Remove workflow

Previously I showed you how to add a workflow and task list to all of your subsites through a powershell script, now let’s say what was done must also be able to be undone. So naturally here’s a powershell script to remove your Workflow and task list from all sub webs.

Section One (Set up)

#get the site url to deploy workflow to

param($siteUrl=$(read-host "Please provide web app url of the list to be delete (EG:'http://Wingtip'):"))

#ensure that user provided site url parameter

if($siteUrl -eq $null -or $siteUrl -eq '')

{

    throw "You must specify your server name. Value provided was null/empty."

}

#function to load SharePoint Powershell snap in

function LoadSharePointPowerShellEnviroment

{

 #clear the screen of pevious output

Clear-Host

 write-host "Setting up Powershell enviroment for Sharepoint" -foregroundcolor Blue

 Add-PSSnapin "Microsoft.Sharepoint.PowerShell" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

 Write-host "Sharepoint PowerShell Snapin loaded." -foregroundcolor Green

}

#call sharepoint plugin function

LoadSharePointPowerShellEnviroment

Section Two(Declare constants)

#get site using parameter

$site = Get-SPSite($siteUrl)

#Name of task list to delete

$listName = "Approval Tasks"

#approval workflow ID, specified in elements file of workflow

$APPROVALWORKFLOWID = [GUID]("64f076cb-a5f8-4ee7-9ef4-54820d291886");

Section Three(remove workflow function)

#remove workflow function

function RemoveAssociation($web, $listName)

{

      #library the workflow is runnion on

      $listInstance = $web.Lists.TryGetList($listName)

     

      #make sure the library exists

      if($listInstance -ne $null)

      {    

            #get the number of workflows running on library

            $i = $listInstance.WorkflowAssociations.Count - 1

            While($i -gt -1)

            {

                  #if workflow is ours, and it has 0 running then remove it.

                  if($listInstance.WorkflowAssociations[$i].BaseTemplate.Id.Equals($APPROVALWORKFLOWID) -and

                     $listInstance.WorkflowAssociations[$i].RunningInstances -eq 0)

                  {

                        Write-Host "Removing Workflow " $listInstance.WorkflowAssociations[$i].Name "From" $listName -ForegroundColor DarkGreen

                        $listInstance.WorkflowAssociations.Remove($listInstance.WorkflowAssociations[$i])                    

                  }

                  $i--

            }

      }    

      $listInstance = $null

      $web.Dispose()

}

Section Three(traverse all webs and remove list)

#itterate through all subsites

foreach ($web in $site.AllWebs)

{

      #get the list you whish to delete

      $listToDelete = $web.Lists.TryGetList($listName)

     

      #if the list exists delete it

      if($listToDelete -ne $null)

    {

            Write-Host $listToDelete.RootFolder $listName " has been deleted" -ForegroundColor Green

        $web.Lists.Delete($listToDelete.ID)

            $web.Update()

    }

     

      #remove the workflow from libraries

      RemoveAssociation $web "Pages"

      RemoveAssociation $web "Images"

      RemoveAssociation $web "Documents"

           

    $web.Dispose()

}

$site.Dispose()

Write-Host "Script Complete" -ForegroundColor Blue

Attach workflow to all webs

So I've made my own custom approval state machine workflow and now I need to attach it to everyone of my subsites. how do I accomplish this? Well any time you're face with a cumbersome amount of pointing and clicking you have two alternatives:

• Feature event receiver 
• PowerShell

Now as I learned the hard way you're event receiver has a 2 minute time out, so in my case where I'm attaching a workflow to three libraries on every subsite and creating a custom task list it really didn't pan out. Instead I ended up moving my logic out of my visual studio project and into a powershell script. I'm going to break this script down into Five sections.

Section One (Start up)

#get the site url to deploy workflow to

param($siteUrl=$(read-host "Please provide web app url of the list to be delete (EG:'http://Wingtip'):"))

#ensure that user provided site url parameter

if($siteUrl -eq $null -or $siteUrl -eq '')

{

    throw "You must specify your server name. Value provided was null/empty."

