Assign A Task Action in Nintex workflow for Office 365 SharePoint online

In this post, we will discuss how we can use Assign a task workflow action in Nintex Workflow for Office 365 and SharePoint online. First of let us understand what a task is in SharePoint 2013. A task in SharePoint is used to assign work to a person or group, also then track the progress of the work. SharePoint by default provides two workflow actions in SharePoint designer to work with tasks.

1- Assign a task: As the name suggests this action used to assign a task to a single user and then directs the workflow based on the outcomes.
2- Start a task process: This workflow action is used to assign a task to multiple participants.

Nintex Workflow for Office 365 also provides the above two workflow action. The major difference between the out of the box and Nintex workflow action, By using Nintex action we can easily with less time we can develop our workflow.

If you are new to Nintex Workflow for Office 365, Step by Step Nintex Workflow tutorial for Office 365 SharePoint Online.

Configure Nintex Workflow Assign a task

For this particular demo, I have created a simple custom list which has only a Title field. You can add your own list, with custom fields. To start developing the workflow, Open your SharePoint online list and from Ribbon click on Nintex workflow button, this will open the workflow Gallery page. In the workflow gallery page, click on the Create New Nintex workflow button to create a new workflow. Then will open the create workflow screen.

Assign a task workflow action is present in the User Interaction section, drag and drop an assign a task workflow action, it should look like below:

Now click on the small arrow in the assign a task action to configure.

This will open the dialog box to configure the workflow action.

Participant in Assign A Task Nintex Workflow Action

You can put the username or email address to whom you want to assign the task. Apart from putting directly, you can also take advantage of the lookup to dynamically populate the participant. Like, suppose you are working on a leave request workflow and if you want to assign the task to the user’s manager then you can click on the small finder icon. Then you can choose Workflow Context and choose Manager email address, display name or login name. This will be the manager name of the person who is starting the workflow. Then click on Insert.

For this example, I have added one user name.

Task Title: Here you can put the task title. In this case, I have just added Task Name: {Current Item: Title}
At the runtime, it will add the Item title. I added from the lookup from Insert Reference.

Description: You can add your own text or you can take advantages of lookups to add any dynamic value.

Due Date: You can set a date when the task should complete. Once the date over, the task will become overdue. You can give a static date with the help of calendar control or you can take the help of lookup columns to create the due date.

Related Item: Select a related item, In this case, we have chosen the default current item.

Task outcomes: You can define outcomes for the task, by default it provides two: Approved and Rejected. You can add your own outcomes. Once you add your own outcome it will add a branch of child actions. Let us say I have added one custom outcome (Cancelled) like below.

Then once you will click on OK, you can see it will add an additional branch as called.

Default outcome: You can set a default outcome, this will be used if the task is not successfully completed.

Allow LazyApproval: This is one of the unique features of the Nintex workflow. If you will check this check box, then users can approve or reject via email response.



Wait for task completion: If you check this check box, then the workflow will pause here unless until the task completes.

Initial email options: This email will trigger to the Participant. The beauty of Nintex here is, by default, everything is filled for you, like the subject, Email body. But if you want to change you can format in your own way. To format an email body in SharePoint designer workflow required a lot of effort. But here you can take the help of the editor to format the email as you want.

Reminder email options: If you check Reminder email options checkbox, then reminder emails will be sent to task owners when the task becomes overdue. If you check Send reminder email checkbox, then it will ask to configure the frequency. You can send the reminder email Daily, weekly, monthly as well as you can set the number of times you want to send the reminder email. By default, it populates the email subject, body.

Cancellation email options: If the tasks are canceled then this email will be sent. By default, it provides the subject and body for the email. But you can change according to your requirement with the help of lookups.

Escalate and auto-complete options: This is a good option if you want some action to happen if the user is not responding to a task. Either you can Auto complete the task or you can Escalate to a person or group.

If you select Escalate to a person or group, then it will ask you the date when you want to escalate as well as the person or group name to whom you want to escalate. If you will check the checkbox “Inform original participants”, then it will trigger both an email. Again the Subject and Email body both are populated by default. But you can change as per your requirement.

Apart from escalating, you can auto-complete also. When you choose “Autocomplete the task” option. It will ask for the autocomplete on (Date) and What task outcome you want to set like Approved, Rejected etc. Also, it will trigger an email.

Task Item ID: This will store the List item ID of the task that was just created. Sometimes this will be very much useful.

After this, I have added three Log to History List just to capture the task outcome. So my workflow looks like below:

Then click on the Setting option in the ribbon to set the workflow setting. In this dialog box give a name for the workflow, Description for the workflow. Apart from this set the Task list, history list. In the start option I have just set, start the workflow manually.

Then publish the workflow, once published successfully, go back to the list. Add one item to the list. Then go to the particular item and start the workflow manually in SharePoint Online. You will see the user will get one email like below:

Till user take an action, the workflow will be pause mode only because we have checked the checkbox “Wait for task completion” option.

The user can click on the link and then click on Edit item to take action like Approve or Reject. Then the workflow will complete.

You may like following Nintex Workflow for Office 365 tutorials:

• Nintex workflow examples: Copy Document, Translate Document and Web Request Workflow actions in Nintex for Office 365
• How to use Start a Task Process Action in Nintex Workflow for Office 365 SharePoint Online
• Document Approval Workflow in Nintex Workflow for Office 365 SharePoint Online
• Nintex Workflow for office 365: Create a user in Office 365 and Add User to SharePoint Group
• Create SharePoint Site Collection and Site using Nintex Workflow for Office 365
• How to use App Step Nintex Workflow Action in SharePoint Online Office 365
• Nintex Yammer create group workflow action for Office 365 SharePoint online
• Query List Nintex workflow action for Office 365 SharePoint Online
• Start a task process workflow action Nintex workflow for office 365 SharePoint Online

Hope this will be helpful to use Assign a task workflow action in Nintex Workflow for Office 365 in SharePoint Online.