complete task by 4pm or else?

Question

I've built a state machine workflow that has several tasks.

If any of the tasks are not completed by 4pm I need to signify (email) the team(s).

I guess I need some sort of event that fires at 4pm, checks status of all tasks and sends email. Sharepoint has a Delay activity, but this counts down. Perhaps I could programatically give it a timeout by calculating the hours remaining till 4.

Whats the best way to accomplish this please?

Answer 1

I would not use a workflow for this because...

1. You want it to execute at a specific time
2. You want it to run for / check multiple items.

Workflows are bad at both those things.

I would put the code in a console application or powershell script and schedule it to run everyday at 4:00PM in task scheduler.

As mentioned by @Alexander, a timer job would also be a good alternative.

Answer 2

For cases like this, I typically use a secondary workflow where I'll write a record out to a hidden lists that monitors the task or record and checks it at the specified time and takes the required action if the condition is not met. It is typically a pretty simple workflow.

Answer 3

I think that you can create a timer job. This timer job can be configured to be executed at 4pm. This timer job can check tasks and send emails.