Workflow based on Repeating section

A
Badge +1

I have a repeating section in my form. It contains two drop down lists. When the user selects and entry in the first drop down, it filters the list for the second drop down. The workflow needs to go to the person responsible for the combination. I can explain this by using the following table:

ItemLocationPerson
Item 1Area 1Person 1
Item 1Area 2Person 2
Item 1Area 3Person 2
Item 2Area 1

Person 3

So it's possible that the person it goes to could be the same for a lot of the combinations, or it could be possible that every combination of item and location could have a different person where the workflow needs to go. Also, because this is a repeating section, there could be one item selected, or 20 items selected and the workflow approval would need to go to each person.

I previously had a requirement where it was only based on Item and I had a parallel workflow for each item. But this isn't going to work since it's now based on item and location. I'm really struggling with how to lay this out using Nintex. I know I need to loop through the repeating section and query a list based on the two parameters, but I'm not sure how to go about doing this and then making it send the workflow to the right person after that's done.

Any help here is greatly appreciated.

5 replies

P
Badge +4

Quick thoughts:

1) Firstly, parse the repeating section data, and get the values for each row. Vadim Tabakman​ has a great blog post about this: Nintex Forms/Workflow - Parsing Repeating Section Data - Vadim Tabakman

2) You could send a separate email for each row, to the approver as part of the above workflow. Which means each approver might get multiple emails depending upon how many times they have been selected. if that is OK with you then all you need to do is add a "Send Notification" action in the loop shown in the above blog post. Another example where I create an item in a separate list for each row. You could do the same as well: Create an item on a different list for each repeating section item

3) if you want to consolidate all rows per approver, it gets somewhat tricky. here is what I think will work.

  • Create three (or more) collection variables. One per approver.
  • In the loop. As you get each row value, depending upon who the approver is, add those values to the relevant collection. (you might need to build a string to make it all one value to be added to the collection)
  • Then, once the looping is all complete, send the contents of each collection in an email to the relevant approver. You probably could do some formatting of the email content with HTML etc.,

Hope that helps!

A
Badge +1

Thanks for the comments. I'll follow up on the parsing repeating data. However, I'm not sure if the email notification will be sufficient. As the person who receives the item needs to approve it so it can go to the next section. In this case it could required 10 people to approve it before it moves to that next section.

When my requirement was previously based on the item, I simply had a parallel workflow that checked each item and then at the end, it moved to the next area. I have a feeling that this won't be possible now. With that being said, is it possible to put reminders and escalations on notifications?

Appreciate the help so far. happy.png

P
Badge +4

Sure, you can use an approval request (or flexi task) instead of the email notification. If you use a Flexi Task, you can set reminders and escalations.

A
Badge +1

Would this work if there are other approvals waiting on all of these approvals to be done? The repeating section approvals are the first people that the workflow is sent to, but after that, it has to go to two other people. These will be static groups so no fancy stuff there.

M
Badge

Hello Prasanna

I found this discussion which is almost hitting the mark relating to my "problem".

I also have to consolidate rows per approver (data out of repeating section). The approver should receive only one email notifiaction for each case (unknown number of consolidate rows).

In 2016 you wrote this hint. I marked my question below in red colour.

3) if you want to consolidate all rows per approver, it gets somewhat tricky. here is what I think will work.

  • Create three (or more) collection variables. One per approver. --> If the number of approver is variable from approval to approval, how can I do this, that the workflow is working anyway?
  • In the loop. As you get each row value, depending upon who the approver is, add those values to the relevant collection. (you might need to build a string to make it all one value to be added to the collection)
  • Then, once the looping is all complete, send the contents of each collection in an email to the relevant approver. You probably could do some formatting of the email content with HTML etc.,

Many thanks for your reply!

Regards,
Michaela

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