Pros of DFFS Email over SPD workflow?

[Keith Hudson]

I have not yet tried out the email capability in DFFS. What are the pros of using it? Does it allow email notices when work is being moved from one stage to another without having to write an SPD workflow? If someone has used it, an example of what they have used it for would be wonderful.

[Alexander Bautz]

Hi,
You can use this to send notifications based on any DFFS rule. This means that when you have set up the initial DFFS Workflow using SPD, you can send any custom email using the DFFS email functionality.

The different email templates are created in DFFS backend for for each form, and can pull data from the current items – or from a javascript variable.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Best regards,
Alexander

[MikeS]

Keith,

I’ve been developing a DFFS email capability and would be happy to share with you pros and cons vs. SPD WF emails that I’ve learned. Let me know.

Mike

[Keith Hudson]

Mike;

I’ve now seen used the DFFS email capability used on one project where it seemed to work well, but I’ve also heard feedback from other users that seem to have found it gave them inconsistent results.

What has your experience been?

[MikeS]

Like many things, ‘It depends.’ It depends on the specific use case and requirements surrounding the email juxtaposed with the respective capabilities of DFFS email and SPD email workflows. When the requirements are fairly straightforward I am finding using the DFFS email HTML and inline CSS can be easier to develop, test, and deploy than SPD WF. However, if I need to set up more complicated scenarios (e.g., assign Tasks) then SPD WF may be appropriate.

An ongoing aggravation with SPD WF is the need to translate lookup fields and calculated fields into plain text and avoid null (blank) fields. Any of these cause the WF to be cancelled. The DFFS email accepts all of these fields without an issue. This is a big advantage and saves much development time.

I like being able to set a rule to display the DFFS email submit button for a single permission group and it’s invisible for everybody else.

Using DFFS email with the SPD WF option in DFFS is something I have not tried as seems a bit more complicated as you are merging the two systems.

Mike

[Author]

Posts