SharePoint Designer workflows don't reflect changes in content types

Question

I've been trying to create a set of SharePoint Designer workflows for a WSS 3.0 site, and I can't make SPD see changes in the content types of the lists. Specificaly, I'm trying to use the Create Item action, but it comes up with the wrong columns as required, no matter what I do.

I've tried refreshing the Folder List, refreshing the Data Source Library, shutting down and restarting SPD, deleting all the workflows, and rebooting the whole machine, all in various combinations. Is there something I'm missing? How can I make SharePoint Designer aware that a content type for a list has changed?

P.S. I just thought of: if anyone has experienced similar issues, is this a SharePoint Designer thing or a WSS thing? Would this be something that I could avoid by using Visual Studio? I don't have Visual Studio right now, but I might be able to make a case for it if it helps me avoid problems such as this one.

Answer 1

Content Types comes in two flavours: Site Content types and List Content Types.

The Site Content types are typically created either as a feature with declarative logic or code in Visual Studio, SharePoint Designer or the GUI.

Once you instantiate a new list that uses a content type, the site content type is instantiated as a list content type.

If you later update your site content type your changes isnt automatically pushed down to your list using that content type.

In the GUI you can select to push down changes, but if your content type is created declaratively in Visual Studio for example, there is (in WSS/MOSS anyway) no declarative way to push down changes. You would need to write some code, for example in a feature receiver, to do that.

I have never created Content Types using SharePoint Designer, but i would expect a similar behaviour could be the cause of your problems.

Try and change the content type using the GUI and select to push down changes, just to test if you are able to push down changes that way.