Find Group

This activity searches for a group and provides information about the group as tokens. It also provides the group members as a collection of users that can be used by a For Each User or For Each Row activity. See the tokens this activity produces.

Note: If the group being retrieved has members that are also groups, the groups will be ignored and their members will not be retrieved. For example, the group named Marketing contains Bob, Sally, and the Graphics group. Only Bob and Sally will be retrieved. The Graphics group and all its members will be ignored.

To add this activity to a workflow definition 

To configure this activity

Select the activity in the Designer Pane to configure the following property boxes in the Properties Pane.

  • Activity Name

    Once added to a workflow definition, the default name of an activity can be changed. Providing a custom name for an activity helps you remember the role it plays.

    To name an activity

    1. Add an activity to your workflow by dragging it from the Toolbox Pane and dropping it in the Designer Pane.
    2. Select the activity in the Designer Pane.
    3. Under Activity Name in the Properties Pane, replace the default name.

      4. Note: Activity names cannot be the same as any other activity name in the workflow, they cannot be the same as the workflow's name, they must be less than 100 characters, they must contain at least one alphanumeric character, they cannot be "Name," and they cannot be the same as the activity's runtime type (which is usually only an issue with custom activities).

  • Activity Description

    Use the Activity Description to provide descriptive text to help you remember the role that the activity plays in the workflow. All activities contain a default description that you can modify while constructing your workflow.

    To modify an activity description

    1. Add an activity to your workflow by dragging it from the Toolbox Pane and dropping it in the Designer Pane.
    2. Select the activity in the Designer Pane.
    3. Under ClosedActivity Description in the Properties Pane, replace the default description.

  • Lookup Options

    This property box determines which user(s) the activity will look for and retrieve information (properties) about.

    To configure Lookup Options

    1. Add the Find User, Find Group, or Find Manager activity to your workflow definition by dragging it from the Toolbox Pane and dropping it in the Designer Pane.
    2. Select the activity in the Designer Pane.
    3. Under ClosedLookup Options in the Properties Pane, use the drop-down menu next to Search in to choose which trustee directory the activity will look in for users.

    4. Optional: If the desired directory is not listed, select Manage Directories in the drop-down menu to add a trustee directory from the Trustee Directory Manager dialog box. More information.
    5. Select to search for A specific user or A user from a token.

      6. Note: If you are configuring this property box for the Find Manager activity, specify the user whose manager(s) you want to find information about. If you are configuring this property box for the Find User or Find Group activity, specify the user or group you want to find information about.

      To search for a specific user or group

      1. Select A specific user or A specific group.
      2. Click the Browse button (ellipsis) to search for a user group in the ClosedTrustee Search dialog box.

      3. In the Trustee Search dialog box, enter a user or group's name in the Search Value text box.
      4. Click Search.
      5. If a user or group is found, the user or group's properties will appear in the Properties section of the dialog box.
      6. Optional: You can update a user or group's properties in this dialog box. More information.
      7. Click OK.

      To search for a user or group from a token

      1. Select A user from a token or A group from a token.
      2. Manually enter a token, or click the Token button (right arrow) to select a token.
      3. In the drop-down menu under Find user by or Find group by, select which user/group property the token refers to.

        4. Example: The token %(Initiator) represents the initiator's account name. If you select the token %(Initiator), choose Account Name from the drop-down menu under Find user by. If you select the token %(RouteEntrytoUser_User_E-mail), choose E-mail from the Find user by drop-down menu.

        Note: If you choose the wrong property in the Find user by menu, the activity will try to retrieve the user/group by looking through each property in turn, and it may take longer for the activity to complete.

  • Retrieve Group Members

    This property box determines if the group members found with the Find Group activity can be used with a For Each User or For Each Row activity. By default, this property is turned on.

    Example: Each member of the marketing team needs a PDF form filled out. To automate this process, use the Find Group activity to find the marketing team, and keep this property box checked. Add a For Each User activity to your workflow and configure the Get Users From property box to get the marketing team. Inside the For Each User activity, place a Find Entry activity configured to find each team member's PDF Form and a Fill Out PDF Form activity configured to input each member's information in the form. ClosedSee a screenshot of this example.

    Note: If you had not checked the Retrieve Group Members property box, the For Each User activity would not have found any group members to retrieve and fill out PDF forms for.

    To configure Retrieve Group Members

    1. Add the Find Group activity to your workflow definition by dragging it from the Toolbox Pane and dropping it in the Designer Pane.
    2. Select the activity in the Designer Pane.
    3. Click the Advanced button at the top of the Properties Pane to see this property box.
    4. Under Retrieve Group Members in the Properties Pane, select the checkbox to make the group members available to the For Each User and For Each Row activities. Clear the checkbox if you do not need the group members to be available to these activities.

      5. Note: If you do not want to use the collection of group members, keeping this box checked will store unnecessary information, which may affect performance.

      Note: If the group has members that are groups, the groups will be ignored and their members will not be retrieved. For example, the group named Marketing contains Bob, Sally, and the Graphics group. Only Bob and Sally will be retrieved. The Graphics group and all its members will be ignored.

  • Advanced Properties

    Click the Advanced button at the top of the Properties Pane to view and configure Folder Token Settings.

    This optional property box determines the Working Folder for the user, group, or manager(s) found with the Find User, Find Group, and Find Manager activities. The Working Folder's path will be stored in the Working Folder token which can be used in other activities in the Workflow.

    Note: This property box is optional and rarely used. If you would like to see this property box, click the Advanced button at the top of the Properties Pane.

