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Approval workflow processing does not complete and assignments are not made

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Microsoft Knowledge Base Article

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Article ID: 970821 - Last Review: April 30, 2009 - Revision: 1.1

Approval workflow processing does not complete and assignments are not made

Source: Microsoft Support

RAPID PUBLISHING

RAPID PUBLISHING ARTICLES PROVIDE INFORMATION DIRECTLY FROM WITHIN THE MICROSOFT SUPPORT ORGANIZATION. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN IS CREATED IN RESPONSE TO EMERGING OR UNIQUE TOPICS, OR IS INTENDED SUPPLEMENT OTHER KNOWLEDGE BASE INFORMATION.

Symptom



Starting an approval workflow on a list or library item works correctly however no response to the workflow tasking will cause the workflow to continue processing. Clicking Approve on a workflow task will cause the task to reflect a "Completed" status but the following symptoms indicate the problem:
  • Outcome and Percent Complete fields for the task will not be updated.
  • The workflow will not update the workflow history to show that action has been taken.
  • The workflow will not assign additional tasks.


In addition, subsequent attempts to Approve the same task will result in an error message that the workflow is locked and cannot be edited.

Cause

The approval workflow cannot successfully update the Assigned To field on an associated task list if the Assigned To field supports assigning multiple people and/or groups. The task list Assigned To field must be defined with the "Allow multiple selections" field set to No. If the field is set to Yes, the workflow process cannot make the assignment and the update fails. Because the update has failed the workflow cannot continue.

Resolution

Ensure that task lists used by workflows for task assignments do not have the Assigned To field configured to allow multiple selections. If the task list has been configured to allow multiple selections, in progress workflows will have to be terminated and the task list must be reconfigured for the workflows to process correctly.

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APPLIES TO
  • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
  • Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1
Keywords: 
kbrapidpub kbnomt KB970821
       

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