Form Fields in SharePoint Designer workflow

Adding site columns in SharePoint Designer

I created a SharePoint Designer workflow which handles the approval of list items. Now I would like to have some extra site columns added to my approval form’s form fields.

When I do this in SPD I can add an existing site column (sometimes a few more) but after a while I’m getting the following error when I try to save the workflow:

Could not save the field changes to the server. The Object has been updated since it was last fetched.

Working around the problem

When I get this error I have to close the Site in SharePoint Designer, Reopen it and try again. After while,  I managed to get all my fields on the form. So I can still get the job done, but this is quite annoying.

Ok, I found the cause of the problem.

Creating new form fields

When you use an already existing site column then 90% of the time SPD fails to handle the column. If you however create a new field then it SPD simply works. This is a bit of a shame as the columns already exist in my site. Remember I just wanted a column used by my item to be displayed on the task, and therefore the field already exists.

Pieter Veenstra

Is your business still running on paper trails, sprawling Excel files, or ageing Access databases? There's a better way — and I can show you exactly what it looks like. I'm the Technical Director of Vantage 365, a Microsoft solutions consultancy working with clients across the UK, the Netherlands, and worldwide. For over 30 years I've been turning messy, manual business processes into clean, automated systems that save time, reduce errors, and give teams the visibility they need to make better decisions. SharePains is not just any blog run by a Microsoft MVP. Have you ever used Try-Catch in Power Automate? The original post about Try-Catch in Power Automate can still be found on this site, https://sharepains.com/2018/02/07/try-catch-finally-in-power-automate-flow/ Or have you ever used the Pieter’s method to avoid variables and speed up your flows? https://sharepains.com/2020/03/11/pieters-method-for-advanced-in-flows/ You can contact me using contact@sharepains.com