SharePoint Designer 2010 Custom Actions–Lock a SharePoint Discussion thread

I recently got a question whether it would be possible to lock a discussion thread in SharePoint 2010. The quickest (no code solution) according to me would be to use the new quick step/custom action features in SharePoint 2010. For a basic overview take a look at  SharePoint 2010 – Create a new quick step & custom actions .

My first idea was to hook a SharePoint 2010 workflow with just one workflow action to the new quick step – declare as record (part of the new records management capabilities in SharePoint 2010) – check out this full list of the available workflow actions in SharePoint Designer 2010 . Unfortunately a discussion thread is actually built on top of a folder content type and you can’t declare a folder content type as record.

Next I took a look at adding a workflow action to SharePoint Designer 2010 to change the security on the specific discussion thread. Unfortunately there is no such workflow action available out of the box in SharePoint Designer 2010. So two options – either built one yourself (this is pretty similar to what you did in 2007) – for a interesting rundown take a look at Make a custom activity available to SharePoint Designer 2010 or you can take a look at the SharePoint Designer Custom Workflow Activities project on Codeplex which provides the following custom actions:

• Send Email with HTTP File attachment - Allows sending emails with attachments retrieved using a web request
• Send Email with List Item attachments - Allows sending list item attachments as files attached to an email
• Start Another Workflow - Starts another workflow associated with a list item
• Grant Permission on Item - Allows granting of specified permission level on a specified item
• Delete List Item Permission Assigment - Allows deleting of specified permission level assignment for a given user
• Reset List Permissions Inheritance - removes any unique permissions assigned to an item by inheriting list permissions
• Is User a member of a SharePoint group - Checks if a given user is part of given SharePoint group
• Is Role assigned to User - Checks if a user role is already assigned on the current list item
• Lookup user info - allows to lookup properties in site's user information list for a given login
• NEW! Copy List Item Extended Activity - Allows copying/moving list items and files cross site.
• NEW! Send Email Extended - Enhanced version of the OOTB activity. Allows you to specify the sender. Also does not break links in body.

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