Workflow Runs on New Document Upload Before Metadata is Set?

That’s the expected behavior! When Workflows configured to start on Item creation, They’ll start as soon as you upload a new document and will not wait until you enter Meta-data. In fact, the Metadata page is an Edit form!

Alright, How to Mitigate this issue? 

  • Change the workflow trigger from “Item Creation” to “Item Change” if possible. If you want to check whether the document is newly created, Just compare the Created & Modified fields. They’ll be the same when you upload a document for the first time.
  • At the beginning of Your workflows, including the logic to check whether the metadata values are present. If not, Just wait for the metadata to set or end up the workflow. 
  • Alternatively, you can set the default values for your metadata fields, so that they will not be empty.
  • You can set the “Require content to be checked out” option so that the workflow will not run until you enter the mandatory fields and check-in.
  • Using a Pause action may work (e.g. pause for 5 min) which I don’t recommend, however!

Salaudeen Rajack

Salaudeen Rajack - SharePoint Expert with Two decades of SharePoint Experience. Love to Share my knowledge and experience with the SharePoint community, through real-time articles!

4 thoughts on “Workflow Runs on New Document Upload Before Metadata is Set?

  • From SPD, select workflow under consideration. On the right pane “Settings”, uncheck Automatically update the workflow status to the current stage name.

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  • Nilanjan, same problem here. Did you find a resolve for this?

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  • I have a SharePoint 2013 document library with mandatory metadata and a workflow runs upon document upload. However, during document upload when the metadata is entered in the second step, I am getting the following error “The file xxxxx has been modified by yyyyy on date/time” and the metadata is not saved. However, the workflow is running. Any help is much appreciated.

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  • Thank you so much. This solved my problem flawlessly!

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