When saving workflow task comments not saved


Badge +6

Hi All,

I have a multi line text field with "Append Changes to Existing Text" turned ON.

The problem is that when users are saving a workflow task with adding some comments to the field, next time they open the task the comment is not there (not saved). 

Basically they have a "Save" and a "Save and submit" button and the comment only gets saved when submitting the task. How can I set it up to save the comments also when using the "Save" button?

Thanks


8 replies

Userlevel 4
Badge +12

The append changes to existing text feature relies on versioning which usually is not activated for tasks because they are just edited once.

Could you describe what you want to achieve with appending the text? Why need the people to get back to the task? It would help find a solution for your scenario.

Kind regards

Enrico

Badge +6

Hi Enrico,

The saving without submitting is needed, because the task sits with the users for some day and they would like adding comments in the meantime (as they work on it). Appending text needed as all users use the same comments section trough the workflow life cycle and they can see who & when added what comment. 

Userlevel 4
Badge +12

You can give it a try and do the following:

  • In nintex workflow designer go to workflow settings and create a new workflow task list for your process.
  • choose the new workflow task list for your workflow
  • go to the created task list, open list settings, versioning settings and enable simple versioning for the list

Now start a new workflow and see if the text is correctly appended to your box.

I'd go with a new task list to not interfere the actions of other workflow, just for security.

Hope this helps.

Enrico

Badge +6

Thank you Enrico,

Actually I already tried this before writing my question here and it didn't worked.

What I just noticed however that if I change a radio button or drop down option that will be saved!

It seems somehow only the text field cant be saved.

Userlevel 4
Badge +12

I think the text will also be saved but it only shows you the latest version which does not yet contain any value.

To verify that could you go to your workflow task list, open the version history of a task that you expect to have a value and see if one of the older versions contains the text you're missing?

Badge +6

I added a multi line text field with "Append Changes" turned OFF, it saved the text in it, so it only not works when Append Changes is ON. I guess its because SharePoint saves it with major versions only, and the normal Save is a minor version.

Userlevel 5
Badge +13

I've not been able to get Append Changes to show up at all in Nintex Forms. It's actually something that's been mentioned in User Voice: Support lists with versioning turned on and where "Append Changes to Existing Text" is set to "Yes." – Customer Feedback…  and is "Under Review."

In the meantime, I made a workaround where I basically emulate the "Append Changes" behavior with Workflow, here: https://community.nintex.com/thread/15147-extract-last-update-from-versioned-multi-line-text-field#comment-57906 

I can help with this method if you'd like and/or need more assistance

Badge +6

Hi Courtney,

For me the append changes are working, just cant save it with regular save.

I will use the "save and submit" and re assign it to the user who "saved" it, so basically imitating the regular save with state machine.

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