Workflow failed to get user profile for user when using SharePoint Designer- Just some particular users

Question

When running send email activity in SharePoint Designer 2010 - Data Source: User Profiles, I see that some users get "Workflow failed to get user profile for user" while others are just fine. I also noticed when i click on their names on a list e.g the name column some users get to the

_layouts/userdisp.aspx?ID=3 page

and some to the mySite

/my/Person.aspx?accountname=Domain\username

The user that i get the error with gets to see only the _layouts/userdisp.aspx?ID=SomeID page

Is this an issue with the Activity or SharePoint

thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Few months back I too faced same kind of issues, where the newly added users in the Active Directory were not getting the notification emails. It was because the users in the active directory should be added in the Site Collection also, so that the workflow can fetch the email ID of the users and send mail. To bring in all the users from Active Directory to your web application, you have to configure the User Profile Synchronization in the Central Administrator.

Please configure the below in the sharepoint server,

1.Configure User profile Synchronization.

REF: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee721049(v=office.14).aspx

1.1 Once after configuring, you need to set up a Timer Job which keeps the SharePoint 2010 Server in sync with the Active Directory, Schedule User profile Synchronization.

REF: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee890103(v=office.14).aspx

Once after the above configuration, we can also create a Windows task Scheduler to run the Synchronization code in a daily basis (same like #2), to do that please follow the below link.

REF : http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/office/Sync-user-information-in-d1b9aed5