Modifying fields for a Workflow Task in Sharepoint

Question

Does anyone know how you can modify the fields in an out-of-the-box (OOTB) Workflow Task (specifically Priority and Due Date)? The OOTB Approval workflow doesn't allow you to set these fields (it allows setting a due date, but not a due time).

I had a cunning plan to create a custom workflow in Visual Studio to set these fields automatically. This involved attaching my custom workflow to the tasks list and editing the tasks as they were created by the Approval workflow. However my custom workflow doesn't fire when new tasks are added to task list by the Approval workflow. And it seems you are unable to manually trigger a workflow on an item in the task list that was created by a workflow.

So in order to set the task fields as they are created by the Approval workflow I'd have to somehow hook into the OOTB Approval workflow directly, which I'm not sure is possible.

Obviously another option would be to recreate the Approval workflow from scratch with InfoPath and Visual Studio, but this seems like overkill to just add priority and time fields to the instantiation form.

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

I've just realised you can edit field such as priority and due date (time) from the task list by selecting Actions > Edit in Datasheet. This works for normal task list items and those created by workflow.

I'd still like to know why a custom workflow that is set to trigger on new items in a task list doesn't fire when a workflow adds items to the task list.

Note: To edit the time a task is due you need to modify the OOTB task list so that the Due Date field is a Date and Time rather than Date Only.