Sharepoint Workflow – Wait for field change not firing when another workflow changes status

sharepointworkflowworkflow-activity

I'm trying to create a workflow on the Sharepoint Designer. The workflow should wait until an Out-Of-The-Box approval workflow is complete. This is done by starting my workflow with the item's creation, and usign the wait activity:

Wait for field change in current item:
Wait for InternalApproval to equal 16

The problem: the rule is correct, but the event doesn't fire unless an edit is made on the item. Normally, every edit triggers the workflow check, but my tests show approving a workflow doesn't trigger this event on the item.

Is there an easy way around this issue? I though about implementing a busy wait, but how (there's a wait 5 minutes activity, but no goto)? Is there an activity I can download that can wait for another workflow to complete, or busy wait until a condition is met?
Another way to solve my problem is if the InternalApproval workflow changed a field, but I cannot achieve that either…

Best Answer

This is expected behaviour. An approval workflow that is wired to cancel itself upon changes to the item would otherwise be useless. At the API level, SharePoint is disabling events from being raised when it needs to update the item upon which it is running.

-Oisin