Erroneous multiple workflow submit is possible

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We are regularly finding that documents (expense lines, timesheet lines etc.) have more than one workflow running against them.

This is possible because pressing the yellow workflow "Submit" button creates a non-modal Submit dialog box - so if a user clicks workflow "Submit" more than once (for example it pops up on a second monitor without being noticed), they can create more than one Submit dialog box. If they then OK each of those dialogs the system just creates a new workflow each time.

This creates issues as approvers get duplicate approval requests and then at the end of the process this also generates numerous "Workflow stopped" for the secondary workflows as invariably documents are "Approved" or "Posted" by the first workflow.

Does anyone know if this is a known bug, configuration error on our part or could it be an artefact of our Citrix environment - does anyone with a standard thick client see this behaviour?

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Jonathan Halland 11,310 on at

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Hi Eggsie.

In terms of the workflow framework it is perfectly allowable to have multiple workflow instances and any given time. However, logically this shouldn't occur for certain workflow types. So if you have a custom workflow you will need to check straight before you "Workflow::activateFromWorkflowType" that the item doesn't have alternate workflow running.

If you find this with standard workflows you may want to investigate or report it to microsoft. Making the Dialog modal helps somewhat but can't entirely prevent this.

I wrote something about the modal fix here: workflowax.wordpress.com/.../record-being-submitted-into-workflow-multiple-times

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David Massey Microsoft Employee on at

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In addition, verify that you have checked LCS for any hotfixes which you need to apply to your system. Multiple workflow process have been updated to avoid this scenario.

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Jonathan

This was exactly what I had been looking - and despite looking for several months but on the web and in LCS hadn't found your post or any other fixes.

We added "this.wait(true);" to the last line of the "run" function of form WorkflowSubmitDialog turning it into a modal dialog.

Many thanks for this solution.

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