SharePoint designer workflow: Set Text field or People Picker field to empty or blank

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SharePoint Form Designer

In this SharePoint designer workflow examples, we will discuss how to set text field value to empty in SharePoint 2013 designer workflow (SharePoint workflow set field to empty). We will also see how to set people picker filed empty or blank in the SharePoint designer workflow.

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Lots of time we may get the requirement to make a textbox to empty string. Here we will discuss how we can do this by using SharePoint designer 2013 workflow. Learn how to set text field to empty SharePoint designer workflow.

Here I was a very simple requirement, after sending one email in the SharePoint designer 2013 workflow, I need to make a text field to empty in the workflow itself.

There is an action available in the SharePoint designer workflow name as “Set Field in Current Item“. It is easy to set a field value with another field value using this action, but no direct way to set blank or empty in that action in SharePoint designer 2013 workflow.

So here I created a local variable in the workflow with a default value of empty and assign that variable to my text field.

To create a local variable click on the Local variable button in the Ribbon as shown in the fig below:

set text field to empty sharepoint designer workflow
Set Text field to empty or blank in SharePoint 2013 designer workflow

Then in the Workflow Local Variables dialog box, click on Add and then give a name and chose the data type as string and then click on OK. Finally, the local variable dialog box should look like below.

sharepoint workflow set field to empty
SharePoint designer 2013 workflow SharePoint workflow set field to empty

Now add an Action name as Set Field in the current item. Click on the First value link and choose your field name. Then click on the second value link, it will open the Look up a dialog box. In the Data Source: choose Workflow Variables and Parameters. Field From Source: Your workflow variable name that we have created above. And Return Field As String as shown in the fig below:

sharepoint workflow set field to empty
Set Text field to empty or blank in SharePoint 2013 designer workflow

Now your full action should look like below.

set text field to empty sharepoint designer workflow
SharePoint workflow set field to empty

Set People Picker field to empty or blank in SharePoint designer workflow

Now we will see, how to set people picker field to empty or blank in SharePoint designer workflow.

I have a scenario like this:

I have a customized SharePoint InfoPath list form which contains a People picker field. Whenever a user submits the form an email will trigger the email id presented in the people picker.

Now my requirement is to set the people picker blank once the email sent. So tried various solutions like creating a variable and set it to empty and then assign that variable to the people picker. Then created another people picker field and assign that people picker in the Set value to value action. This also did not work for me.

The solution which works for me is in the Set value to value (Set field in Current Item action), I did like Set EmailTo to [space]. Here space means a space without bracket.

You may like following SharePoint designer workflow examples:

And it should work fine now and it will set field to empty using SharePoint designer workflow.

I hope this SharePoint designer tutorial explains how to set people picker and text field to empty in SharePoint designer workflow in SharePoint 2013/2016/Online.

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