    To configure Folder Token Settings

    1. Add the activity to your workflow definition by dragging it from the Toolbox Pane and dropping it in the Designer Pane.
    2. Select the activity in the Designer Pane.
    3. Click the Advanced button at the top of the Properties Pane.
    4. In the ClosedFolder Token Settings property box, specify the Working Folder's token value for this activity.

      Example: If you configure this property box for the Find User or Find Group activity, the folder you specify will be the Working Folder for the user or group found. If you configure this property box for the Find Manager activity, the folder you specify will be the Working Folder for each manager found. In this situation, the Working Folder token will only contain the path of the first manager's Working Folder. To access the tokens for the other managers' working folders, you must use a For Each User or For Each Row activity.

      • Select Use this folder collection to use a folder pair specified in a folder collection. Folder collections are lists of folder and user/group pairings that can be used with different activities within a workflow. More information.

        • Example: You create a folder collection of folders for team leaders from several departments. By choosing the Team Leader folder collection, you can retrieve a person's team leader folder instead of his or her default folder.

        1. Select a folder collection from the drop-down menu.
        2. Optional: If you want to add, modify, or delete a folder collection, click Manage folder collections. More information.

          3. Note: If a user or group is not part of the folder collection selected, the user or group's default folder will be retrieved instead. More information.

      • Select Use this folder for all other users to specify a folder to be used as the Working Folder for this activity.
        • Type a folder path in the text box, or click the Browse button (ellipsis) to browse for a folder. Alternatively, click the Token button (right arrow) to use tokens.
      • Select both options to use the specified folder only if a user is not listed in the selected folder collection.
      • Clear both options to use the user or group's default folder.

        • Note: If you clear both options and no default folder is specified for the user or group, the default folder or Working Folder tokens from this activity will be blank. In many cases, using a blank token will cause an error that terminates the workflow.

Tokens for Find Group

The Find Group activity produces the following tokens.

Note: If a group's Display Name is not set, the value for the group's Account Name is used for the Display Name token instead.

Name Description Sample Syntax*
Member Count The number of members in the group found by the Find Group activity. %(FindGroup_Member Count)
Group Member E-mail A multi-value token containing the e-mail addresses of each member in the group found by the Find Group activity. %(FindGroup_Group Member E-mail)
Id

The ID of the group found by the Find Group activity.

Note: For LDAP and Windows groups, the ID token is replaced by the group's SID. For Laserfiche groups, the ID token is replaced by the group's ID, not their SID.

 %(FindGroup_Id)
Display Name The display name of the group found by the Find Group activity. %(FindGroup_Display Name)
Account Name The account name of the group found by the Find Group activity. %(FindGroup_Account Name)
E-mail The e-mail address of the group found by the Find Group activity. %(FindGroup_E-mail)
Is Group Whether the group found by the Find Group activity is a group. The value of this token is always True. %(FindGroup_Is Group)
Qualified Name The unique identifying name of the group found by the Find Group activity. %(FindGroup_Qualified Name)
Working Folder The working folder for the group found by the Find Group activity. The working folder is the folder specified in the Find Group's Folder Token Settings property box. If no folder is specified in this property box than the working folder is the default folder. %(FindGroup_Working Folder)
Default Folder The default folder for the group found by the Find Group activity. %(FindGroup_Default Folder)
Managers E-mail The e-mail address(es) of the manager(s) of the group found by the Find Group activity. If the group has more than one manager, their e-mail addresses will be listed in a multi-value token. %(FindGroup_Managers E-mail)

*The "FindGroup" portion of the syntax changes to match the activity's name as specified in the Activity Name property box. Note that all non-alphanumeric characters, except underscores, are removed from the name. For example, if you rename the activity Look for *Marketing*, the syntax for the Id token will be %(LookforMarketing_Id).

Tokens for each member of the group

You can access the tokens for each member of the group when this activity is used with the For Each User activity. The For Each User activity runs one time per user, group, or manager. Each time it runs, the token values reflect the information relevant to the user it is currently processing.

Note: If a user's Display Name is not set, the value for the user's Account Name is used for the Current User_Display Name token instead.

Name Description Sample Syntax*
Current User_Id

The current user's ID.

Note: For LDAP and Windows users, the ID token is replaced by the user's SID. For Laserfiche users, the ID token is replaced by the user's ID, not their SID.

 %(ForEachUser_Current User_Id)
Current User_Display Name The current user's Display Name. %(ForEachUser_Current User_Display Name)
Current User_Account Name The current user's Account Name. %(ForEachUser_Current User_Account Name)
Current User_E-mail The current user's e-mail address. %(ForEachUser_Current User_E-mail)
Current User_Is Group Whether the current user is a group. This token can have one of two values: True or False. %(ForEachUser_Current User_Is Group)
Current User_Qualified Name The current user's unique identifying name. %(ForEachUser_Current User_Qualified Name)
Current User_Working Folder The current user's working folder. The working folder is the user's folder specified in the Find User, Find Group or Find ManagerFolder Token Settings property box. If no folder is specified in this property box than the working folder is the default folder. %(ForEachUser_Current User_Working Folder)
Current User_Default Folder The current user's default folder. %(ForEachUser_Current User_Default Folder)
Current User_Managers E-mail The e-mail address(es) of the current user's manager(s). If the current user has more than one manager, their e-mails will be listed in a multi-value token. %(ForEachUser_Current User_Managers E-mail)

*The "ForEachUser" portion of the syntax changes to match the activity's name as specified in the Activity Name property box. Note that all non-alphanumeric characters, except underscores, are removed from the name. For example, if you rename the activity Distribute-to-User, the syntax for the Current User_Id token will be %(DistributetoUser_Current User_Id).