Reminder Workflow Pause for Specific Duration in SharePoint 2013

This article explains how can we use SharePoint Designer to create Reminder workflow on SharePoint List & send email notification to specific user if ReminderDate equals Today's Date.

Workflow

We can create SharePoint workflow using SharePoint Designer as well as Visual Studio.

SharePoint Designer

Using SharePoint Designer, we can Access SharePoint site content like List & Libraries, Workflows, Site Pages, Content Types, Master Pages etc.

Steps:

1. Create SharePoint Custom List - EventReminder List



2. List Column

Create list columns Named - EventCreationDate & EventReminderDate

EventCreationDate -



EventReminderDate - As per requirement we can create calculated column in List. For Example, i want to send event Reminder after 10 days of created date. so below process is used to create calculated column in SharePoint.





For testing purpose, I updated "EventReminderDate " formula, EventReminderDate = EventCreationDate, so both column values are same.

2. Create List Workflow -

Open SharePoint Designer -> Click workflow tab -> you will see options for workflow creation.



Now click List workflow & select "EventReminder" List for workflow creation.



Workflow creation dialog box appears on the screen.

Give appropriate workflow name and select Platform type = SharePoint 2013 Workflow.



3. Workflow Stages

SharePoint 2013 do not have state machine workflow because of workflow stage concept. Stage act like workflow container. For simplicity, we can divide workflow into stages & do transition form 1 stage to another using Action -> Go to Stage.



Let's start by creating our Workflow stages as follow.



4. Workflow Variables

Create workflow variable Today of type Date/Time.



String Builder: We can use String Builder to create string object for user-friendly messages.



5. Stage - Workflow Initialization

We can do variable Initialization in this stage.



6. Stage - Reminder Email

At this stage, we first do check like for current list item "Send Reminder " is set to Yes/No. if send Reminder is set to " Yes" then go next. check todays date match with EventReminderDate.



Notice that we are ignoring time here and matching the only date.



7. Stage - Workflow Finish

Set workflow status here as Finish.

8. Workflow



9. Output



When new item added to a list, workflow starts automatically as per workflow settings. when date matched it pause for 1 minute & send an email notification to the user.

Email CC field, we can add SharePoint group name also as shown in step 6.