OOTB solution to scheduling workflows

Question

So I have a list, and that list is employees and their data. There is a workflow created to update fields in this list with data from Active Directory. Stuff like their job title and work phone and whatnot.

This workflow runs on item creation and item change, which is great.

However, I want it to run on the item once a day at 1 AM or so. So if AD changes are made, it propagates.

So I saw this: Schedule a workflow to run everyday

But the solution seems to be "create an infinite workflow". This would be bad to create an infinite one for each list item, I imagine.

Is my only option to run a powershell script on a scheduled time or something? If so, I'm going to have to work with an admin team to do it. Is that better than this kludge?

Answer 1

I never like the infinite workflow solution either. We settled on creating a powershell script that triggers a workflow. That script can then run as a scheduled task on the server. It's simple and fairly straightforward to implement.

Another option would be to create a timer-job. The downside is that you would be installing this as farm solution.

Answer 2

The link you referenced for a possible solution is a common way to achieve this using workflow development in SharePoint Designer; however, the drawbacks listed are valid. If licensing and installing Nintex workflows in your environment is an option, then you can easily create a workflow to do this and schedule it to run on a specific interval. If a solution like this potentially requires less dependency on your admin team, then it would a manageable way for you to execute this update and perform similar ones. More information here - https://community.nintex.com/docs/DOC-1399.

Cheers,

-Drew

Answer 3

and then set a policy to it to start a wf every x time using a sharepoint policy. you can read more about policies here.

nintex WF is can also schedule wf on items - recommended for wf solutions (even have AD built-in support)