SharePoint Online start events

Design your workflows to start when an event occurs in SharePoint Online. To learn more about the SharePoint Online connector, see SharePoint Online.

The following start events are available for the SharePoint Online connector.

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Important: 

  • SharePoint sends out item changed event notifications asynchronously. Workflows might start in a different order or with a delay due to SharePoint queuing. This is usually around one minute, but can go up to five minutes.

  • For each SharePoint notification, the latest state of the item that was changed will be used to initiate a workflow instance. Therefore, for each SharePoint notification, a changed list item can only trigger one workflow instance from a workflow.

Manual start and Workflow testing for SharePoint Online start events

You can use the Item ID of an existing list item to test or manually start a workflow with a SharePoint Online start event. The details of the item is passed and used as a real event to test or start the workflow.

While testing a workflow does not create a workflow instance, Manually starting the workflow initiates an instance An occurrence of a workflow. of the workflow and will be available on the Instances page.

For more information about testing a workflow, see Test a workflow.

Test a workflow with a SharePoint Online start event

  1. If you are creating a new workflow, save your workflow first, at least once, before you test it.

  2. Open an existing workflow or design a new workflow with a SharePoint Online start event.

  3. On the toolbar at the top of the workflow designer, click Workflow testing.

    The SharePoint site URL and List name fields are populated based on the details you defined in the start event configuration.

  4. Enter the Item ID of the SharePoint Online list item you want to use to test the workflow.

  5. Click Retrieve item to retrieve details of the list item. Some item details are displayed in the Item preview.

  6. Check the item details displayed in the Item preview and make sure that you want to test the workflow with this item.

  7. Click Start to test your workflow with the Item you entered.

    The details of the item are passed and used as a real event to test the workflow and execute workflow actions as designed.

Manually start a workflow with a SharePoint Online start event

Note: Business owners can manually start a workflow with a SharePoint Online start event from the Workflow tracking page in My Nintex. For more information, see Start workflows with a SharePoint Online or Nintex - Form start event.

  1. On the Workflows page, on the right of the workflow with a SharePoint Online start event, click and then select Manual start.

    The Manual start dialog box is displayed.

    Note: The SharePoint site URL and List name fields are populated based on the details defined in the start event configuration of the workflow.

  2. (Optional) Click View list to open and view the SharePoint Online list.

  3. Enter the Item ID of the SharePoint Online list item you want to use to start the workflow.

  4. Click Retrieve item to retrieve details of the list item. Some item details are displayed in the Item preview.

  5. Check the item details displayed in the Item preview and make sure that you want to start the workflow with this item.

  6. Click Start to start an instance of the workflow with the Item you entered. The details of the item is passed and used as a real event to start the workflow and the workflow actions are executed.

Starting the workflow initiates an instance An occurrence of a workflow. of the workflow. Details about running and completed workflow instances are available on the Instances page.