I am working on a Sharepoint site which has existing items on it. I have been able to create workflows for whenever an item is created or changed, but not for the ones that were already there when i started working in the site. I want a workflow that can send an email on those tasks that already exist in the sharepoint site, but when i get to the edit workflow part, i only can select to have it run when a task is created or changed, and another option that states manually which does not apply. Is this possible in any way? is there a step that i may be missing? I appreciate all your answers and help.
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If you deploy your workflow to a list with existing list items, you should be able to click at a item > workflows > start workflow manually. Works out if there's just a few list items.– ChristofferCommented Jul 7, 2014 at 17:15
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can you let me know how do I do that if there are 18 items?– Ana RodriguezCommented Jul 7, 2014 at 17:19
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Go to your list, select a single item, and in the toolbar, under the 'items' tab, theres a workflow button, press it and it will take you to the workflow page for your current list. Under "Start a workflow" your workflow should show up. Click it– ChristofferCommented Jul 7, 2014 at 17:24
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Thank you for your help. I have 18 items, can i select all of them and do that in one step? or i need to go one by one? Is there another way?– Ana RodriguezCommented Jul 7, 2014 at 17:28
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I'm afraid not. One thing you could do would be to update the workflow to run when an item is updated, enter spreadsheet view and just add a character and then remove it so the item will be "updated", this will make you loose your 'modified time' thought.– ChristofferCommented Jul 7, 2014 at 17:35
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1 Answer
This may just be a work around, and not a real solution, but if you set those old workflows to fire when an item is changed, you can add a new column ('Fire Workflow' with a yes or no drop down) and then go into the datasheet view and set them all to Yes.
That should force designer to see that every entry changed. Once the workflows have completed, you can delete the column.
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1Done this on several occasion to refire workflows on items, easy peasy. Commented Jul 7, 2014 at 18:27