SPD Workflow: A workflow does not start automatically

A. Overview Last week, a colleague of mine has encountered a problem with workflows authored in SharePoint Designer. When a workflow is configured to start automatically when a new item is created or changed, the workflow does not start as expected and the log file does not contain any error messages. However, if you start the workflow manually, everything works just fine. Afer some analysis and search, the problem was resolved. The following sections contain details about the source of the problem and all the symptoms, the cause of that problem and finally the fix. This information is taken from an article on Microsoft's Help and Support site. B. Symptoms After you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1 (SP1), a declarative workflow does not start automatically in the following products:

• Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007

For example, if you configure a declarative workflow to start when a new item is created or when a new item is changed, the declarative workflow does not start as expected. The Unified Logging Service (ULS) log files contain no information about why this behavior occurs. C. Cause This behavior occurs because a security fix in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 prevents declarative workflows from starting automatically under the system account. After you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1, declarative workflows do not start automatically if the following conditions are true:

• The Windows SharePoint Services Web application runs under a user's domain account.
• The user logs in by using this domain account.
• The site displays the user name as System Account.

D. Resolution To resolve this behavior, set the application pool account to use a different user account. You may want to create a new user account specifically for this purpose. To set the application pool account to use a different user account, follow these steps:

1. On the server that is running one of the products that is listed in the "Applies to" section, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft Office Server, and then click SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration.
2. Click the Operations tab.
3. Under Security Configuration, click Service Accounts.
4. Click Web application pool, and then click Windows SharePoint Services Web Application in the Web service box.
5. In the Application pool box, click the application pool that you want to change.
6. Under Select an account for this component, click Configurable, and then type the user name and the password for the different user account.

Note that the fix applies to:

• Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007