Known issue with the October Cumulative Updates for SharePoint (KB958847)

We have come across an issue with the October Cumulative Updates for SharePoint (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;958847&sd=rss&spid=11373) that can break workflows that set the value of a Person or Group field.

Status

Microsoft is aware of the issue. It has affected workflows created with SharePoint Designer as well.

Details

The following actions can be used to set a Person or Group field with a domain\username value.

·         Create an item

·         Set field value

·         Update an item

Previous to the SharePoint patch, this worked correctly.

After installing the October Cumulative Updates, an action setting a Person or Group field with cause the workflow to fail with the message ‘Error updating list item’, and an outcome of “Unknown Error”.

The following message will appear in the SharePoint ULS logs:

Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException: Invalid data has been used to update the list item. The field you are trying to update may be read only.

Work around

It appears that as a work around, setting the Person or Group field to this value format works:

-1;#domain\username

So, if you are setting the field value to “company\MyUser1”, instead set the value to:
“-1;#company\MyUser1”. The -1 is constant.

If you are doing a list look up to another Person or Group field, you will need to store the resulting domain\username into a variable, and use the Build Dynamic String action to add the -1;# to the start.

EDIT 2 March 2009

This issue has been resolved in the February cumulative updates (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961750)

After you install update 957691, you cannot set a user type column from the workflow when you create a new list item.