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Trigger email based on columns of a list

Copper Contributor

I have a list with these 2 columns - Manager and Due Date. Does SharePoint provide OOB feature to send email to Manager when Due Date is the current date ?

 

Thanks for any help...

17 Replies
Hello,

You would need to use SharePoint designer to make this work. The concepts is similar to how you explained it. Wait until Due Date then email the Manager. Just be sure the "Manager" field is a people picker field as that makes things easier when building your email.

As mentioned by @Chris Gullicksen you need to use SharePoint designer workflow and condtion to wait until the due date and send email. You can also do the same using "Flow". 

As the due date will only need to trigger an email once you could also condifer running PowerShell as a scheduled task. Simply schedule the PowerShell to scan through the list on a daily basis.

Another additional option: run this schedule task as an Azure Web Job so you can program your stuff using .NET

For on-premises SharePoint, you could use a community project I wrote a while ago as the foundation for what you want to achieve:

 

https://www.schaeflein.net/sharepoint-a1a/ 

hi Chris,
As I am very new to SharePoint, are you able to provide details / sample code on the how-to ?
Thank you.
best response confirmed by Bee Lin Leau (Copper Contributor)
Solution

Hello,

 

Welcome to SharePoint, glad to hear you are new. To start up lets find out if you have permissions to accomplish this. Do you know if you have Full Control permissions to the site you are working on?

 

SharePoint workflows can be built if you have the proper permissions and you can use this Development tool that is free to download called SharePoint Designer. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35491 - If you haven't used SharePoint designer I would recomend finding some training informaiton related to it before you begin.

 

Here is some technical documentation on SharePoint Designer 2013 https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/jj163986.aspx

 

Anyway here is a sample list I created to do this

List Columns: (type) (noted an asterisk * = required columns)

  • Item Title (default single line of text)
  • *Manager (people picker)
  • *Due Date (Date column) ... Bonus! use the column validation section to make this date greater than or equal to today so it must be in the future.
    • Formula: =[Due Date]>=TODAY()
    • User Message: Due Date must be greater than or equal to today.

Open Designer > Open your site > Open your list  & Create a new workflow that is associated with it.

 

workflow Logic:

IF Current Item: Due Date Greater than or equal to Today

    Pause until Current Item: Due Date

    Email Current Item: Manager

(end)

 

 

 

This is just a basic concept and you can always do more :)

Any thoughts on leveraging tasks which can provide initial notifications and reminder e-mails? Saves you from writing code.

Thank you, Chris. It works !
Hi Chris,
It is working for "Pause Workflow Until Due Date". Will this pose any overhead to the SharePoint server when there are many workflows being paused till date which is very late ?

Please advise. Thank you.
Hello,

That is a very good question, perhaps some of the Microsoft folks could give you better details on it.

I couldn't find anything online saying there would be any issues with it. There are workflow timer jobs that keep everything in check so as long as everything is healthy related to your workflows there shouldn't be any issues that I can think of.

There shoudln't be any noticable overhead 

You say that it can be done using "Flow". I looked for a sharepoint trigger to do it and didn't find it. What trigger would you use?

Hi,

 

Is this for manual start to workflow or when item is added please? I have a list with 2,400 items and I will need every item to behave in the way described. Manual will be a pain!

manual will work along with automatic biased on Created or Modified. However if you design this on an existing list that didn't previously have a workflow, the emails only go out if you modify each item again to kick things off.

@Chris Gullicksen 

 

Hi Chris,

 

I am new to Microsoft flows. Could you please share a screenshot for this flow.

 

Thank you. 

Hello@sdkhundmir I used a SharePoint Designer workflow for this, not a Flow or PowerAutomate set up for this. 

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by Bee Lin Leau (Copper Contributor)
Solution

Hello,

 

Welcome to SharePoint, glad to hear you are new. To start up lets find out if you have permissions to accomplish this. Do you know if you have Full Control permissions to the site you are working on?

 

SharePoint workflows can be built if you have the proper permissions and you can use this Development tool that is free to download called SharePoint Designer. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35491 - If you haven't used SharePoint designer I would recomend finding some training informaiton related to it before you begin.

 

Here is some technical documentation on SharePoint Designer 2013 https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/jj163986.aspx

 

Anyway here is a sample list I created to do this

List Columns: (type) (noted an asterisk * = required columns)

  • Item Title (default single line of text)
  • *Manager (people picker)
  • *Due Date (Date column) ... Bonus! use the column validation section to make this date greater than or equal to today so it must be in the future.
    • Formula: =[Due Date]>=TODAY()
    • User Message: Due Date must be greater than or equal to today.

Open Designer > Open your site > Open your list  & Create a new workflow that is associated with it.

 

workflow Logic:

IF Current Item: Due Date Greater than or equal to Today

    Pause until Current Item: Due Date

    Email Current Item: Manager

(end)

 

 

 

This is just a basic concept and you can always do more :)

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