Workflow task batch approval

  • 26 January 2017
  • 8 replies
  • 75 views

Badge +1

Is there any function provided to approve/complete workflow tasks in batch?


8 replies

Userlevel 4
Badge +12

Hi Toby,

I don't think so. I could imagine some logic to achieve this but to give you a suggestion it would be helpful to know more about your scenario, like who is approving/rejecting whose tasks in what situation and how the workflow should act in case of approving all or only some of the tasks given.

Kind regards,

Enrico

Badge +1

Hi Enrico,

Thanks for your reply. We have a list for sales order approval. For each list item created, one approval task will be assigned to manager. The manager may have multiple approval tasks every day. It is not convenient to open each task item and complete it. We still only allow task assignee to approve/reject the task.

I have tried create the sales order task view by modifying the workflow tasks list default view. When updating the tasks by editing list, "Outcome" field cannot be edited.

Best regards,

Toby

Userlevel 4
Badge +12

Hmm, I see.

I always think it's best to review each task to not approve/deny a task by accident because the approver thought it would be another task but if it's a requirement I leave that to you.

I still don't think there is a good way to achieve this. You would need to manipulate workflow task list which is never a good idea. I would rather think of using other approval channels first to make it more convenient for your approvers to approve tasks before I would go for the 'dirty stuff'

Do you think you could introduce one of the following approval channels to your approvers?

  • LazyApproval (approve by just reply to an email)
  • Send approval tasks through Skype for business rather than email
  • Use Nintex Mobile

Each of them still require tasks to be approved one by one but it might be a bit more sexy for your approvers.

Kind regards,

Enrico

@toby_lin !  I know this is 2 years later but did you get any solution for this concern from nintex?  If you still need it I can share the workaround we made from our end.

Badge +8

@maya wrote:

@toby_lin !  I know this is 2 years later but did you get any solution for this concern from nintex?  If you still need it I can share the workaround we made from our end.




I’m interested in your workaround. The ability to approve multiple items at once would work very much for one of my workflows.

Badge +3

Hello,


I would be very much interested as well. Something as simple as manually changing the outcome column in the task list by the task assignee in Quick Edit Mode would work perfectly, but I can't find a way to make this field editable.


Adding a list column with a trigger to update the outcome value using CSOM could be an option but if I can avoid this route...


 


 

Just an update for everyone, its late 2021 and there is still no functionality to do this. I have been in frequent contact with Nintex support trying to accomplish this. Here is what's been tried by myself and our Nintex support rep:


 



  1. I originally used SP Services and JSOM/CSOM to query the workflow task list and was able to successfully modify the workflow task list but I couldn’t modify the outcome field. It turns out the outcome field works differently than the rest of the fields in the workflow task list and our nintex rep said modifying that field won’t work.

  2. Similar attempt as the first one but I tried to use an event receiver to modify the outcome field, still no luck.

  3. A separate nintex rep suggested not using Flexi tasks but instead just using basic choice field. This isn’t really an option because we lose all the functionality of the flexi tasks ie: delegation, reminders, automated emails, advancing workflows automatically, etc.

  4. Nintex rep suggested building custom workflow actions and modifying the Nintex installations global cache assemblies to create a SOAP workflow action that approves flexi tasks. This method is super complex and could possibly break our Nintex installation on the server.


Has anyone else had success with this? @toby_lin @praios81 @maya @Nates_Mom @Sylvain 

Badge +3

Nope I gave up on this

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