sharepoint workflow on a task item not starting

Question

Hi,

I have the following scenario:

• a workflow is associated with an item list
• this workflow creates various tasks for different people
• since it is quite complex to monitor dueDate for each task item in this workflow, I thought I'd create a new workflow that would be associated with the task list and have very simple logic in it, just for emailing when a dueDate approaches on a task

However (of course with Sharepoint, there is always an however!), although I can associate the second workflow to a task list of the first workflow, it does not start automatically, Nor can I start them manually, as there is even no Workflows item on the ECB menu for these kinds of tasks.

It does work on a normal Task content type, just not on the content type that I use for my workflow tasks. My content type derives from the Sharepoint task content type.

Update: I've tried adding a workflow to the content type itself and then I get this error: "Workflows may not be associated with content types whose base is on 'WorkflowTask'"

Any ideas why this is or any workarounds?

Update: according to article on office.microsoft.com - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA102376561033.aspx#2 this should be possible:

"For example, suppose that each time a new document is added to your Documents for Review library, a workflow running on that library creates a task to review the document in your Tasks list. You can create a secondary workflow on the Tasks list that sets a value in the Due Date field of each of those new tasks. "

Thank you for your help!

Answer 1

Sounds like a hardcoded limitation to me. This kind of parallel approach is indeed very complicated in SharePoint, try having a secondary list to sync all the tasks (add new items to that list when a task is completed while also changing something on the original item) and the original item will have a OnChange type of behavior to check if all the fired tasks are completed and/or what tasks are close to the due date.