Workflow e-mails

DerekB — Mon, 31 May 2010 16:19:38 GMT

Hi,

I'm a little stuck and I'm hoping somebody has some ideas. I have an Infopath 2007 form running with SharePoint 2007. This form will be used to request software to be installed on a workstation. There are 5 components to this form:

Requester
Approver
Finance - (Group to purchase licenses for various software)
Software Approval Committee (group to approve non-standard software)
IMACD (group to install software)

Note: The Approver is the Requester's manager, I have the form pulling this information automatically and populating the form. The approval process that I'm currently using is working perfectly (I have a hidden status field on the form to drive it).

The problem that I have is that I would like SharePoint to send e-mails automatially under a number of conditions. When I use the option to start Workflow when an item is changed, it will search the conditions and fire off the e-mail when it finds the right one. The problem is that the Finance/Software Approval and IMACD groups may be doing work concurrently. This may generate multiple e-mails to the requester.

For example:

Requester orders Adobe Professional
The form recogonizes this as it being an application that Finance will purchase and using various status fields on the form, will prompt SharePoint to send 3 e-mails, one to the Requester (confirming the receipt), one to IMACD (to install), and one to Finance (to purchase the software).
When Finance recieves the request, they will update the form with a PO number, when IMAC recieves the form they will update it with a ticket number. As each one of these is a change to the SharePoint library, an e-mail will be generated to the requester for each condition. I don't want an e-mail sent from IMAC, and I cannot see a way of preventing this. While I could use the ticket number field to prevent e-mails from being sent, the problem is if Finance adds the PO number after the ticket number is added...this will result in no notification.

Are there any thoughts about working with multiple groups working concurrently in this manner?