Scenario: In a SharePoint Designer workflow, you need to determine if a date field is blank.
Problem: SPD does not provide a direct method for comparing dates to anything other than a date. You cannot create a condition like this: "If [DateField] equals blank".
Solution: Convert the date to a string. Use string comparison to determine if the date is blank.
Screen Shots:
The following screen shots show how to do this. In this scenario, a field on an item, "Environmental Permits:First Permit Reminder Date", is submitted and the workflow fires in response.
Notes:
When I tried this, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it works. I was worried that SharePoint Designer might disallow the string assignment (Variable:StringReminderDateDate) but it did allow it.
I was also concerned that allowing it, the value might be null and either blow up the WF at runtime or maybe raise the global temperature 1/2 a degree, but those concerns were unfounded.
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Questions:
1) When I tried the above, it’s not working because the value of a blank date seems to be "?????" (I believe this is a transposed NULL value). When I display the contents of the dynamic string, it shows up as "?????".
2) Joe – when you wrote "If Field is greater than or equal to Today or Field is less than or equal to Today", do you mean that you can use variables like "Today" in workflows? If so, can you explain how? I’ve had no luck trying, and I’ve only been able to extract values that exist in lists.