Copying a lookup field of the current item in workflow gives an error

Question

I'm generating a reference number in a custom list in sharepoint designer. The process then waits for that to be set and copies the reference number across to a new entry in a tasks list.

The

The reference number in the custom list is of type 'single line of text' and is the title column in the list. In the tasks list the field is a lookup field but fails to take the reference across and gives:

Coercion Failed: Unable to transform the input lookup data into the requested type.

Has anyone had any experience with this issue on workflow

Answer 1

I am very new to SharePoint so I am not conversant with its jargon. Being someone that comes from a relational database background, am going to explain this best way I can and hope it helps out.

So in my case, the conflict is as a result of a data type miss match. The lookup column in the library expects a value of data type integer while I was of input a string value hence the 'Coercion Failed: Unable to transform the input lookup data into the requested type.' error.

I discovered that the lookup column in my library did not use my 'primary key' to make reference to the other list where I needed to get my values from.

Instead what is used as a reference column is a system generated column named ID and is of type integer. Simply changing the field from source to ID fixed my problem.

Answer 2

works when the field is set to ID instead