Team Eli's blog

One of our customers wanted to use the out-of-the-box Approval workflow but wanted to pre-fill the Approvers field with users from the items metadata.  In another words, each document in a document library can potentially have a difference approver so rather than have the Approvers field pre-filled from the initial Association data, they want it populated from the Approvers field on the initiated item.

Initially, I started out modifying the out-of-the-box Approval InfoPath form (Review-RoutingInit.xsn) and was able to successfully populate the Approvers field with hardcoded data but I then realized that I didn't know what Item the workflow had been started on, which meant I couldn't figure out who the Approver was for the specific item that the workflow had been started.  So, I scrapped that idea and decided to create a new InfoPath Workflow initiation page (this is the page that loads the InfoPath Forms on initiation).

After using Lutz Roeder's . NET Reflector to analyze the IniWrkflIPPage.aspx page, I was able to determine that if I wanted to change the AssociationData before it was populated into the InfoPath Form Control, I needed to modify the property m_formData before the page finished its databinding.

protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs ea)
{  
    base.OnLoad(ea);  
    /* Some code commented out */  
    this.m_assocTemplate = SPWorkflowAssociationCollection.GetAssociationForListItemById(this.m_listItem, associationId);  
    this.m_formData = this.m_assocTemplate.AssociationData;  
–> this.m_formData = “My modified form data”;   
    /* More code commented out */  
    this.DataBind(true);
}

I then went on to modify the form data using metadata from the item that initiated the workflow.  Because I wanted to inherit my custom InfoPath initiation form from IniWrkflIPPage.aspx, I realized that I couldn't change the code in the OnLoad event, but instead needed to change it on the DataBind event. 

protected override void DataBind(bool raiseOnDataBinding)
{   
   if (m_listItem["Approver"] != null)   
   {        
       // Load form data into an XmlDocument        
       XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();         
       xmlDoc.LoadXml(this.m_formData);         
       // Defines the namespace manager to handle using the 'my' namespace        
       XmlNamespaceManager manager = new XmlNamespaceManager(xmlDoc.NameTable);        
       manager.AddNamespace("my", "http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/infopath/2003/myXSD");         
       // Gets a collection of all the Users specificed in the Approver field (Requires Approver field on document library)        
       SPFieldUserValueCollection users = new SPFieldUserValueCollection(m_listItem.Web, m_listItem["Approver"].ToString());        
       string personXml = string.Empty;         
       // Loops through each user and builds out a new Person element         
       foreach (SPFieldUserValue user in users)        
       {             
          personXml += "<my:Person><my:DisplayName>" + user.User.Name + "</my:DisplayName><my:AccountId>" + user.User.LoginName + "</my:AccountId><my:AccountType>User</my:AccountType></my:Person>";         
       }
      // Selects the Reviewers (aka Approver) in the form data and sets the innerXml = to the collection of users we built        
      xmlDoc.SelectSingleNode("/my:myFields/my:Reviewers", manager).InnerXml = personXml;
          // overwrites the default association data with our newly modified data
         this.m_formData = xmlDoc.InnerXml;  
}}

As it turned out, apparently some of the global variables in the IniWrkflIPPage.aspx don't “port” very well over to my custom page, so I ended up faking it a bit.  There is probably a better way to do this but at this point I didn't care J

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Security.Permissions;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.Controls; 

namespace TeamEli.Sharepoint.Workflow.ApprovalWorkflow
{
  [PermissionSet(SecurityAction.InheritanceDemand, Name = "FullTrust"), PermissionSet(SecurityAction.Demand, Name = "FullTrust")]
  public class ApprovalIniWrkflIP : Microsoft.Office.Workflow.IniWrkflIPPage
  {
        //// Fields
        protected new string m_listItemName;
        protected new string m_listItemUrl;
        protected new string m_workflowName;
        protected new XmlFormView XmlFormControl;
         //// Methods
        protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e)
        {
            base.XmlFormControl = this.XmlFormControl;
            base.m_workflowName = this.m_workflowName;
            base.m_listItemName = this.m_listItemName;
            base.m_listItemUrl = this.m_listItemUrl;
            base.OnInit(e);
        }
         protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs ea)
        {
            base.OnLoad(ea);
            this.XmlFormControl = base.XmlFormControl;
            this.m_listItemName = base.m_listItemName;
            this.m_workflowName = base.m_workflowName;
        }

         protected override void DataBind(bool raiseOnDataBinding)        {            //// See above.        }
  }
}

With the code above precompiled into a DLL, all I needed to was modify two lines of my copied IniWrkflIPPage.aspx and that was to add my assembly and to change the page inherits to our new codebehind page.

<%@ Assembly Name="TeamEli.Sharepoint.Workflow.ApprovalWorkflow, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=<<PUBLICKEYTOKEN>>"%>
<%@ Page Language="C#" Inherits="TeamEli.Sharepoint.Workflow.ApprovalWorkflow.ApprovalIniWrkflIP" MasterPageFile="~/_layouts/application.master"   EnableSessionState="true" AutoEventWireup="false"  %>

All that was left was to create a new Feature that calls our new initiation page.  And volia!

Hopefully some of this made sense.  If not, let me know.

Eli

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