Open this task link missing in approval workflow

Question

Hi,

I have created a custom approval workflow in sharepoint designer. When I receive the email to approve the task, I don't get the link to open the task.

I am using lotus notes.

Can someone please tell me how to add the link to the task form?

Thanks,

T

Answer 1

Hi teen,

The Open the task mentioned in the email is a button named "Open the task" which can be find in Outlook toolbar which can be used to open related task form, so that we can approval task directly from Outlook.

If you want to add custom link to the approval form page to the email, please follow this step:

1. Open workflow from SharePoint Designer.
2. Click the approval task and Change the behavior of a single task.
3. Under When a Task is Pending, there are 2 Email task notification actions and these actions is used to send the approval task emails, so we need to modify the emails by modify these actions.
4. Then in Define E-mail Message window, click the Hyperlink button (the last button on the fourth row).
5. Type "Open this task" for Text to display option.
6. Click ... button behind the Address option, type following string in String builder.
   http://server/site/Lists/your task list/DispForm.aspx?ID=
   Then click Add or Change Lookup on the left button of the String builder, select ID field from Current Task data source.
   So the final string should similar like this:
   http://server/site/Lists/your task list/DispForm.aspx?ID=[%Current Task:ID%]
7. Add the link to both 2 email task notification actions.
8. Save and Publish the workflow.

Best regards,
Emir

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Emir Liu

TechNet Community Support

Answer 2

Hi Emir,

I am having the same issue with no link to the approval task list in the email.  Your reply is one that bear the most probablity to the real solution. However, I cannot find any of the steps in Sharepoint designer as outlined in your steps.  Something that may shed more lights on my environment here.  The email system is Outlook 2003, the workflow is based on SharePoint 2010 Approval workflow. The said workflow is on a Document Library list, meaning, it is associated or created FROM the document library.  So when I open up Designer and click on workflow there is no workflow showing.  Your advise is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 3

Hi there,

I was having the same problem as the original post and Emir's information helped a lot. I did find a better solution though.

Let me also try to answer the question the fellow above is having.

More detailed Steps:

1. Open up the Document List (or any list) from SharePoint Designer 2010
2. Under the "Workflow" panel (lower right), click on "New" to create a new workflow (it will be shown as empty initially until you create a new one). Give a name to your workflow if prompted.
3. You are now at the Workflow window. Click on "Edit workflow" under the "Customization" panel
4. You are now at the Editor for the workflow. At the big horizontal cursor under "Step 1", type in "Start" and enter. It will then give you a list of possible actions you could add.
5. Pick "Start Approval Process"
6. A new line/item is added for "Start Approval process on current item with these people"
7. Now click on "Approval" on the line (the underlined one)
8. You are now at the Task Process level. Now, you could customize how the task is to be performed.
9. Click on "Change the behavior of a single task"
10. Under "When a Task is Pending", there are 2 Email task notification actions (e.g. "Email task notification to Current Task:Assigned To") and these actions is used to send the approval task emails, so we need to modify the emails by modify these actions. (so click on "Current Task: Assigned To")
11. You are now in the Define E-mail Message window. This is where you define what the notifications should look like.
12. Highlight the "Open this task" text, and click on the Hyperlink button (the last button on the right on the fourth row).
13. You are now at the Hyperlink editing window. The "Display" field should says "Open this task"
14. For the "Address" field, click on the "..." button to use the String Builder tool
15. Click on "Add or Change Lookup" button
16. In the "Data Source" dropdown, pick "Current Task: <name of the workflow name>"
17. In the "Field from Source" dropdown, pick "Form_URN" (NOTE: This is the exact URL that would bring user back to the Task form, so we don't need to use hardcoding! 8^>)
18. Click all the "OK"s and back to the Editor window. The "Open this task" should now be a hyperlink to the Form URN.
19. Go back to the Workflow Editing window (where you see the "Start Approval process on current item with these people" line), click on "these people" to define who should receive these notifications (standard procedure basically...)
20. Now you could save it and publish it, and see how it works for you!

Of course you would need to change how the workflow is to be triggered (e.g. Manual start, when item is created and/or updated) as well.

Hope it helps!!

Cheers,

Stephen

Answer 4

Stephen's answer works and the URL is not hardcoded so you can reuse this workflow for different lists.

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Jason Warren

Infrastructure Specialist

Habanero Consulting Group

habaneroconsulting.com/blog

Answer 5

Stephen's technique of using Current Task: Form URN works for single-stage parallel approval workflows. 

I created an approval workflow with multiple approvers on a web-app extended for intranet.

When I launch the workflow with parallel approvers, the lookup creates hyperlinks to the Intranet extension of the web-app as expected.

But when I notify the approvers in serial or have multiple stages of approval, the mail for the first approver contains a working link to the correct web-app, whereas subsequent approvers get emails with links to the Default web-app extension instead of the Intranet web-app extension. 

Any suggestions on how to handle this problem? One way would be to make the Intranet web-app extension the Default extension. I'm trying to avoid that.