While defining a custom workflow one may need to send e-mail notifications to the users. The user interface that SP Designer 2007 provides is basic and does not provide any formatting styles for use. Knowledge of the basic HTML tags will be useful for formatting. This article provides an example of an unformatted email as well as steps to format the email content using SP Designer.
Scenario: A custom workflow initiates an email notification to the Manager for approval
- Open SharePoint Designer and create a new workflow
- Define the Conditions as required. This is not explained in detail as the objective of this article is to focus on formatting e-mail. For creating custom workflows, refer to this article here
- Click Actions and select Send an Email.
- Click Email this message link. Define E-Mail Message window is displayed
- Select values for To and CC field
Populate the Subject field value from the list as follows
- Click fx icon in the Subject field. Define Workflow Lookup is displayed
- Select Current Item and Title as Source and Field values
- Enter text in the Body field as shown in the screen print below. The verbiage is given as an example. This is a basic email message without any formatting.
The screen print below displays the email notification as seen in Microsoft Outlook. It sure requires to be formatted for spacing, layout, and readability.
One way of formatting is to use the Inline Style format in SP Designer as you can format and style using the design mode. This is outlined below:
- In SP Designer create a new Page, File > New > Page
- Click Split tab at the bottom to have both the Code and Design window displayed
- Place the cursor in the Design window and ensure the Style Application toolbar shows the Style Application as Manual and Target Rule <Inline Style>
- Format the email message in Design mode. For example, you may want to use table format to display the content
- On completion, highlight the formatted message and copy the HTML from the code window. Save this page.
- Paste the copied HTML to the email body of the workflow and ensure to Add Lookup in the required fields
- Test a notification, note that the output style closely matches the one designed using the inline style.
