List Workflow Solution: Send Periodic Email

Summary: This is a simple workflow that will send an email to a users on a regular interval. The data for the email and the dates to send the email are all pulling from a list. This makes maintenance of the data easy since anyone with contribute access can edit the data without going into SharePoint Designer.

Note: In this workflow, the email is sent to users specified in the Send To and CC fields but you can also send emails to permissions groups.

Instructions:

1. Create a custom list
2. Add fields for all the data that will be needed for the email.
   Create columns for To, CC, Subject line, body text, email dates etc. In the below sample, the body text is divided into 2 body text fields to allow a link to be place in between the two. The link cant be put in the body text field since it is read as plain text in the workflow.
   Sample list with fields:
   
3. Open SharePoint designer, create a list workflow on this new list
   
4. Stage 1: Log Workflow Started. I always like to start the workflow with a log to confirm it has started properly. This rules out other issues when troubleshooting workflows.
   
5. Stage 2: Checks what quarter the workflow is updated. This is determined by the Quarter column. Update previous Quarter date to be one year later and sets the Reminder Date field to the upcoming fields date.
   
6. Stage 3: Pauses until the reminder date is reached
   
7. Stage 4: Sends email – all fields are mapped in the email.
   
   When the Send email action executes, the workflow reads whatever data is in the list and send that in the email. SO if any changes were made before the action was triggered they will appear in the new email.
   
8. Stage 5: Updates Quarter column value to the next Quarter. This stage is written in reverse order  – largest to smallest so that it updates properly.
   
9. The workflow then looks back to stage 1.