Trigger SP2010 Workflows using JSOM

By Anatoly Mironov

May 19, 2016

Today I found out how to start workflows in JSOM (JavaScript Object Model in SharePoint). Nothing special, but since it is not documented, it took me a while to find a solution. Here is the code which I want to keep as simple as possible. What you need to start a SP2010 Workflow for a list item or a document in JSOM, you need to load SP.WorkflowServices.js and you need to create the manager and get the service, then you can trigger a workflow using the workflow name, the list guid and the guid of the list item: [code language=“javascript”] var ctx = SP.ClientContext.get_current(); var workflowServicesManager = SP.WorkflowServices.WorkflowServicesManager.newObject(ctx, ctx.get_web()); var service = workflowServicesManager.getWorkflowInteropService(); service.startWorkflow(workflowName, null, listGuid, plainItem.guid, initiationParams); [/code] Here is the code to trigger a workflow for multiple items: [code language=“javascript”] //fire the workflows function fire2010WorkflowForListItems(ctx, listGuid, plainItems) { var workflowServicesManager = SP.WorkflowServices.WorkflowServicesManager.newObject(ctx, ctx.get_web()); var service = workflowServicesManager.getWorkflowInteropService(); for(var i = 0; i < plainItems.length; i++) { var plainItem = plainItems[i]; console.log(‘scheduling workflow for id: ‘, plainItem.id); service.startWorkflow(options.workflowName, null, listGuid, plainItem.guid, options.initiationParams); } console.log(’now executing…’); ctx.executeQueryAsync(function() { console.info(‘yes, workflows completed for ’ + items.length + ’ items’); }, function() { console.error(‘it didnt go well’); }); } [/code] The code above is inspired from this gist and sharepoint stackexchange. It is a simplified version that only works for list item workflows and SharePoint 2010 workflows. Here is an example how you can get multiple items and batch start a workflow: [code language=“javascript”] //just a couple of variables var options = { workflowName: ‘Behörigheter’, listName: ‘Documents’, initiationParams: {} }; //load list items function startWorfklows() { //Start 2010 Workflow for a List Item var ctx = SP.ClientContext.get_current(); var web = ctx.get_web(); var lists = web.get_lists(); var list = lists.getByTitle(options.listName); ctx.load(list); var items = list.getItems(new SP.CamlQuery()); ctx.load(items); ctx.executeQueryAsync(function() { var listGuid = list.get_id() + ‘’; var en = items.getEnumerator(); var plainItems = []; while (en.moveNext()) { var it = en.get_current(); //do not take checked out files, it won’t work if (!it.get_item(‘CheckoutUser’)) { plainItems.push({id: it.get_id(), guid: it.get_item(‘GUID’) + ’’ }); } } fire2010WorkflowForListItems(ctx, listGuid, plainItems); }, function() { alert(‘boom’); }); } //Load Worfklow Js dependency var wfScript = ‘SP.WorkflowServices.js’ SP.SOD.registerSod(wfScript, _spPageContextInfo.webAbsoluteUrl + ‘/_layouts/15/SP.WorkflowServices.js’); SP.SOD.executeFunc(wfScript, ‘’, startWorfklows); [/code]

Why I needed it

I created a simple workflow that is triggered on Item Added and Item Updated. Unfortunately there are already thousands of items in the document library. To trigger them manually is nothing good. But a simple javascript solution did exactly what I wanted.

Comments from Wordpress.com

Anatoly Mironov - Oct 3, 2016

As far as I know, there is no js api for Workflows in SP2010. :(

Hi, Anatoly! great post! It’s really work on SP2010? Could you help me? I even can’t find and load SP.WorkflowServices.js (( Is there it in free access? Thank’s!