So you have emails being sent out using SharePoint workflow but the problem is the blank values return five question marks “?????” and this is not very appealing to the user. Perhaps you would like it to say something else instead that wouldn’t confuse your recipients as much. Follow this tutorial to learn how to make your workflows do just this!
To complete this tutorial you will need SharePoint Designer and appropriate permissions to edit workflows. Let’s begin!
1. Start SharePoint Designer and navigate to the site where the workflow you wish to create or edit will be (or is) located.
2. Double-click on the .xoml file to enter the workflow wizard.
3. Here’s where it gets kinda tricky, but when you do it a few times you will get the idea:
Select Conditions > Compare “Name of your list” field
The condition should read: If “List name” is not empty
Next select Actions > Set Workflow Variable
Set (create new workflow variable for logging this) to value (value = the actual lookup value of that field as it was actually entered in the recordset)
You are halfway done now… Click “Add ‘Else If’ Conditional Branch
Select Conditions > Compare “Name of your list” field
If field is empty
Now select Actions > Set Workflow Variable
Set to a string, or a number and enter the value to whatever you’d like…
(value = the message you wish to have displayed instead of “?????”)
Here’s an example image of a workflow step that has these variable setup:
4. Finally, when you set the lookup value in your email message use the workflow variable we have setup insead of the current item value. Make sense?
Please comment if you are having problems understanding or have successfully implemented this method. Thanks!
Related posts:
- SharePoint Workflow Time Zones SharePoint workflows are very useful for sending automated emails when a list item is created or changed. As well, a workflow can be manually started from an item. SharePoint time zones can get a bit tricky when your workflow e-mails are sending date and times. This can confuse some recipients and may cause some problems [...]...
- Discard SharePoint Page Checkout Scenario: you are using SharePoint Designer to edit pages and the one you want to edit is checked out by someone and you need to edit it. Using SharePoint Designer you cannot easily discard a checkout, but you can using the browser. Here’s the typical SPD Checkout popup: Uh oh, this prompt doesn’t look very [...]...
- Import Outlook Calendar to SharePoint SharePoint makes it very easy to export Calendars from SharePoint to Outlook. But what if you have an Outlook calendar that you want on SharePoint? This becomes more difficult and you could quickly find yourself lost on how to complete this task. Don’t worry though, it’s not that hard. The following article will explain a [...]...
- SharePoint Calendars: Remove the time for calendar items The ITS department created a new calendar dashboard and were delighted that they could finally discontinue the Outlook Public Folder Calendars that were previously in use. There was though one request that is completely understandable: “Please remove the ’12:00 AM and 11:59 PM’ values for the Start Time and End Time and instead just make [...]...
- How to remove the “title” column from a SharePoint list Have you asked yourself the question: How do I remove the ‘title column’ from a Sharepoint list? It can be annoying trying to figure out how to remove this column from default lists. Often, site admins want their audiences to click on “New Item” in a Sharepoint list and not have to fill out the [...]...
DLOCC Socials