Sending Workflow Emails To Users Or Groups From A “Person or Group” Field

When sending email via declarative workflow, e.g. SharePoint Designer, you may be using a field of type “Person or Group” for either the To: or CC: fields of the mail. A common example would be using the Assigned To field from a Task type to send email notifications when a task is overdue.

When you select this field in the email builder as shown below,

you are prompted to select a return type from a list of available options.

It would be tempting and seem logical to select Email Addresses, Semicolon Delimited, but this setting will not work for the Person or Group type field. Your sent emails (if you are fortunate enough to see one), will display “undisclosed-recipients” in Outlook, or something similar in other email clients.

Also, if you delve into your Workflow History, you will see a “Coercion warning” associated with the send mail action, indicating that the email could not be extracted from the field as specified.

Instead, when you select a Person or Group field in the email builder, you should select either Display Names or Login Names, both of which should be compatible with the Person or Group field type.

This article from Microsoft recommends the use of Login Name, but my experience has shown that Display Names will work correctly. I am working against a large, Active Directory backed farm environment, your results may vary based on your particular configuration.