How to pass a default value to a Workflow Collect task?

Question

Details:

• SharePoint 2010 Enterprise
• SharePoint Designer
• Building workflows in SP Designer

My problem: I have a workflow which needs to collect some data from a user - lets say "Account Number" - as a text field. This is simple, but I already have a default "Account Number" value they should start with coming out of my list, which they can change if needed.

It is not one default value I can hardcode for all, but I want to put the default value from the ListItem that kicked off this workflow.

So my question: How can I pass in that default value for the collect field text box?

The collect input does have a "default value" box, but all you can do is type in a string. There's no "..." or "fx" button to do a lookup for the value it should have.

Really what I'd love is if the "Default Value" box had a "fx"/"..." box where I could grab "CurrentItem: Account Number" - that's the funcionality I'm looking for.

I've also tried to make a Workflow variable, set the value in the workflow, and type that placeholder in the default value box manually like so:

[%Variable: TestInitialValue%]

But the collect spits this out as straight text. It does not swap out the value with what it currently holds within the workflow.

Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

I did not find a way to pass in my variable directly in to the "collect" form. However, there was another way around this.

When the collect is created, it adds a Task to some Task List. On that task list, we had a separate workflow that looked for new items created. On creation, we set the Task item "Account Number" to the associated List Item "Account Number".

So this was a different way to solve the same problem.