Create a workflow from a SharePoint List or Library

When integrating a SharePoint list or library with the product, you can add a workflow at that time or at a later date. To add a workflow to your application when creating it, follow these steps:

Images in this section might differ depending on your version of SharePoint. For more information on the recent changes to SharePoint Online user interface (UI), see SharePoint Online User Interface Changes.

1. Select the K2 Application icon from the SharePoint ribbon.
   
2. On the Create K2 Application page, select the check box next to Workflow.
   
3. Provide the configuration for the new workflow, such as the workflow name and how the workflow is to be started.
A name is automatically created using the SharePoint list or library name followed by the word Workflow, but you can also rename it to something unique and that doesn't conflict with another, existing workflow.


There may be restrictions in the characters you can use and the length of the name that you can specify. For more, see KB002544- Item Naming: Known Restrictions and Limitations

4. Select one of the radio buttons to specify how you want to start your workflow:
   
• When a SmartForm is submitted: Starts your workflow only when someone completes and submits a SmartForm. This option is only available if you checked Forms in Step 2. Use the drop-down menu to select the form used to start the workflow:
  • New...: form displayed when you add a new item to a list (does not apply to libraries)
  • Edit....: form displayed when you edit an item in a list or document properties
  • Display....: form displayed when you view a single item from a list
• When the following events occur: Starts the workflow after one or more selected SharePoint events occur. Use this option to automatically start a workflow when other applications or people create a new item in the SharePoint list or library. Select events such as adding, updating, or deleting an item.

  For Nintex Automation for SharePoint in SharePoint Online, the event receiver now functions using Webhooks. Webhooks is a modern web integration scheme to allow third party services to receive notifications when an event occurs in the source system. This allows Nintex Automation to receive notifications instead of having to poll at regular intervals to find out if something has changed. Webhooks are not SharePoint specific and more web services are supporting Webhooks in general to allow system integration.

  SharePoint raises Webhook events asynchronously. Workflows may start out of order or with a time delay based on SharePoint queuing. Typically this is around one minute, but may be as great as five minutes.

  For more information see Nintex Automation for SharePoint Webhooks Events.

• If you want people to be able to manually start the workflow, select the Workflow is manually started event.
5. Click OK at the bottom of the page.
6. The Workflow Designer page displays:
   
7. From this point you can start building your workflow, start by configuring the Start step then use steps from the Toolbox.
   

For detailed information on the Toolbox see the Toolbox Overview topic.

Select the Context Browser tab to interact with SmartObjects, Workflow related fields, Functions, and create Fields on the fly.

To add a new workflow to an existing application, click + New at the top of the K2 Application page and select Workflow from the menu, and then follow the steps above.