Setting approvers on SPWorkflowAssociation using AssociationData

Question

I'm trying to programmatically configure the out of the box Approval workflow on a document library using the following code:

SPWorkflowTemplate workflowTemplate = web.WorkflowTemplates.GetTemplateByName(workflowName,
    System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture);
SPWorkflowAssociation workflowAssociation =
    SPWorkflowAssociation.CreateListAssociation(workflowTemplate, workflowAssocName, workflowWorkList, workflowLogList);


workflowAssociation.AllowAsyncManualStart = false;
workflowAssociation.AllowManual = false;
var associationDataXml = XElement.Parse(workflowAssociation.AssociationData);
workflowAssociation.AssociationData = GetAssociationData(web, associationDataXml);


documentLibrary.WorkflowAssociations.Add(workflowAssociation);
workflowAssociation.Enabled = true;

documentLibrary.DefaultContentApprovalWorkflowId = workflowAssociation.Id;
documentLibrary.Update();

I believe that the GetAssociationData() method returns the correct XML. I have compared the output from the function with the XML set by configuring the workflow manually (using powershell/sharepoint manager). The XML generated GetAssociationData() is actually saved in AssociationData and I can access it after the code have run, there are no exceptions thrown in the code above.

Example of XML:

<!-- generated xml, comment added manually -->
<dfs:myFields xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:dms="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/documentManagement/types" xmlns:dfs="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/infopath/2003/dataFormSolution" xmlns:q="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/infopath/2009/WSSList/queryFields" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/infopath/2009/WSSList/dataFields" xmlns:ma="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/metadata/properties/metaAttributes" xmlns:pc="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/infopath/2007/PartnerControls" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <dfs:queryFields></dfs:queryFields>
    <dfs:dataFields>
        <d:SharePointListItem_RW>
            <d:Approvers>
                <d:Assignment>
                    <d:Assignee>
                        <pc:Person>
                            <pc:DisplayName>SP-GROUP</pc:DisplayName>
                            <pc:AccountId>SP-GROUP</pc:AccountId>
                            <pc:AccountType>SharePointGroup</pc:AccountType>
                        </pc:Person>
                    </d:Assignee>
                    <d:Stage xsi:nil="true" />
                    <d:AssignmentType>Serial</d:AssignmentType>
                </d:Assignment>
            </d:Approvers>
            <d:ExpandGroups>true</d:ExpandGroups>
            <d:NotificationMessage />
            <d:DueDateforAllTasks xsi:nil="true" />
            <d:DurationforSerialTasks xsi:nil="true" />
            <d:DurationUnits>Day</d:DurationUnits>
            <d:CC />
            <d:CancelonRejection>true</d:CancelonRejection>
            <d:CancelonChange>true</d:CancelonChange>
            <d:EnableContentApproval>true</d:EnableContentApproval>
            <d:ApproveWhenComplete>true</d:ApproveWhenComplete>

        </d:SharePointListItem_RW>
    </dfs:dataFields>
</dfs:myFields>

My problem is that SP-GROUP does not show up in the gui when starting the workflow. Any ideas? Do I have to update the workflow in some way after altering AssociationData? The groups I'm using exists and are working.

Image summary: http://i.imgur.com/68SZ5.png

Answer 1

You need to update the workflow:

// Update Workflow Association Data
wfAssociation.AssociationData = data;
wfAssociation.Enabled = true;

// Update Workflow Association
documentLibrary.WorkflowAssociations.Update(wfAssociation);

I wrote a blogpost about this topic with a possible solution, maybe it could be handy: http://hevling.be/blog/change-properties-of-a-sharepoint-workflow-instance/