I'm very new to Nintex, had a great idea, and want to know if it is possible (in Nintex 2010).
We have an Access database front end stored on our network, but due to network security issues & somewhat shakey infrastructure, there's no guarantee that the .accde file will always be available. Currently, our users click a link on a Sharepoint site that is a shortcut to a .bat file that creates a unique version of the Access front end, then runs that front end for them.
I'd like to create a workflow that would duplicate this process, but provide a backup option of running a copy of the Access.accde that is stored in Sharepoint, in case the network drive is unavailable. (Due to our environment and Access, it's best if each person has their own copy of the .accde, otherwise, we'd just have them launch from Sharepoint all the time.) I've seen reference to being able to create a button to launch the workflow, which would be the ideal solution - we don't want the users to have to click on anything more than necessary to help limit the number of mistakes made.
To get started, I created a list workflow (on the list that contains a copy of the Access.accde) that got the initiators UserID, concatenated that into a variable with the the rest of the fixed path, then used a 'Copy to File Share' action to export the .accde file. I have it collecting error info, then sending me an email so I know what the error messages are. It claims to have run successfully, yet I don't get a copy of the file in the destination directory.
As an alternative, I thought about having a site workflow that would run every 15 minutes to check for the 'existance' of the network folder, then modify a link/button/otherwise that the users click to launch the app to use the appropriate method based on whether or not the necessary locations could be found, but the 'Copy to File Share' action is only available on a list workflow, and the list WF method gives immediate response, instead of the user noting that it failed to launch, and having to retry in 15 minutes when the link was updated.
Is there any viability to either of these options? For the first option, once I do get the file copied successfully to the network, how do I launch it? If it fails to copy, and I assume the network "isn't there" (usually someone's just moved the folder structure somewhere else), how would I directly launch the .accde file that's stored in Sharepoint?
If neither of these is realistic, does anyone have a suggestion on how to go about doing this? Unfortunately, we're in a pretty restrictive IT environment, and I cannot install anything in Sharepoint, or anywhere else. (If we had any control at all, we'd fix the network permissions so nobody could move/delete the network directory structure, and this wouldn't be an issue in the first place... :/)
Thanks for your help,
FreeMan