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Thursday, April 11, 2013

SharePoint Foundations 2013 - Email-To-Task

I was recently confronted with a problem after upgrading from WSS 3.0 to SharePoint Foundations 2013 (yes I know, quite a leap) where our previous system allowed us to email into an 'Announcements' list which would then create a 'Task' item in our 'Task' list on SharePoint/WSS, the Post-Upgrade version did not. I had scoured the internet in search of a fix because I recall there being a similar problem initially with WSS 3.0 and knew there just had to be an option/setting that could be adjusted to fix the issue where an emailed item would trigger the 'New Item Creation' so that a workflow could activate. Finally I found it.
Resources:
http://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/6713/how-can-i-make-a-workflow-automatically-start-when-an-email-is-received
http://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/5402/workflow-not-triggering-on-new-item-in-e-mail-enabled-list
which sent me to: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953289

The specific command that I ran was that of the first link above:

stsadm.exe -o setproperty -propertyname declarativeworkflowautostartonemailenabled -propertyvalue yes

I was very pleased. Thank you SharePoint StackExchange users and Microsoft.
Now to add to it the remainder of the topic 'Email-To-Task'. Once I got the trigger executing properly, it was just a matter of creating the workflow (using SharePoint Designer 2013 in 2010 Mode) that would 'On New Item' create a new 'List Item' within the 'Task' list and set the following:
Email Subject = Task Title
Body = Task Description

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Since there are not many other fields to work with there is little more you can fill out on the 'Task' item but to whichever person/group/team the 'Task' list is assigned to you could have an email trigger off from the 'Task' list (separate workflow recommended) which would trigger on 'New Item' and send an email notification to the user/group/team informing them of a new Task to work on which has some details to be filled out (assigned to, deadline, etc.).

Thanks for Reading!

2 comments:

  1. Where do you run that command? stsadm.exe –o setproperty –propertyname declarativeworkflowautostartonemailenabled –propertyvalue yes ?

    ReplyDelete