Nintex Connect

In our ShrePoint Sites we use the Workflow item "Copy to SharePoint" quite a lot to copy documents across Sites and between libraries within the same Site.  We have found that about 50% of the time the document copies over but with no metadata.  When we note that this occurs we run the workflow again and about 50% of those times it works successfully but the other half still only copes the document.  Eventually we end up entering the about a 1/4 of the documents in the intended library manually.  This happens when we are copying across sites as well as between libraries within the same site.  We have not been able to pinpoint any specific cause.  Not sure exactly how the copy works, i.e., does it copy the document first and then in a separate transaction to copy the data and the second tranaction some reason fails to complete. 

Hi David,

I know that you have to ensure that the metadata fields of the destination list or library must be identical to the source list or library in order for the metadata to copy over as well.

Are the sites where you are experiencing problems in the same site collection, or are they external to the source site collection?

If the destination is external to the current site collection, then it is my understanding that the metadata will not copy and the version settings will not be displayed in the destination list or library, which may result in files with the same name being overwritten instead of a new version being created.

Those are the only things I know of that can affect whether the metadata is copied with the document.

Thanks for the feedback.  The copy is between Sites within the same Site Collection.  We have gone to great lengths to ensure the fields are identical. The difficult thing to explain or troubleshoot is that it works probably over 50% of the time so that would tend to lead me away from a specific field issue and more to a network or connection issue but it always successfuly copies the document just about half the time doesn't get the metadata???

Any comment from Nintex?

Hi David,

If it fails on one document and you restart the workflow, does it work this time?

If it doesn't, then what I would suggest is to send the following to Nintex Support.

1. list template of your source list

2. list template of your destination list

3. document the copy is not working successfully on

4. screenshot of the Copy to SharePoint action configuration

That should be enough to try to reproduce.

We will rerun the workflow several times when it fails..sometimes it completes and all the metadata comes through other times it will continue to copy only the document without copying the metadata. So to answer your question it doesn't always fail when we rerun it.

 I've seen similar problems when one of the properites on a document library "Locationbasedmetadatadefaultreciever ItemAdded" event receiver is set to asynchronous (instead of synchronous) and what happens is that sharepoint tries to apply its default meta data and the 3rd party product (Nintex in this case) tries to set meta data and effectively they can clash (Depending on server resources and especially in busy times). Then what happens is that file gets copied (normally left checked out if check in/out is on) but no meta-data is set and this is a random occurence. There maybe an error appearing in the ULS logs and maybe windows logs.

You can check this property using something like Sharepoint Manager or powershell on a per document library basis. Earlier builds of Avepoint may have set this property if you have used it to copy the document library or create the destination site from a template or maybe there is some other reason for this to occur.

Using Sharepoint Manager can be dangerous so please be careful if you are going to use it to check. I have never seent his with Nintex but I have with other 3rd party products that copy files between sites especially those with lots of content types etc as its a Sharepoint setting issue.

 Hope this helps...

Curious if you found an resolution to this.  I am starting to experience this with a bulk upload.  9 out of 10 documents will keep the metadata, but then the 10th fails to keep any of the metadata that has been applied.

Hi K Rock,

if you rerun the workflow on that one document, is this reproducible?

If it is, you may consider trying this document in another library and see if that works.  If it also fails to copy the metadata, I'd recommend you save both libraries as templates and send the templates and that document to Nintex Support and we can try to reproduce it here.