Approval Workflow Error : "An error has occured in Approval"

I have came accross 2 -3 tickets in this week in which the user gets an error in the approval workflow. I knew the solution to it but the user wanted something documented . So tried to check on my blog if i have posted it and found that it was not . so adding to the list .

Issue : Error on Approval Workflow : "An error has occured in Approval"

User has a SharepPoint OOB Approval workflow which can be created through the site and easily be attached to a document library and it starts manually or automatically when a new document gets created and get the required approvers to review and approve the document for publishing.

How to configure a Approval workflow :

For a document library or list

Go to Settings->Workflow Settings->Add Workflow
Choose the Approval workflow from the list, make it start on item creation go to the next page.

Select the approvers and check "Update the approval status"

Click Finish and the workflow is created .

Although this is a easy way to configure the workflow It might end-up with a error:

 Error  System Account :  An error has occured in Approval

A small setting can change the whole error .

This is an approval workflow which should after getting the approvals update the approval status of the document .

The workflow will start and run flawlessly until the end and when it will try to update the approval status.If this setting under Versioning settings is not set  to require content approval it will fail to update the status and thorws the error.

An error has occured in Approval

So, if you come accross an Approval Workflow

Go into the document library settings and go to Versioning Settings Page

Set "Require content approval for submitted items to?"

To Yes and everything should be fine.

This would not make any changes to the Existing status of the workflow . Terminate the workflow and run it again .  

New Learning Roadmaps for SharePoint 2013

A learning roadmap is a way of organizing content (articles, white papers, videos, blog posts, etc.) to provide a customized and optimized learning path for a technology, feature, product, or solution. Starting with prerequisites and then moving on to introductory, intermediate, and advanced learning goals, learning roadmaps enables a novice to ramp up quickly and an experienced technology person to build more expertise in a particular area.

My colleagues on the SharePoint IT pro writing team have been very busy publishing the following additional learning roadmaps:

·    Upgrade for SharePoint 2013

·    Virtualize SharePoint 2013

·    Windows PowerShell for SharePoint 2013

If you need to technically ramp up in any of these areas, take a look at these articles to understand the prerequisite knowledge and then dive in.

See Learning roadmaps for SharePoint 2013 for the complete list for SharePoint 2013.

See Learning Roadmaps Portal for the complete list across Microsoft products. To create your own learning roadmap, see the Learning Roadmap Template.

Reference: http://blogs.technet.com/b/tothesharepoint/archive/2013/02/25/new-learning-roadmaps-for-sharepoint-2013.aspx

Feature enhancements in SharePoint 2013 than SharePoint 2010.

SharePoint 2013 general model remain same as SharePoint 2010 but has few platform level improvements and new capabilities like
• Shredded Storage
• SQL Improvements
• Cache Service
• Request Management
• Themes
• Sharing

In terms of Service Applications:
• New service applications available and improvements on existing ones
• Office Web Apps is no longer a service application
• Web Analytics is no longer service application, it’s part of search

Enterprise content Management
• Policies:
• Site-level retention policies compliance levels has been extended to sites
• Policies include Retention policy for sites and Team Mailbox associated with site
• Project closure and expiration policy
• Designed for managing discovery cases and holds
• Establishes a portal through which you can access discovery cases to conduct searches, place content on hold, and export content
• eDiscovery capabilities
• Support for searching and exporting content from file shares
• Export discovered content from Exchange and SharePoint
• Team folders
• Seamless integration of Exchange and SharePoint to provide best of both world and end user flexibility

Web Content Management
• Support the tools and workflows designers usage
• Variations & Content Translation
• Search Engine Optimization
• Cross Site Publishing
• Video & Embedding
• Image renditions
• Clean Urls
• Metadata navigation

Social
• Microblogging
• "Share content, links, and media"
• Follow people, sites, content, and conversations"
• Activity Feeds
• Provides a view into recent activity related to content, links, media, and people"
• Communities
• Community sites with self-service administration and moderation
• Modern community features such as achievements and reputation
• Discussions
• Modern discussion boards
• Blogs
• Client application integration
• "Categories, comments, and moderation "

Search
• New Search architecture with one unified search
• Personalized search results based on search history
• Rich contextual previews

Outlook 2007/2010: What is the character limit for a link to open?

As I just shared the Character limitation of URL in Sharepoint .

Outlook Hyperlink also has its own limitation

One of my user was copying a shortcut as a hyperlink in Outlook and it opened the site with a empty Document Library .

I Compared the shortcut url with the one sent as hyperlink in the outlook and found that the one sent to the users is not a complete url/link . so thought their might be some limitation to that too .   

Based on my research, this is what i found

Outlook 2013 – Seems no limitation.

Outlook 2010 – 1033 characters

Outlook 2007 – 1033 characters

Outlook 2003 – 256 characters

Readers - if you find any descripancies in the numbers (limitations ) please comment so that we can keep this post updated .