}

#function to load SharePoint Powershell snap in

function LoadSharePointPowerShellEnviroment

{

 #clear the screen of pevious output

 Clear-Host

 write-host "Setting up Powershell enviroment for Sharepoint" -foregroundcolor Blue

 Add-PSSnapin "Microsoft.Sharepoint.PowerShell" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

 Write-host "Sharepoint PowerShell Snapin loaded." -foregroundcolor Green

}

#call sharepoint plugin function

LoadSharePointPowerShellEnviroment

Section Two(Declare Constants)

#get site using parameter

$site = Get-SPSite($siteUrl)

#get the rootweb of the site

$rootWeb = $site.RootWeb

#ensure that approval workflow has unique name

$workFlowName = "Approval_" +  [System.DateTime]::Now.ToString()

#specify the approval task list name

$TASKLISTNAME = "Approval Tasks"

#specify the task list description

$listDescription = "Task list for ccw custom approval tasks"

#reference approval task list definition, deployed through VS project

$TaskListTemplate= $rootWeb.ListTemplates["Page Approval Task List Definition"]

#specify OOTB workflow history list, every site has one

$HISTORYLISTNAME = "Workflow History"

#approval workflow ID, specified in elements file of workflow

$APPROVALWORKFLOWID = [GUID]"64f076cb-a5f8-4ee7-9ef4-54820d291886"

#reference workflow using workflow ID

$wfTemplate = $rootWeb.WorkflowTemplates[$APPROVALWORKFLOWID]

Section Three(Create list function)

#Create List Instance function

function createListInstance($web, $listName, $listDescription)

{

      #make sure list doesn't already exist

      if($web.Lists.TryGetList($listName) -eq $null)

      {

            #create list with no spaces

            $listGuid = $web.Lists.Add($listname.Replace(" ",""), $listDescription, $TaskListTemplate)

           

            #grab the list, change the name to the original parameter passed to the function

            $list = $web.Lists[$ListGuid]

            $list.title = $listName

            $list.Update()

      }

      else

      {

            Write-Host $listName + "was not created on web" + $web.Url -ForegroundColor Red;

      }

      $web.Dispose()

}

Section Four(Attach workflow function)

#attach workflow to web

function addApprovalWorkflow($web, $listname)

{

      #get the library you want to attach the workflow to

    $library = $web.Lists.TryGetList($listname)

   

      #ensure library exists

    if($library -ne $null)

    {

            #reference tasklist, and histrory list on web

        $taskList = $web.Lists[$TASKLISTNAME]

        $historyList = $web.Lists[$HISTORYLISTNAME]

       

            #create a workflow association refer to

        $workflowAssociation = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWorkflowAssociation]::CreateListAssociation($wfTemplate, $workflowName, $taskList, $historyList);

       

            #set the properties of the workflow assocation

        $workflowAssociation.Name = $workFlowName

        $workflowAssociation.AllowManual = $true

        $workflowAssociation.AutoStartChange = $true

        $workflowAssociation.AutoStartCreate = $true

       

            #attach the workflow association to the Library

        $temp = $library.WorkflowAssociations.Add($workflowAssociation);

        $workflowAssociation.Enabled = $true;

            $web.Dispose()

    }

}

Section Five(Main)

#itterate through all subsites

$webs = $site.AllWebs

foreach ($web in $webs)

{

      #ignore the search site

      if($web.Title -eq "Search")

      {

            continue

      }

     

      Write-Host $web.Url

      #create the task list

      createListInstance $web $TASKLISTNAME $listDescription

     

      #Attach the approval wf to libraries

      addApprovalWorkflow  $web "Pages"

      addApprovalWorkflow  $web "Images"

    addApprovalWorkflow  $web "Documents"

    $web.Dispose()

}

$rootWeb.Dispose()

$site.Dispose()

write-host "Complete" -ForegroundColor Blue

Asynchronous calls

public class Program
{
    private static void heavyMethod(int pauseTime)
    {
        Thread.Sleep(pauseTime);
        int threadID = Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId;
        Console.WriteLine(string.Format("My runtime was {0} miliseconds, my id was {1}", 

                          pauseTime.ToString(), threadID));

    }
 
    private delegate void myDelegate(int iCallTime);
    private static myDelegate dlgt = new myDelegate(heavyMethod);
 
    private static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Start demo");
 
        //simple async call, go do your stuff and i don't care when you finish
        dlgt.BeginInvoke(10000, null, null);
 
        //Async call with call back function, when compelte call fourSecond_callback method
        dlgt.BeginInvoke(4000, new AsyncCallback(fourSecond_CallBack), null);
 
        //async call with result, waits for end invoke
        Console.WriteLine("Waiting for 7s");
        IAsyncResult ar1 = dlgt.BeginInvoke(7000, null, null);
        dlgt.EndInvoke(ar1);
 
        //asyn call with wait
        IAsyncResult ar = dlgt.BeginInvoke(3000, null, null);
        Console.WriteLine("Doing some stuff here");
        ar.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne();
 
 
        //async with polling
        Console.WriteLine("5s counter start");
        IAsyncResult ar2 = dlgt.BeginInvoke(5000, null, null);
 
        int count = 0; 
        while (!ar2.IsCompleted)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(count++);
            Thread.Sleep(1000);
        }
 
        Console.WriteLine("Finished, press any key");
        Console.ReadKey();
    }
 
    public static void fourSecond_CallBack(IAsyncResult ar)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("4s is up");
    }
}