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Hello, I've got a calculated value in a repeated section that looks up the serial number of an item from one of the lists in the site. However, I want to save this calculated value to a field but ... I can't see how it can be done. Can anyone help? Many thanks
Alice.
Best answer by alice_oneill
View originalHi Alice,
The data for everything in the repeating section will be stored in the FormData, and can be retrieved using a workflow to parse the Form XML (you can store the entire repeating section to a Multiline text field as well for a quicker reference). For retrieving this information and storing it elsewhere, @jesse_mchargue and @eharris04 have some good blog posts on querying repeating section XML. See the links below for more info.
Jesse's Blog:
Eric's Blog:
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Hello, thank you so much for replying to me. That sounds like I will have to save the document and run a workflow before I can parse the XML - is that correct? I really wanted the calculated value to appear on new documents before they had been saved. Is that not possible?
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Sorry, what I meant to say was that I wanted to calculate the values and then save them to a field as the document is saved for the first time.
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@alice_oneill because you are using a repeating section, this would still require parsing the XML to get that value out. It is possible to do this before storing it in a document. Essentially you would have the user complete the form and see the values in the form.
Then you would use a workflow to parse the data and pull out the calculated control values. From there you can either store that back into SharePoint using the update list item action or you can use that in the workflow along with the document generation action to push the values into a document.
I may be misunderstanding what you mean by "document" but my interpretation of this was an actual document and not a form.
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Thanks everybody,
I have finally found a very convoluted way around the issue by parsing the XML and then running a site workflow to extract and update the relevant items. I've had to re-think how the whole thing works and just avoid the issue in the original question. And my apologies - I meant a list item rather than an actual document.
Alice.
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Hi @alice_oneill,
I am working on the repeating section for Nintex Workflow Cloud and am interested in knowing how you would want to get the information, the format and how you would use it.
Would you want a collection of the calculations from the repeating section? What would you do with the collection if you could easily access it?
Cheers,
Euan
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Hi Euan,
A collection would be great - at the moment I am using a workflow to parse the XML and write the values for each field on the repeating section into a separate collection, so that would save me a lot of work.
I then extract each item from each collection (one collection for each field) to write the values into a rich text field in another list which is then used to create an email.
It would be nice if each repeating section could be stored so that you could access all the fields for that section in one place.
I don't know if it's possible but if, for example, I had Name, email address, status on a repeating section it would be great if those three fields could be grouped together in some sort of collection or dictionary so that I can pick up all those relevant details in one go.
I hope that makes sense - happy to elaborate if necessary.
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Hi @alice_oneill,
So the eventual output is to get the repeating section data into an email? How would you want to format the email? In a table? A bulleted list? Would you ever want to filter or sort the data from the repeating section in the Workflow, before it is put into the email?
Cheers,
Euan
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Hi @EuanGamble
In this case yes - if I could get it into a table, or at least a rich text field that would be great, just so that I can get it looking nice for the recipient. I might sometimes need to filter the data but I don't think it was an issue this time. Sorting would definitely be useful.
Sometimes I need to put the data into a field on the item rather than create an email, but I suppose that would require the same sort of functionality.
Thanks
Alice.
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