Run workflow from an specific step

Question

I have cancelled a workflow for some items in SharePoint 2010. the workflow has many steps and it's impossible to go all the steps manually for each item.

I am thinking about following possibilities:

• Is there any way to re-run the cancelled workflows and add the removed tasks considering the versioning is not enabled?

• Is it possible to start a new workflow from the middle of it just to continue the rest?

• Is it possible to define a new workflow to remove the initial parts and continue the remaining steps?

Does anyone have an idea how to solve this issue?

Answer 1

Sorry, I am afraid. But you cannot re-run the cancelled workflows. And if you start the new instance of same workflow, it will again start from beginning.you cannot start the workflow from the middle of it.

Answer 2

You can't start from the middle of the workflow, although you could rewrite your workflow to track what stage it reached last time.

For each 'section' of your workflow, you can set a (hidden) column value to show the section was completed. Then, for each section of your workflow you can check this value to get a starting point.

Example:

If 'lastcomplete' = "" or (number of sections) or 0

set 'lastcomplete' to 0

do this section

set 'lastcomplete' to 1


if 'lastcomplete <= 1

do this section

set 'lastcomplete' to 2

if 'lastcomplete' <= 2

do this section
etc...

By updating the column value of the item, you can keep a record of how far you got last time through the workflow, and pick up where you left off. If the column value is blank (or set a default value of 0), start at the beginning. If the workflow can be run on an item multiple times, the 'lastcomplete' value could also equal the number of sections, so have that check too.

I don't have SPD2010 installed right now to do a real example, but hope this helps.

Edit: I just realised an error in my example - updated now.