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Displaying Appended Text in Multiple Lines of Text Field on New Responsive Form

  • 10 April 2023
  • 6 replies
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bamaeric
Userlevel 5
Badge +13

I’ve got a list in SharePoint online on which I have developed a New Responsive form to use. One of the list columns is type “Multiple Lines of Text” with the “Append Changes to Existing Text” option set to Yes.

I also have a Nintex Automation Cloud workflow that runs when a new item is created in this SharePoint online list. One of the workflow actions assigns a task with a task form. On the task form is a Comments field of type “Text - Long”. After the task is completed, I want the workflow to update the Comments column in the list and display all the appended comments.

Right now, the workflow just seems to overwrite the Comments column. I was hoping the Comments field on the form would show the itemized list of comments on the form. Anyone know if this is possible using the New Responsive designer?

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Best answer by bamaeric 24 April 2023, 16:50

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6 replies

Garrett
Userlevel 6
Badge +16

Hi @bamaeric 

Wow! I wasn’t aware of this feature. Thanks for highlighting it!!

 

This “Append changes to Existing Text” feature works really great!!

The only caveat is that you cannot use any form on that list and also you cannot retrieve the appended text (just the latest update). 

If you have a form on the site, export the form to make a backup. then delete the published form. now you should be able to view the history for the collumn.

 

This works.

SPO List. - Have a multiline or long plain text column eg “TestActivityLog”. There is no Nintex Form on the List

NAC/NWC - Build a workflow which will update that SPO List and the “TestActivityLog” column. Fixed Item ID at 1. 

Perform several updates. Click the  “View Entries” link on item ID: 1

 

 

Sadly, you would not be able to display the Appended Text in in your New Responsive Form.
Well, you could - it requires the usage of SPO REST API to retrieve the version history.

/_api/web/lists/getByTitle('ListName')/items('ID')/Versions

 

Hope that helps

 

bamaeric
Userlevel 5
Badge +13

@Garrett  Thanks for the reply.

I was hoping I could use the “out of the box” functionality in SharePoint online to display the Comments on the form in an appended/audited style like you can in SharePoint on-premise form (see the image below). It doesn’t look like this display functionality is available in any of the Nintex Forms for O365 designers.

 

Garrett
Userlevel 6
Badge +16

@bamaeric 

Sorry, no “out of the box” functionality. 
You can achieve something similar using the SPO REST API.

/_api/web/lists/getByTitle('ListName')/items('ID')/Versions

 

Below is ID:2 for the List. This is the column “ActivityLog” with all the previous versions. 

 

For the SPO REST API, the $select will filter the columns needed

_api/web/lists/getByTitle('TestActivityLog')/items(2)/Versions?$select=ActivityLog

This can be tested using your browser. It returns the result in XML data.

 

The NWC code is simple.
Start Event is a blank Form - Just click submit.

  • Call a SharePoint Web Service
    - use the working or testing REST API URL
    - set the Output variable “obj_WebAPI”
  • Query JSON -  “obj_WebAPI” → Response Content
  • Log “col_JSON1_Output”
  • Result after running the workflow

This isn’t as great as what you have shown. The SPO REST API Version has the complete details, its just a bit cumbersome to process the output and extract the information which you require.

Hope that helps

 

 

MillaZ
Userlevel 5
Badge +21

Hi @bamaeric 
Did this solve your question? 

Check out these Nintex University Learning paths: https://community.nintex.com/p/NintexUniversity
bamaeric
Userlevel 5
Badge +13

Thank you @Garrett. Your solution should work for this scenario. It is a little more complicated than what was needed. It would be nice to be able to display the appended comments on the form like you can do out of the box in Nintex Forms for SharePoint on-premise.

The solution I ultimately used was to use a workflow task action with a Nintex task form that includes a Comments field. Each time a task form is completed and submitted, the Comments field with details (responder, date/time, and comments) is appended to a multi-line text field and that field is displayed as read-only on the form.

Iramos85
Badge +1

Thank you @Garrett. Your solution should work for this scenario. It is a little more complicated than what was needed. It would be nice to be able to display the appended comments on the form like you can do out of the box in Nintex Forms for SharePoint on-premise.

The solution I ultimately used was to use a workflow task action with a Nintex task form that includes a Comments field. Each time a task form is completed and submitted, the Comments field with details (responder, date/time, and comments) is appended to a multi-line text field and that field is displayed as read-only on the form.

I am actually working on this same problem, can you explain this a little further? I really only have to display the appended comments on a read-only form. I am currently in the process of migrating my workflow and form from Nintex for Office 365 in hopes that will give me more options with displaying appended comments.

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