Initiation and Association Form

Question

As I am a newbie,

1) I want to know what actually is Initiation and Association in SharePoint?

2) How could they be created (with a detailed procedure, even a link that may help me out with it is fine), organised and modified?

3) Also, what are the uses of these two and where and when shall I use them?

Answer 1

I want to know what actually is Initiation and Association in SharePoint? Also, what are the uses of these two and where and when shall I use them?

• Initiation Form is required to capture user input before starting the workflow.For SharePoint Designer Workflows, we can use the Initiation Form Parameters screen to automatically create Initiation Forms in InfoPath.

• Association Form is another type of form which is used to capture information before associating with a list. Association forms are created for Reusable Workflows. In our case we are using List Workflow & directly associating the workflow with a list & thus the Association Form is not scoped.

How could they be created (with a detailed procedure, even a link that may help me out with it is fine), organised and modified?

You will need to use SharePoint Designer

• Open SharePoint Designer & Create a new List Workflow for your list.
• From the above ribbon, Click the Initiation Form Parameters button to can build your Initiation form.

Check also the detailed steps at Initiation Form for Workflow

Answer 2

The initiation form is the page that is presented each time that a person starts a workflow manually. The default initiation form is very simple, including only the name of the workflow and two buttons, Start and Cancel.

The initiation form can have as many form fields as you choose to create.

An initiation form is attached to the site's default master page and contains a Data Form Web Part to interact with the workflow. The initiation form can be customized for layout and appearance — for example, you can attach a different master page or modify the styles. However, to change which fields appear on the form, or to change the format or default values of any field, you must use the Workflow Initiation Parameters dialog box in the Workflow Designer. You cannot make such changes to the form fields by editing the Data Form Web Part directly.

Detailed walkthrough - https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Create-a-workflow-initiation-form-26879578-a62b-4fef-8b7e-9e4400afc94b