Workflow Approval Task - preview form

Question

Not sure if this is even possible but the current of the shelf approval workflow triggers an email saying review the form (link to original form) and then gives the open task button to approve / reject.

I find it a bit clunky in the two step process and was wondering if anyone has been able to or has any ideas how to make it all on one page? I was thinking webpart but don't think that is possible using InfoPath?

Answer 1

It's fantastic that you asked this now, as I have just implemented it in SharePoint myself. This hinges on you having SharePoint designer, however.

In InfoPath, I created a text field called task status, promoted it to SharePoint with the ability to be modified. Now, Include some buttons on the form itself that say Approve or Reject. On button click, add a rule that changes Task Status to some identifiable string of text, like "Approved".

Now, in your workflow, (assuming you have SharePoint designer) before your task, set Task Status to equal Null. Within your task, create an action to wait for Task Status to not equal Null. After this wait condition, you can create an if-else chain of what Task Status may equal (ex: approved, rejected, request change). After this if-else chain, you must write an action end task process, so that the task will exit itself, since you are not directly interfacing with the task.

Essentially, what this does is wait for your InfoPath form to make a change to the promoted Task Status field, and then the workflow acts on this change.

The only downside to this so far that I've found is that SharePoint will automatically set the outcome of the task as "Cancelled", so you may want to collect the actual status of the task with a workflow variable. In addition, waiting for a field change is much slower than having someone hit an approve button directly interfaced with SharePoint. If time is of the essence, I would suggest sticking with the clunky two-phase process of InfoPath and SharePoint.