Custom Task Forms (Edit, Display, New) in SharePoint 2013 Online (Office 365)

Question

I am currently using SharePoint Online and creating SharePoint 2013 workflow using SharePoint Hosted App project in Visual Studio 2015.

My scenario is I want to create tasks at different stages and assign to different people, however each task is going to have different fields to input. Thus, I need to have custom task forms.

I can't use SharePoint designer as it is SharePoint App (Add-in).

When I was using On-Premise SharePoint 2010 workflow, I used to create different content types with Inherit="FALSE" and provide custom forms in XMLDocument tag which worked perfectly.

However, when I use below code for Content type which use Parent ContentType as Workflow Task (SharePoint 2013), it doesn't create task properly when you set Inherit='FALSE'. Workflow status page shows error in Tasks section stating 'One or more field types are not installed properly'.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <!-- Parent ContentType: Workflow Task (SharePoint 2013) (0x0108003365C4474CAE8C42BCE396314E88E51F) -->
  <ContentType ID="0x0108003365C4474CAE8C42BCE396314E88E51F0021934DF646F443608A44B2195BFFFADA" 
               Name="ctTestNewDemoApp5" Group="Custom Content Types" 
               Description="My Content Type" Inherits="TRUE" Version="0">
    <FieldRefs>
      <FieldRef ID="{06b88e60-36e5-419a-916f-69ab0dad77af}" DisplayName="Employee Name" Name="empName" />
    </FieldRefs>
    <XmlDocuments>
      <XmlDocument NamespaceURI="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3/contenttype/forms/url">        
        <FormUrls xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3/contenttype/forms/url">
          <Display>Pages/Default.aspx?action=display</Display>
          <Edit>Pages/Default.aspx?action=edit</Edit>
          <New>Pages/Default.aspx?action=new</New>
        </FormUrls>
      </XmlDocument>
    </XmlDocuments>
  </ContentType>
</Elements>

Can we create custom 'Task forms' for new/edit/display purposes using Visual Studio? Please suggest.

Thank you, Sagar S.

Answer 1

I've got this working and here is the list of changes that I've made to make sure it works as expected.

• Custom content type which must be inherited from parent content type Workflow Task (SharePoint 2013) (0x0108003365C4474CAE8C42BCE396314E88E51F), must also include the field of type 'OutcomeChoice'
• Make sure to add ContentTypeBinding in 'Workflow Task List' inside Element.xml for this new Custom content type.
• Make sure to have Workflow Task (SharePoint 2013) content type also present in the same ContentTypeBinding tag.

Please refer my working custom task content type with Custom form:-

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <!-- Parent ContentType: Workflow Task (SharePoint 2013) (0x0108003365C4474CAE8C42BCE396314E88E51F) -->
  <ContentType ID="0x0108003365C4474CAE8C42BCE396314E88E51F0021934DF646F443608A44B2195BFFFADA" Name="ctTestNewDemoApp5" Group="Custom Content Types" 
               Description="My Content Type" Inherits="FALSE" Version="0">
    <FieldRefs>
      <FieldRef ID="{06b88e60-36e5-419a-916f-69ab0dad77af}" DisplayName="Custom Outcome Column" Required="TRUE" Name="CustomOutcomeColumn" />
    </FieldRefs>
    <XmlDocuments>
      <XmlDocument NamespaceURI="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3/contenttype/forms/url">
        <FormUrls xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3/contenttype/forms/url">
          <Display>Pages/Default.aspx?action=display</Display>
          <Edit>Pages/Default.aspx?action=edit</Edit>
          <New>Pages/Default.aspx?action=new</New>
        </FormUrls>
      </XmlDocument>
    </XmlDocuments>
  </ContentType>
</Elements>

---

Please refer below Content type which has OutcomeChoice field

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">  
  <Field
       ID="{06b88e60-36e5-419a-916f-69ab0dad77af}"
       Name="CustomOutcomeColumn"
       DisplayName="Custom Outcome Column"
       Type="OutcomeChoice"
       Group="Custom Site Columns">
    <CHOICES>
      <CHOICE>Approved</CHOICE>
      <CHOICE>Rejected</CHOICE>
    </CHOICES>
    <Default>Rejected</Default>
  </Field>
</Elements>

---

Please refer below Workflow Task List instance:-

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <ListInstance FeatureId="{f9ce21f8-f437-4f7e-8bc6-946378c850f0}"
              TemplateType="171"
              Title="WorkflowTaskList"
              Description="This list instance is used for workflow Task items."
              Url="Lists/WorkflowTaskList"
              RootWebOnly="FALSE" />


  <ContentTypeBinding ListUrl="Lists/WorkflowTaskList"
                       RootWebOnly="FALSE"
                       ContentTypeId="0x0108003365C4474CAE8C42BCE396314E88E51F"/>

  <ContentTypeBinding ListUrl="Lists/WorkflowTaskList"
                       RootWebOnly="FALSE" 
                       ContentTypeId="0x0108003365C4474CAE8C42BCE396314E88E51F0021934DF646F443608A44B2195BFFFADA"/>
</Elements>

---