Workflow History Purge After 60 days

Hi Readers ,

Today i came across a department in the organisation which wants all the old workflow history for Audit purpose .

By default the workflow history gets purged after 60 days . For the same there is a Timer job which runs .

You could also disable the automatic cleanup of workflow history by the following steps:

1.       From Central Administration, click the Operations tab on the top navigation bar.

2.       On the Operations page, in the Global Configuration section, click Timer job definitions.

3.       On the Timer Job Definitions page, click Workflow Auto Cleanup to edit the appropriate timer job.

4.       On the Edit Timer Job page, click Disable and then click OK to disable the Workflow Auto Cleanup feature.

Reference :
Disable automatic cleanup of workflow history (SharePoint Server 2007)

Disable preservation of workflow history (SharePoint Server 2010)

check this too 

Huge MOSS Workflow Issue… What is Microsoft Thinking!!!!

Check workflow status SharePoint Server 2010

These are the Basic troubleshooting which we should follow when it comes to workflows .

You can check the general status of a workflow instance by viewing status information in the list or document library with which the workflow is associated. You can get detailed workflow status by viewing the Workflow Status page that is automatically created and maintained for all running workflows.

To check general workflow status: 

• You must be a user with Edit Items permissions on the list or library.
• Browse to the list or document library that contains the workflow for which you want to check status.
• Locate the item for which you want to check status and view the status information in the workflow status column

Check detailed workflow status for items in a list or library

Use these steps to check detailed workflow status for items in a list or library.

To check detailed workflow status for items in a list or library

• You must be a user with Edit Items permissions on the list or library.
• Browse to the list or document library that contains the workflow for which you want to check status.
• In the row of the item for which you want to check status, click the link in the workflow status column.

On the Workflow Status page, view the following information about the workflow:

• Name of the person who initiated the workflow
• Date and time the workflow started
• Date and time the workflow was last run or resumed
• Name and link to the document or item involved in the workflow\
• Current status of the workflow
• If this workflow has a workflow visualization published with it, a Visio diagram type visualization of the workflow is displayed.
• List of tasks assigned to the workflow participants
• Lists of all events that have occurred in the history of this instance of the workflow thus far (for example, workflow initiation, task creation, task completion)

Depending on the type of workflow that you are viewing, the Workflow Status page might also contain links to modify, cancel, and terminate the workflow. 

Check detailed workflow status for a site workflow

Use these steps to check detailed workflow status for a site.

To check detailed workflow status for a site workflow:

• You must be a member of the Site Owners SharePoint group.
• Browse to the site for which you want workflow status.
• In the Quick Launch, click All Site Content, and then click Site Workflows.

On the Workflows page, do one of the following:

• To view the status of workflows that are running, in the My Running Workflows section, click the name of the workflow for which you want status.
  
• To view the status of workflows that have completed, in the My Completed Workflows section, click the name of the workflow for which you want status.

1. On the Workflow Status page, view the following information about the workflow:
   
   • Name of the person who initiated the workflow
     
   • Date and time the workflow started
     
   • Date and time the workflow was last run or resumed
     
   • Current status of the workflow
     
   • List of tasks assigned to the workflow participants.
     
   • List of all events that have occurred in the history of this instance of the workflow thus far (for example, workflow initiation, task creation, task completion) appear in the Workflow History section.

For further reference : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc299037(v=office.14).aspx#GeneralStatus

Approval Workflow Error : "An error has occured in Approval"

I have came accross 2 -3 tickets in this week in which the user gets an error in the approval workflow. I knew the solution to it but the user wanted something documented . So tried to check on my blog if i have posted it and found that it was not . so adding to the list .

Issue : Error on Approval Workflow : "An error has occured in Approval"

User has a SharepPoint OOB Approval workflow which can be created through the site and easily be attached to a document library and it starts manually or automatically when a new document gets created and get the required approvers to review and approve the document for publishing.

How to configure a Approval workflow :

For a document library or list

Go to Settings->Workflow Settings->Add Workflow
Choose the Approval workflow from the list, make it start on item creation go to the next page.

Select the approvers and check "Update the approval status"

Click Finish and the workflow is created .

Although this is a easy way to configure the workflow It might end-up with a error:

 Error  System Account :  An error has occured in Approval

A small setting can change the whole error .

This is an approval workflow which should after getting the approvals update the approval status of the document .

The workflow will start and run flawlessly until the end and when it will try to update the approval status.If this setting under Versioning settings is not set  to require content approval it will fail to update the status and thorws the error.

An error has occured in Approval

So, if you come accross an Approval Workflow

Go into the document library settings and go to Versioning Settings Page

Set "Require content approval for submitted items to?"

To Yes and everything should be fine.

This would not make any changes to the Existing status of the workflow . Terminate the workflow and run it again .  

Workflows are not available after we upgrade from 2007 to 2010 using database attach method

This is a very critical issue that most of the users have faced after the migration from Sharepoint 2007 to 2010

After upgrading the SharePoint 2007 Database via database attach method to SharePoint 2010, You might find that the 2007 Approval workflows are no longer available for users to create new workflows.

In SharePoint 2010 the 2007 workflows are there to allow any running workflows to complete, but by default creating new instances of the workflows is disabled as the expectations are that you will want to move forward to the SharePoint 2010 workflows.

Resolution 

1 .  The following steps must be taken to enable 2007 workflows after upgrading to SharePoint 2010:

 =>  Go to Site Actions ->Site Settings->Site Collection Administration->Site collection features

  Activate SharePoint 2007 Workflows  

=>  Remove ‘none’ from <AssociationCategories>none</AssociationCategories>

 =>  14\template\features\ReviewWorkflows\Reviewapproval.xml

 => 14\template\features\ReviewWorkflows\ReviewFeedback.xml

 =>  14\template\features\SignatureWorkflow\Signatures.xml

 =>  Associate Workflow

  Go to Shared Documents, Library Settings, Add a Workflow

 =>  Select legacy Workflow.

  

Note : Please take a back up of Reviewapproval.xml,ReviewFeedback.xml,Signatures.xml before doing the modification, the above solution is not verfied after we install any new update. chances are there that these files might get replaced in future update. please have a backup of working files as well.

Reference -

http://blogs.technet.com/b/vinitt/archive/2011/02/23/moss-2007-workflows-no-longer-available-visible-when-we-upgrade-from-2007-to-2010-database-attach-method.aspx

Capacity management - Workflow limits

Limit	Maximum value	Limit type	Notes
Workflow postpone threshold	15	Threshold	15 is the maximum number of workflows allowed to be executing against a content database at the same time, excluding instances that are running in the timer service. When this threshold is reached, new requests to activate workflows will be queued to be run by the workflow timer service later. As non-timer execution is completed, new requests will count against this threshold. This is limit can be configured by using the Set-SPFarmConfig Windows PowerShell cmdlet. Note: This limit does not refer to the total number of workflow instances that can be in progress. Instead, it is the number of instances that are being processed. Increasing this limit increases the throughput of starting and completing workflow tasks but also increases load against the content database and system resources.
Workflow timer batch size	100	Threshold	The number of events that each run of the workflow timer job will pick up and deliver to workflows. It is configurable by using Windows PowerShell. To allow for additional events, you can run additional instances of the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Workflow Timer Service.