Solved

Start a task process not delivering email to ‘Assigned to’ user

  • 21 September 2015
  • 7 replies
  • 167 views
S
Badge +6

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I have been working on a workflow solution for staff onboard application. The solution had sequential as well as parallel processing blocks for task approvals for which I have been using both

  • Assign a task and
  • Start a task process

All was well and the task assignment notifications were sent as expected to the approver/SharePoint group of approvers (in the case of start a task process) with Lazy Approval enabled. They could reply email with their outcome for the task post which the process flow continues as assigned.

Each of the task assignment task form was edited and customized for ease of approvers, with rules to show ONLY the sections of the form they need to see and not the hundreds of other fields. So far so good eh! 

But then, the past week, task assignment notifications in the parallel processing blocks were not delivered to the approvers.(Cyborg approvers is a custom SharePoint group that is selected conditionally should the user requested access for the same). Nothing got changed in the workflow. Everything was just as it was both in the ‘Start a task process’ and the custom ‘Task form’. But, upon selecting the system

  • User would get notified about submission
  • Sequential task assignments would work as expected sending assignment notifications with hyperlink to URL of item and lazy approval enabled
  • Task process would start
  • Email will NOT be sent to the approver (Swetha Sankaran in the image below)
  • Task will be assigned to them(Not Started in the image below) and everything else would flow as designed

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I have been trying to get to the bottom of the issue and understand what was happening. Needless to say the only bottom regarding the issue I found was this.

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Google/Bing or Nintex Connect didn’t have much to offer in terms of cause/fix of this issue. At this point, I was not even sure if this ‘WAS’ a real issue.

One thing that did help and set me on the right track was this article on stackexchange: http://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/4024/sharepoint-workflows-not-sending-emails-to-task-created-by specifically the mention of HTML element in the message  body. My task assignment email also had multiple field values, workflow variables as well as hyperlink to task URL (pic below)

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While it worked perfectly fine in the beginning, at some point, I think the custom links/variables must have failed notification step. Long story short, I cleared the email body and ran my workflow and task assignment notification for the parallel block worked again.

Now I have to update the mail body.

Glad the issue is resolved now, but would appreciate understanding why it failed to begin with. (Malformed URL?! Rogue character in copy paste?!)Any ideas? happy.png

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Best answer by swethasan 3 December 2015, 16:59

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7 replies

A
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

It looks like your variables where either Item Properties, or string from a variable. Unless one of these became malformed for some reason or bad values, it should not have been a problem there. You could review what the values should have been for those workflows.

I try not to copy past the workflow variable/context tokens, but that is more a habit from working with SPD. It could easily have been that and a value finally caught up with you.

Where you able to rebuild the email body again and it functioned as expected?

N
Badge +2

Hi Swetha,

I just runned into the same situation today. Workflow works very well for weeks, and suddenly, no mail is sent. Check on Exchange Online, and no mail arrives anymore from this specific task, all others are working well.

So there must be some kind of bug in the body stuff?

I'll check your solution to see what's happening and keep you updated.

Did you log this with Nintex Support? If so, could you give me the case number, so I can reference that in my submission.

Thanks and greets,

Peter

BTW: fine sense of humour

S
Badge +6

Hyperlinks/ Variables that you create in the workflow, any custom actions related to dynamic update of values from item properties, if you try to copy it and paste into email body. It freaks out as it gets confused about the ID of the element/item I suppose and does NOT send email.

How big is your workflow? As in approval paths? If its just one or two task actions in it, you are better off recreating it organically without CTRL+C and CTRL+V.

Thanks for the note on humor. That is how i stay sane. Its my coping mechanism.

Let me  know when and if it works for you.

www.swethasankaran.com​

N
Badge +2

Hi Swetha,

Problem solved. In the subject, one field got corrupted or so. The workflow hasn't changed and the field type either, but sudenly, we can't choose no longer the multiline textfield into subject. And that killed the mailing of the task, not the task itself.

So deleting this little thing, and all is up and running.

Thanks for pointing in the right direction.

Greets!

Peter

S
Badge +6

Very cool! Glad I was able to assist.

J
Badge +1

Hi Andrew,

I had the same issue as @Swetha, and recreating the notification worked for less than a day, before they stopped sending again. Have you got any further advice on resolving this?

Regards, Jacob

S
Badge +6

Hi Jacob,

I would check variables/HTML body or any other custom dynamic item properties/workflow variables you included by copying and pasting and re-include them again.

If it was 'Start a task process' and you are using custom SharePoint Group in the 'participants' field with Lazy Approval enabled, make sure to set the members of the group to be visible to Everyone. If it is not turned on, then task will be assigned properly, but they wont be notified.(Happened to me once) Start a task process 

Trust this helps!

Swetha

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