Use SharePoint Designer Workflow to Concatenate Two Fields

Want to concatenate two fields using a SharePoint Designer workflow?

For this post, I’m going to concatenate Stuff and Junk, then update the Title column.

Open your List / Library using SharePoint Designer.

*Click on the List tab, then select Edit List in the Customize List section of the ribbon.

Once Designer opens, click on New… in the Workflows section.

Give your workflow a name, click OK.

In Step 1 of your workflow, click the text that says (Start typing or use……).

In there type: update list item

Then click enter.

Your workflow should now look like this:

Now click on this list

Doing this will open the Update List Item window.

After the window opens, click the Add… button on the right.

From the Set this field dropdown, select Title.

After you have selected Title, click on the … button above the Cancel button.

Clicking on … will open the String Builder window.

In the String Builder, add the fields Junk and Stuff. You can do this by click on the Add or Change Lookup button.

Click Ok, Ok, Ok.

The workflow action will now look like this:

One more step, in the ribbon, click on Workflow Settings in the Manage section.

In the Start Options section, select Start workflow automatically when an item is created, and Start workflow automatically when an item is changed.

Click Save, then click Publish.

To test, create a new item in your List / Library.

10 thoughts on “Use SharePoint Designer Workflow to Concatenate Two Fields”

Thank you! FYI this also works in SharePoint Designer 2007 (screens are for SPD2010), but the steps are a little more abstract and the string builder is not the default option in the ‘…’ menu.

One important difference: you need to store the dynamic string in a variable and reference that variable via the ‘WorkFlow Data’ list option.

Hope that helps someone else trying to do this with SP2007.

I am trying to do this in 2013 and it doesn’t like it – after I type in the string builder and click save it removes all the text except for the two % signs. And of course, that errors out. Should this work in 2013?

@Michelle

Update Item isn’t working at all for me. I’ll do a little research….

This is great – you made this simple enough an idiot like me was able to do it! Thanks!!!

Combined two fields in a workflow. Only problem is if the first field starts with a number the resulting Title drops the first phrase. Example:

Field 1: 3M Coding,
Field 2: Testing Phase 2

workflow is “Set Title to [%Current Item:Field 1%]/[%Current Item:Field 2%]”

Result is “Coding/Testing Phase 2”

Want it to read “3M Coding/Testing Phase 2”

Thoughts?

Have you tried storing the field values in variables, then join the variables?

(I haven’t tested this)

No.. tried string vs. text… didn’t seem to make a difference so I changed it back. After I published it and edited the item – the field claculated and displayed correctly – so I have no idea what fixed it. Thanks for trying…