Help! Is there a way to pause already sent emails from re-sending within a list team?

7 years ago
21 April 2016
26 replies
8 views

kthornton
24 replies

I have custom lists in SP2013 which I have created workflows to send email notifications to specific users. My list displays an end-to-end view of an appeal which may be processed through 3 levels (with different users getting involved based on the level). My issue is that I want the already sent emails to stop as the stages progress, but I continue to receive a duplicate email as the previous stage field is filled out (triggering an email). Is there a way to pause those already sent emails from re-sending within a list item?

Note: I am new to Nintex and there seems to be no one within my company who can help guide me through this process.

Below is an example of my form. When the initial appeal outcome is posted, an email is triggered. When a response is provided within the form to that initial appeal outcome, another email is triggered BUT the initial appeal outcome posted email gets re-triggered. I don't want that to happen. Once the email goes out (regarding a single list item), I want it to stop.

I appreciate any help!

Katie

26 replies

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Userlevel 4

+11

jackgelo
Scout
468 replies
7 years ago
22 April 2016

Hi,

how your workflows are configured?

Could you put a condition in the workflow who sends the first mail to check if the second field is empty or not and if empty it sends the mail..could it works in your scenario?

Giacomo

Hi Katie,

I assume you workflow start when the list item is modified and based on what you are describing here you will have create different workflows and each will have its own conditional start.

The first workflow for "Initial Appeal Review Outcome" will start when the item is modified

In your condition make sure that you select the field with the previous value added to it (I used purpose because its a field in one of my lists). You will see that there is two listings for each field in the top drop list. Then select the compare to field? option and select the same field name but without the (previous value) added to it.

This will allow for a specific workflow to start if this field changed.

You will have to repeat this for the other options as well. Let me know if I need to explain in more detail.

Yes that is exactly what I need to do but didn't know how. Please see my response to Francois below.

Hi Katie,

Your response to me seems to have gone missing. Can you please resend that?

Light bulb! Ok, so here is what I have currently set up, but would it make more sense for me to consolidate into one workflow instead having separate flows for each email?

I originally set it up this way bc I am new to Nintex and thought it was easiest to have separate flows based on a particular field being filled out on the form (since different people need to be notified based on a particular field being completed).

Here is what the Workflow looks like in Nintex:

Hi Katie,

I look through the list of workflows and I'm not exactly sure about the business process that is followed but from the little bit I can make out here I think you can group some of these workflows together, i.e. look at the Initial appeal workflows to maybe group them together in a workflow and the Escalation workflows in one workflow. This will be dependant on your processes and if it makes more sense to have them separate.

The next steps depend on the business processes and it makes sense to group them together or not. I hope this makes sense.

Let me know if there is an area for which you need more information

I tried to use the previous value option, but still wasn't able to achieve my goal. I have now attempted to consolidate workflows so they only send a communication if the form is modified by particular users (i.e. users listed within the form fields); however, when I test the workflows no emails are sent. Here are the two workflow conditions I created:

(1)

(2)

What am I missing? My goal was to have a more generalized email be sent from these two workflows, but nothing is happening when I test them.

Hi Francois,

Did you happen to see my last update? Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Katie

Hi Katie,

I did not see the reply so sorry only read it now. Can you show what type of detail is saved in the QA Name, Quality Manager, Site Director, etc? The reason for the request is that although the Modified by field shows a name, the actual value is the person's AD account, i.e. Domainusername that is stored in the field. Are you comparing domainusername with domainusername or first name lastname with domainusername?

The detail provided in the QA Name, Quality Manager, Site Director, etc. fields are those individuals domain/username. Those fields are set up in the list as Person fields so users can easily list the appropriate person.

What I was trying to do (and maybe by clicking the Compare to Field? was incorrect), but I wanted to set up the rules so that if the QA Name or Quality Manager modified a list item, then that would trigger an email. The same would occur if the list item was modified by the Site Director, Additional Contact, Created by, etc.

I hope that made since....

sense, not since**

Hi Katie,

Your logic seems correct and you will need to use the Compare Field option because you are comparing it to another workflow variable. I will try and replicate your scenario and also test it.

Hi Katie,

Sorry for the delay in reply. I have tried it on my side and all worked fine. I set it up like yours with the exception of contains being changed for equals. I added two columns to a list called Manager and Supervisor of type Person. Then I added a conditional start on create in my workflow settings looking like this and I compare to the Created By

You can see from the list below where the manager or supervisor wasn't me the workflow didn't even start.

I then thought it might be the contains and even that worked fine and gave me the same result as the image above. Can you send me a screenshot of you Workflow settings screen?

