Sharepoint Workflow: How do I get the "BeforeProperties" in a WorkflowItemChanged event handler

Question

I've got a sharepoint workflow with a state where I'm waiting to see what changes the user makes to the list item the workflow is attached to.

My state has a "OnWorkflowItemChanged" activity. On that activity I've bound the "AfterProperties" and "BeforeProperties" which created the following members in the code behind:

public Hashtable m_listItemBefore = new System.Collections.Hashtable();
public Hashtable m_listItemAfter = new System.Collections.Hashtable();

I then added a method for the Invoked event on the activity and thought I'd be fine. However, when the code reaches my Invoked function, the m_listItemAfter object contains all the new information, but the m_listItemBefore is empty.

Similarly, if I access the list item directly through:

this.workflowProperties.Item["field name"]

I'm also getting the new values.

The logic of my workflow requires that I see what they changed the data FROM as well as the new values. Any ideas on what am I doing wrong here?

Answer 1

I believe BeforeProperties are only available in synchronous events (ItemAdding, ItemUpdating) and not asynchronous events (ItemAdded, ItemUpdated).

This is quite a bummer and has bothered me a bit in the past, but I'm pretty sure that's right. So, if you really have to have the BeforeProperties, you have to resort to a synchronous event.