SharePoint Designer: What does a workflow lookup returns when the item is not found?

Item not found returns: ?????

Unassigned workflow variable returns: ****

Note: If you will look for ID of an item that does not exists then the variable will be assigned to 0.

Fixed: SharePoint 2013 workflow not starting on programmatically creating new list item.

For SharePoint 2013:

Just add "Log <this message> to the workflow history list" as the first statement in the workflow.


For SharePoint 2010:

Add below code just after item creation:

using(SPSitesite=newSPSite(web.Url))

{

  foreach(SPWorkflowAssociation spwfa in list.WorkflowAssociations)

  {

   if(spwfa.Name=="WorkFlow Name")

   {

    spwfa.AutoStartCreate=true;

  site.WorkflowManager.StartWorkflow(newItem,spwfa,spwfa.AssociationData);

   }

  }

}