Manage External Start settings

Enterprise Edition for Nintex Workflow 2016 is required for this feature. If using perpetual licensing, then valid software assurance is also required.

Nintex external platform is required for this feature. For details, see Enable Nintex external platform features.

This topic describes External Start and its requirements and provides instructions to enable and disable External Start for your SharePoint farm and view External Start usage across sites in your farm.

Requirements​​

External Start requires a Nintex Workflow license enabled for the following items.

  • Enterprise Edition

In addition, internet connectivity is required and the Windows service Nintex Workflow Start Service must be running. To make sure this service is running, on the Central Administration Home page, click System Settings, and then click Manage services on server. Ensure that the status for the service Nintex Workflow Start Service is Started.

How External Start works

External Start allows you to initiate site workflows from outside of SharePoint by providing you the ability to generate endpoint URLs pointing to the workflows. Each endpoint URL stores the workflow information along with its start variables of supported data types (if any).

Endpoint URLs reference run.nintex.io.

Example endpoint URL: https://run.nintex.io/x-start/weuyj1TkGD​

For example, you could use an external service (integration partner) such as Zapier or Azuqua to monitor Salesforce for new customers and initiate a Nintex workflow to create customer-specific SharePoint sites. You could configure this service to map Salesforce data from another service to Nintex workflow variables for use in the workflow. You could also create your own code to reference the endpoint URLs. When the endpoint URL is called, the associated workflow is initiated. 

To use External Start, an administrator must enable External Start using Central Administration. For variable mapping, a workflow designer configures start variables of supported data types. The workflow designer publishes the site workflow and generates one or more External Start endpoint URLs for this workflow. Nintex stores the generated endpoint URLs and their associated security keys. The workflow designer configures an external service or manual code to reference the External Start endpoint URL and associated security key. When the service or code calls the endpoint URL, the associated workflow is initiated when required conditions exist (such as new Salesforce customers). Once the service or code is set up and monitoring, nothing more needs to be done.

Enable, disable, and view External Start usage

To enable or disable External Start for your SharePoint farm

  1. Ensure that the Nintex Workflow license meets requirements.
  2. On the SharePoint Central Administration Home page, click Nintex Administration. 
  3. On the Nintex Administration page, under Licensing and setup, click External settings for workflow.
  4. On the External settings for workflow page, enable or disable following options as appropriate.
    • Enable Connector for Nintex Workflow
    • Enable External Start

    Both options must be enabled for External Start to function.

To view External Start usage on sites across your SharePoint farm (access the External Start URL page)

  1. On the Central Administration Home page, click Nintex Administration​.
  2. In the Workflow environment section, click External Start URL to display the External Start URL page.

Related information

External Start URL page

Use External Start