Send Email workflow step comments in an email to initiator

[Rich_Clem]

I am setting up am approval/reject workflow to authorise activations. I am setting up an email template to send the initiator to let them know if the activation has been rejected. I would like to include the "comments" that can be put in the "Participant Step", if they decide to reject the request. Is there a way to do this? Will the "Send Email" step pickup the comments from the previous "Participant Step" that causes the rejection?

So far in the email template I have,

From: Global IT activation workflow <noreply@blah.com>
To: ${initiator.email}
Subject: Activation workflow rejection

Dear ${initiator.name},

The following item you submitted for activation approval has been rejected by one of the workflow approvers
${payload.path}

Please review the item and resubmit if required, taking notice of any comments below

Thank you
CQ Administration

[Will_McGauley · Accepted solution]

Hi,

If the comment you want to include is available in workflow instance metadata you can access it like this:

${item.workflow.data.[metadata property name]}

Hope this helps,

Will

[Rich_Clem]

No sorry, its in the actual step item details. I can get the Workflow instance "Start comment" using, ${instance.data.startComment}

Its the comment that actually gets entered into the participant step when the workflow user actions their inbox. I think I can get the step ID using, ${item.id}

That give me something like VolatileWorkItem_node9_etc_workflow_instances_2015-06-10_model_49688341059757941

I believe the comment is placed under [workflowinstance]/workitem/metadata.comment , as it is there on the archived step under the history node, but I don't seem to be able to get this property.

It may be that this data is just not accessible using the email templates.

[smacdonald2008]

You may have to write a custom workflow step and use the JCR API to get this node value. 

[Jeremy_Luby]

If anyone comes up with a solution, I would like to know.  We are going to attempt to do the same!

[Reyansh_kumar]

In a custom workflow step use this below code to fetch the comments.

public void execute(WorkItem item, WorkflowSession wfsession,MetaDataMap args) throws WorkflowException {
          

   
          

          HistoryItem previousHistoryItem;
              String stepType;

            List<HistoryItem> history = wfsession.getHistory(item.getWorkflow());

            Iterator<HistoryItem> historyIterator =history.iterator();

            while(historyIterator.hasNext()){

                    previousHistoryItem = historyIterator.next();

                    String comments=previousHistoryItem.getComment();

                    //OR

                    String someproperty=previousHistoryItem.getWorkItem().getMetaDataMap().get("comment", String.class);

    }