SharePoint Designer 2013 Workflow Isssue

Question

Hi guys,

I am developing a two stage approval workflow using SharePoint Designer and the out the box SharePoint 2010 approval templates.

When a document is uploaded metadata is applied, such as the team field. For each team there is a matching SharePoint permission group called the "team name approvers", which contains the relevent team members who will be assigned a task to approve the document. Once approved by the team members a second approval  task is assigned to the quality approvers to apporve the document and publish it as a major version.

There are a total of 8 different teams a document can be tagged against and there requires an approval process for each one.

I have used the folllowing code in the approval step for this one team as an example:

Set Varible:TeamChoices to Team

If Varible:TeamChoices contains "Team A"

Start approval process on current item with "Team A Approvers"

If varible:IsitemApproved" equals YES

Start 2nd Stage Quality Approval process on Current Item with Quality Systems Approvers

The issue which i have is that I cannot create several start approval process actions in the workflow as if i do i get an error when i try to publish the workflow:

"Errors were found when compliling the workflow. The workflow files were saved but cannot be run. Unexpected error on  server associating the workflow."

Reading the software boundries there doesnt seeem to be a "limit" as to how many "start approval processes" you can have in a workflow. Is this perhaps a bug?

Can anyone point me in the direction for a resolution, or an appropiate workaround?

Many thanks

Answer 1

Hi,

As I understand, you cannot create several start approval process actions in the workflow in SharePoint 2013.

I have created seven start approval process actions in workflow in my environment. When I publish the workflow, I do not encounter the error.

You could clear the website cache and delete the contents of the site folders. Then you could close and restart the SharePoint designer.

For more detailed information, you could refer to the article below.

The article below is about SPD 2013 error workflow.

http://techvier.blogspot.com/2013/11/spd-2013-error-workflow.html

If the issue still exists, you could remove the old workflow instances in the list. You could go to the list->list settings->workflow settings-> Remove, Block, or Restore a Workflow->remove the old workflow instances.

For more detailed information, you could refer to the article below.

The article below is about SharePoint Designer: Errors were found when compiling the workflow.

http://www.sharepointsapiens.com/blog/sharepoint-designer-errors-found-compiling-workflow/

Best regards,

Sara Fan

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TechNet Community Support
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Answer 2

Hi Sara,

Thank you for the reply.

I have already seen the two articles you have provided, and applied those "fixes" however the issue still persists.

Some more googling and I found the following article which suggests this is a bug with SharePoint which has been resolved by applying a patch to the SharePoint servers, however with us utilising SharePoint Online this is no good  to us.

http://www.manjuke.com/2011/05/fixed-sharepoint-designer-error.html

Answer 3

Hi,

If you use the SharePoint online, it will apply the latest CU for SharePoint.

You could switch to another computer to check if it can work.

If the issue still exists, I would recommend you to post it in our dedicated forum for Offic365 SharePoint Online, there will be more support engineers and experts on this field assisting you on this Office365 SharePoint Online specific issue.

http://community.office365.com/en-us/f/default.aspx

The reason why we recommend posting appropriately is you will get the most qualified pool of respondents, and other partners who the forums regularly can either share their knowledge or learn from your interaction with us. Thank you for your understanding.

Best regards,

Sara Fan

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TechNet Community Support
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help, and unmark the answers if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [e-mail].

Answer 4

Hi,

If the reply is helpful to you, you could mark the reply as answer to close the case.

Best regards,

Sara Fan

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TechNet Community Support
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help, and unmark the answers if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [e-mail].