• • By far the most common mistake is to forget to specify the proper columns to tell SharePoint how to join the lists
  • Looking up data on an empty column. If this happens make the lookup column required
  • SharePoint Designer workflows are not portable between servers, lists, libraries, or farms. If you need to develop code in a dedicated development environment consider writing Visual Studio workflows.

Problem

You don’t understand how to lookup data between lists in a SharePoint Designer workflow or you’re not getting data when you lookup information between lists; usually you lookup data when one lists contains a “lookup” column that links to a list item in another list.

Demonstration

In this example we are going to create two lists, the first, a master list will provide the information we are going to query on a workflow. After we create the two lists we will walk through a simple non-real-world example of how to query information between the lists in a SharePoint Designer workflow.

Following the steps below, create two lists: one the master, one the detail. Have the second list item reference the parent list using a lookup column. Add a column that contains information that you would like to retrieve from the parent list such as the column shown below.


Populate the master list with a few rows of data

Create the detail list that contains a “Lookup” column to the master table

Open the site in SharePoint Designer and create a new workflow

Associate the lookup with the detail list then click next

Under workflow actions let’s set a workflow variable

Create a variable to store the result of our lookup

Select the function icon

Now change the source list, where we will be pulling our information from, to the master table. Also specify the name of the field that contains the information we want to pull

Next, tell SharePoint how the master and detail lists are linked. This is where mistakes are made! You want to link to the column of the master list that you used to populate the detail list’s lookup column

Accept the warning message

Add an action that logs the message to a list (If your SharePoint server is email enabled send the workflow variable in the body of an email message)

The final result of my workflow looks like this



Finish the workflow and note how the workflow tree appears under the site navigator in SharePoint Designer

Now test the workflow by adding an item to the detail list

Upon save pull down on the item’s edit menu to view the workflows that are associated with this item

You will see your workflow in the workflow settings screen and, if everything worked as expected you should see the workflow in the completed list

Click on the hyperlink for the completed workflow to see the history, as you can see we looked up http://www.sharepointassist.com/ from the master list’s “Look Me Up Please!” column

Common Mistakes

Popularity: 43% [?]