Timer Job to Start the workflow in a list

Recently, I had an interesting requirement. No of list contains items and they expire on certain dates and require to send reminders for each items.  Initially I thought to write a custom workflow and kick the workflow by the OOB expiration policy/information policy. However information policy check dates are above the specified date. Example: anything more than 7 years.  So if you set the workflow to kick, it’s going to kick again and again for any items which are more than 7 years. Especially you won’t prefer to send email more than once. So I come up with a timer job for that.

The timer job will read a central list, which has details of list that need to run the expire workflow, and then kick the workflow.

Here is the sample of that list.

Then I create a timer job.

Here is the code for that.

namespace SP.Sample.OnlineForms

{

    using System;

    using System.Collections.Generic;

    using System.Web;

    using Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration;

    using Microsoft.SharePoint;

    using Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow;

    using Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowUtil;

    using Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities;

    using System.Security.Permissions;

    using System.Text;

    using System.Collections.Specialized;

    public class SampleExpireAlertsTimerJob : SPJobDefinition

    {

        //SPWeb mySiteWeb;

        public SampleExpireAlertsTimerJob(SPWebApplication webApp)

            : base("Sample Expire Alerts", webApp, null, SPJobLockType.Job)

        {

            this.Title = "Sample Expire Alerts";

        }

        public SampleExpireAlertsTimerJob()

            : base()

        {

        }

        public override void Execute(Guid targetInstanceId)

        {

            string key = "TeamsRootSiteUrl";

            string TeamsRootSiteUrl = "";

            if (this.Properties.Contains(key))

            {

                TeamsRootSiteUrl = this.Properties[key].ToString();

               

            }

            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(TeamsRootSiteUrl))

            {

               

                using (SPSite site = new SPSite(TeamsRootSiteUrl))

                {

                    using (SPWeb web = site.RootWeb)

                    {

                        SPList list = web.Lists.TryGetList("SampleExpireAlerts");

                        SPQuery oQuery = new SPQuery();

                        oQuery.Query = string.Format(@"

                                                <OrderBy><FieldRef Name='ID' /></OrderBy>"

                                              );

                        SPListItemCollection collListItems = list.GetItems(oQuery);

                        foreach (SPListItem item in collListItems)

                        {

                            string weburl = item["WebURL"] as string;

                            string listName = item["ListName"] as string;

                            string dateFieldtoFilter = item["DateFieldtoFilter"] as string;

                            int daysToFilter = int.Parse(item["DaysToFilter"] as string);

                            string workflowName = item["WorkflowName"] as string;

                            StartAlertWorkFlow(weburl, listName, dateFieldtoFilter, daysToFilter, workflowName);

                        }

                    }

                }

            }

        }

        /// <summary>

        /// Send remainder and warning emails to the employees

        /// </summary>

        /// <param name="employeeName">Name of the employee ex: Sutha Thavaratnarajah</param>

        /// <param name="moduleName">Name of the module ex: conduct</param>

        /// <param name="TeamsRootSiteUrl"> Url retrived from the timer job property.</param>

        /// <param name="eid">email template ID.</param>

        public void StartAlertWorkFlow(string weburl, string listName, string dateFieldtoFilter, int daysToFilter, string workflowName)

        {

            using (SPSite SampleSite = new SPSite(weburl))

            {

                using (SPWeb SampleWeb = SampleSite.OpenWeb())

                {

                    SPList list = SampleWeb.Lists.TryGetList(listName);

                    SPQuery oQuery = new SPQuery();

                    //string userName = "Sutha Thavaratnarajah";

                    string datetofilter = System.DateTime.Today.AddDays(daysToFilter).ToString("yyyy-MM-dd");

                    oQuery.Query = string.Format(@"

                                                    <Where>

                                                      <Eq>

                                                         <FieldRef Name='{0}' />

                                                         <Value IncludeTimeValue='False' Type='DateTime'>{1}</Value>

                                                      </Eq>

                                                   </Where>", dateFieldtoFilter, datetofilter);

                    SPListItemCollection collListItems = list.GetItems(oQuery);

                    foreach (SPListItem item in collListItems)

                    {

                        item.Web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;

                        SPWorkflowManager workflowManager = item.Web.Site.WorkflowManager;

                        SPWorkflowAssociationCollection workflowAssociation = item.ContentType.WorkflowAssociations;

                        foreach (SPWorkflowAssociation Association in workflowAssociation)

                        {

                            if (Association.Name == workflowName)

                            {

                                workflowManager.StartWorkflow(item, Association, Association.AssociationData, true);

                                break;

                            }

                        }

                   

                    }

                  

                }

            }

        }

    }

}

So, this timer job will kick the specified workflow in specified List with the given criteria.

Note: you need to create the workflow in the target lists.