Solved

Issue with tasks in Start a task process


Badge +4

Hi,

I've noticed strange thing - when I put "Start a Task Process" in a loop (n-times), participants got n-emails with Task Assigned notification and n-1 emails with Task Canceled notification.

Settings for "Start a task process" are:

-"Assignment Behavior" set  to "parallel (all at once)"

-"Assign a task to each member within groups" checked

-"Wait for task completion" unchecked

-no reminders

 

Example: I've got loop with 2 iterations (razy, dwazy) and I received 3 email - 2 with task notification (for "razy" and "dwazy" task) and 1 with task canceletion (for "razy" task). 

202029_pastedImage_2.png

Obviously task "razy" is canceled/deleted (no item on Workflow tasks list).

 

Any ideas?

icon

Best answer by maciej_flis 2 May 2017, 09:33

View original

15 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Hi! I have some additional questions to you:

How many approvers are indicated per each "start task action"?

What completion rule have you set? Wait for all approvals, first approves, etc...?

Regards,

Tomasz

Badge +4

Hi, Tomasz

I've got 2 approvers in each task, and rule is "first approves".

Badge +6

Hi Maciej Flis‌,

  Please check this section in your Task configuration wizard.

assignment behaviour

- Assignee options

  • Assignment Behavior: Under the Assignee option,

    Assignee option

    You can assign the task serially one at a time and parallel at once.

  • Assign a task to each member within groups: When this option is checked, all the assignees will receive the tasks.

  • Wait for task completion: You have to wait when checked, the workflow will pause until the task completes.

  • Completion Criteria:

    Completion Criteria

    You can choose the options and make the workflow to wait for all responses or first response or for specific response and for a specific percentage of a response.

Thanks

Bashya Rajan A

Badge +4

Hi Bashya,

I've  checked this  already (info in my first post). Please see those settings on the screenshot:

Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Would it be possible that you attach your workflow exported file?

Regards,

Tomasz

Badge +4

Yes of course. This is only POC (proof of concept) with loop and a single task:

Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Maciej Flis‌ frankly speaking I'm a bit confused  I have imported your workflow, run it several times, even setting the "Due Date" and manipulating with the "Escalations".

When I use the "Assign a task" action I have always been receiving only the "razy" and "dwazy" emails, no cancellation (and unfortunately, no escalation emails...).  

Now when I switched into "Start a task process" action and I assigned 2 users to it, I noticed also a weird behavior - like the Nintex is assigning the task only to one (random) person from the set and is automatically canceling the others:

I suppose this is related to the fact, that "Wait for task completion" is unchecked- notice, that if you have this checkbox marked, Nintex generates a task for each assignee, but once one approves, the other tasks are being removed. As in such configuration Nintex is not waiting I understands it is simply removing additional tasks leaving only the firs/ last one created.

The other thing I also noticed and this is it might be a bug (and possibly this is a reason why those "overdue" and "escalation" emails are not being send is the fact, that the "Date/Time" variable I'm setting, even though I have a proper TimeZone set in SharePoint Regional Settings is set to probably the timezone where the Nintex Workflow Service is hosted. For example, the "d" variable you created, in the workflow is set to ex. 11:00. However, when I log the value as a string it seems that it is set to 20:00 (8pm) and when I output it as ISO then I receive 18:00 (6pm) - dunno why

Possibly another reason why these "reminding" emails are not sent is again the fact, workflow is not paused until the approval is made and it get completed before then so like its... done

So anyway - I don't know if my investigations going to help you, but it seems it's working like designed. But I'm only suspecting why it does so.

Regards,

Tomasz

Badge +4

Bingo&bongo Tomasz

That is exactly what I've done and investigated too.

Thank you for your commitment! 

I've opened a ticket on Nintex Support. We had a live session where I showed and described those two issues (with "Start a task process" and "Assign a task" actions).

I waiting for information from Nintex evangelist  

Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Please, share the feedback you will receive with us

Badge +4

No problem

Badge +4

From support team:

Hello Maciej,

 

I have ben working on this case and your other ticket throughout the day - testing multiple iterations and configurations

I also faced similar removal behavior as you experienced and I'm going to be raising it further with our development team to see if the behavior is to be expected.

The best result I could get was with using a SharePoint group - rather than referencing 2 users, by referencing a SharePoint group and creating a task for each individual within the group the tasks generated without issue but would then see those tasks cancelled when it reached a second brand iteration. If you reference as Azure AD group the task will be assigned to the group itself as 1 item which any group member could reply too. This setup gave me results most similar to what I believe your requirement is, as I did not receive cancelled out tasks.

 
I recommend testing with a reference to the Azure AD group (Make an Azure AD group for Dwazy & Razy) to see the results within your environment - If this does not fulfill the requirements for your design then I can pull it assistance from one of our technical evangelists who are better placed to assist our technical partners with workflow designs.

Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Fine, however I pointed out two issues there - one with some possible misbehaviour of the cancelation, related to a random selection of assignees, but the other, more annoying, was this wrong date comparisons - like if Nintex Workflow was picking up date from its environment, not the one set up in SharePoint.

Will you try to investigate it further or do you feel ok with the information you received? If so, can you mark one of the answers as correct? Thanks!

Regards,

Tomasz

Badge +4

I don't have more time to investigate this. I've wasted to much time with that

I'm angry, Client is angry, PM is angry.... 

It's a pity that this is a new Client and this is the first project using Nintex (Nintex was bought specially for it) and we have some limitations and problems (other problems not described here).

Userlevel 7
Badge +17

I don't know the requirements, but maybe it is possible to re-design the workflow, do that you can workaround or fulfill them, but the other way round?

Badge +4

Copy/paste answer from my other thread:

My case is to send a task to Approver and Deputy (Deputy - person who can approve task instead of Approver) for a specific group of brands. Approver and Deputy are persons (not group).

I must collect and aggregate all SKUs by brand and send one email (one task) to Approver and Deputy.

So I'm collecting all rows (repeating section), aggregate them by Brand, and create a Task for each brand.

It is important that task can be approved/rejected only by Approver or Deputy so I must create one approval task for both (first response wins).

Reply