Adding a workflow to an existing item in sitecore 6.5

Question

I am trying to set up workflows in a sitecore 6.5 file. I can get workflows to work normally with new data items created from templates, but every time I go to the data item that existed before I created the workflow, the ribbon pane tells me: "This item is not currently is part of the workflow. "

I added the Workflow that I want to set in the Default Workflow field, and in the Workflow field in the data element, but the workflow is not applied.

I am not sure how to make the newly created workflow apply to existing data elements. Is this possible in sitecore 6.5?

Answer 1

Good, so the key to all of this is being published.

• Setting the default workflow for standard values ​​does not affect items that are already part of the workflow. This will only change the default workflow field for existing items, but it will have zero effect for items that are already created.

  • If the content that you want to add to the workflow is NOT part of the workflow currently and this content is currently published, changing the workflow to the fact that the default template values ​​also have NO EFFECT. The reason is that this is published content, and if it is put into the workflow when it is already published, it will publish it. Bad news.

  • You do not have to tune the workspace and workflow state to the standard template values ​​... ever. You do not need to do this, and as you can see, it has unintended consequences that do not make sense at first.

Here is what you need to do. You simply set the default workflow for the default template values. Now .. if you have content that is currently published, you just need to create a new version (which it should do automatically for the authors of your content, if you configured it for this in web.config ... it won’t do this is for you if you are an administrator, since you can edit published content) as soon as they try to edit the elements. As long as the "default workflow" field is still set to "standard values", as soon as they create a new version of the item, it will put the new version into the workflow according to what is in the default workflow.