Accessing list data from a different site in Sharepoint Designer workflow

Question

Does anyone know if it is possible to Lookup list data from a different site when creating a workflow with Sharepoint Designer 2007? The Define Workflow Lookup dialog only allows you to pick from lists in the current Sharepoint site you are creating the workflow in. Ideally I'd like to be able to pick from a list in the parent site, or a site from a given URL (eg. http://myserver/mysite)

Answer 1

You cannot do that with OOTB activities. However you can build a custom SharePoint designer activity to do the task you need. We usually create just a call web service activity and then we call a SharePoint we service we need.

Take a look at this CodePlex project for some custom SharePoint Designer activities.

Answer 2

SPDActivities on CodePlex are very useful. However, if your exact requirements are not covered by any of those activies then you may want to consider embedding c# or vb.net code directly into the SharePoint Designer Workflow (Without resorting to Visual Studio).

I wrote a blog article about how to do it exactly at the following location:

http://www.muhimbi.com/blog/2009/12/embed-c-or-vb-code-directly-in.html