Another thing you can try is to create an additional workflow on the same list that only has a log in history action in it. In this log in history action only add the Modified by, QA Name, QualityManager, Created By, Site Director and Additional contact each in its own line and make this workflow start on change without conditions. When you run the workflow you should be able to see what the values were in each of these variables at run time even if the other workflow didn't execute. Let me know what your results are.

Here are screenshots of the two workflows I've set up:

Should these not be set up within the Modified Conditional settings, but instead within the Created Conditional settings? I thought created meant when a line item is newly submitted, not after its been modified.

I will work on the other suggestion you provided above as well.

Thanks!

Katie

Hi Katie,

It should definitely be on the Modified because that is where you want to test if something is modified in the list. I just created my example on the created action to see if it works if I add items. I will run some more tests a bit later as well to see if it works on the modified as well but is should just work the same way it did on the created actions.

Hi Francois,

Thank you so much for all the help here. I did get the workflows to work, but only when I manually started them. I really need them to run automatically based on a line item being modified. I tried unselecting the Manually start checkbox, but no luck. I just wanted to provide this update to you as well. I will keep testing...

Katie

Hi Katie,

I have updated my workflow to start on modified and added a log in history so that I can see what is going on

then I made sure the condition is setup

I did three tests. TEST1 where modified = manager, TEST2 where supervisor = modified and TEST3 where modified is not equals to any of the two.

TEST1 the workflow ran and gave me the log in history output

TEST2

and TEST3- No workflows ran because the condition wasn't satisfied.

Did you get any further with your testing?

Hi Francois,

I tried the Log In History and set it up the same as you, however the workflow still didn't send the email as needed. I met with a lady yesterday from my company who works on a SP Collaboration team. She advised me to try using the Run If and Terminate Workflow actions to stop other workflows if conditions were set that aligned with another. Here is how that set up looked:

I set this up, but the initial workflows still ran again - resulting in duplicate emails. So basically, I am back to square one. Not sure what to try next.

Katie

I also tried playing around with the Switch action:

No luck with this either

Hi Katie,

From what i've read in the previous responses so far, It looks like they have already pointed you to the answer, but some 'programming logic' needs to be included in the workflow . You can use the fields as flags. so empty would be 'on' and not empty would be 'off'.... and use the run if action to trigger the necessary workflow or actions, but the conditions would have to be a combination of all the fields you are using to trigger the different emails each time. Not sure of the programming level so, assuming zero..

I'm a developer first, so please forgive my camel case field names etc. and didn't have time to crop the images.. sorry..

so for email 1 - you want it to be sent only when the initial Appeal has been made(flag on), but the other fields haven't been selected yet or are empty(flags off).
for email 2 - you want the initial appeal to have been made(flag on), the initial appeal outcome to have been selected(flag on), but the escalated appeal field to be not selected or empty(flag off)
for email 3 - you want all the fields to be selected or not empty(flag on, flag on, flag on)

and so on...

I know how it can be starting out, and you probably made a lot of changes already, trying to get this to work, so going to try type the steps in point form, would recommend you start of with a clean list and or workflow as well, so previous attempts doesn't mess this up.

You can remove the condition from the workflow settings, just set it to run whenever an item is modified.(in case you are continuing with the same list).
for my test, I did three fields, and just three run if actions, each of which would send out a different email.

For the first run if action, set the conditions to "initialAppealouctome is not empty" - (This is if you have the list default value as blank, or<> to 'upheld')
still in the first Run IF - add other conditions, meaning your other 'flags' or fields should be empty at this point. resulting in something similar to the image below:

Then include the email to be sent out, only when the initialAppeal has been selected

You are going to repeat this, for the other two Run If actions, so you can copy and paste the initial run-if and modify as needs be.

For the next Run if, set the conditions, so that, initialAppeal, and initialAppealoutcome are not empty,and the EscalatedAppeal is empty

Hope this helps.

Hi Russel - thank you so much for sharing. I've wiped out my workflows and started from scratch. This may be a silly question, but does it make a difference if the email is within the Run If action or not? Here are two examples:

1).

2.)

Katie

HI Katie,

Number 1. is the right way, it has to be within the Run If action.

I had to minimize it to try fit all three in the picture and still make it somewhat readable.

Another question - should the workflow settings just say Yes to Start when items are modified, rather than conditional with specific conditions? I ask since I am setting up the Run If actions to be "conditional".

Yeah, just set to 'yes'. and should be fine.

It worked! Thank you Robert, Francois, and everyone else who helped me through this workflow!

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Help! Is there a way to pause already sent emails from re-sending within a list team?

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