Workflow error help: failed on start and more

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:05:08 +0000

One of the major selling points of SharePoint is the power of workflows. Designing very basic sequential workflows in Sharepoint Designer 2007 is a very straightforward task using the workflow designer wizard. But unfortunately straightforward is the key word here, as you are limited by the functionality available to you in SharePoint Designer. Simple tasks (e.g., update an item, send an email, etc.) are doable, but, for example, you can’t do any string manipulation other than building “dynamic strings”. So even creating a suitable subject line to an email can require a complicated collection of variables and such like. SPD workflows are also very much “single use” - i.e., they start, they run, they finish. They can wait and so on, but complicated business logic is pretty difficult to program. At that point, you’ll need to get involved with Visual Studio. That’s not without its difficulties, however, and as someone coming from a Visual Studio software background, creating workflows can be a minefield. Certain expectations you may have with Winforms just go completely out the window.

2007 on Matt Thornton

Workflow error help: failed on start and more