local admin rights for all the hosts   4: The account will need SQL read/write access at the point you click update. In the background,

Based on the question Is it possible to look for conflicting schedule in calendar app?‌ risen by Rogelio Tan‌ I've built a small example workflow how to identify overlapping events in sharepoint's calendar list. Note: workflow works just on simple not recurring calendar events!  so this is how the workflow looks like and works.   first of all we need to identify set of events that we want to compare. so we query a calendar list with some reasonable filtering condition. for this demonstration I haven't used any filters.   we need to query for event's start and end times, plus some event identifier, eg. ID or Title. we save values for each queried fields to separate collection variable to identify overlapping events, we need to compare them each to other. so we will need two nested loops over collections returned from query above.   so we configure first for each loop over ID collection, and save current event's ID value and current index to a scalar variable

Good Day To all,I have been testing the water with nintex 365 and one of the things that I was interested in solve is the workflow history log for audit purposes. And then I have one more solution that could be helpfull.   1. I will create the example by using a simple list called (approval) with the following columns: Title(Single line of text), Approver (Person or Group) Status (Waiting for Approval, Approved, Rejected) this is type "Choice" and InstanceID (Single line of text) 2. The workflow is pretty straight forward (I will be uploading the workflow here ) 3. Once I have the list and the workflow working accordingly the next step is add some jquery script to pop up the workflow history log related to a specific item..    The script should be added by using the web part Content Editor: Find  the script and workflow attached: (remember change the URL related to your history log) ThanksWalter

First off, big shout out to Patrick Abel‌ for writing his blog: Sending Microsoft Teams notifications using Webhooks & the Nintex Workflow Cloud His blog was made aware to me by the ever responsive Bingham Blalock‌ as we were discussing ideas around Nintex Workflow Cloud and Microsoft Teams. I had done what Patrick details in his blog while exploring different ways to connect Nintex and Teams. The thought is to create a connector within NWC so that you can easily add in an action and connect to any Team conversation (like Slack). Before you get your hopes up, this is not a blog announcing a Teams connector for NWC... not yet! I wanted to bring this topic to the attention of the community in the hopes of sparking some further conversations and brainstorming. Also, I wanted to show everyone that this is not just limited to Nintex Workflow Cloud. Since we are leveraging a web request action, just about any Nintex Workflow can use this! I did examples for this blog using Nintex Workflo

Workflows do fail. External forces or unforeseen conflicts arise and force us into troubleshooting mode. Deciphering the root cause of the workflow errors can be time-consuming. When it comes to delivering materials to a support team such as Nintex Support we want the most accurate information possible and we want to get it out the door quickly. To better respond to my clients needs for rapid workflow error remediation, I've come up with a PowerShell script which will process the ULS logs of an on-premises SharePoint farm, locate Nintex Workflow-specific correlation tokens, and output the series of ULS logs directly aligned to all workflow instances over the given time period, all automatically, with minimal input from you, the SharePoint/Nintex administrator.  Have a look! Usage Usage:To output one ULS log file for every Nintex Workflow instance reported in the trace log by SharePoint over a given period of time. Requires:SharePoint Management Shell/SharePoint PowerShell cmdlets. Para