I had myself a little odyssey of frustration yesterday, and thought
I'd share.

I was using SharePoint designer to create a custom workflow for a
checklist for use within my department. The problem arose with tasks
created by the workflow. By default, and with no intuitive way to
configure otherwise, the tasks were emailed out with links that did
not work.

The problem was with the relative URL imbedded in the email not
working with a Forms Services. After many frustrating hours spent on
Google, I figured I'd ask you guys.

Error: The URL UtilityChecklists/test-njs1-555.555.555.555.xml is an
unsupported relative URL. Use an absolute URL or prefix
with '~sitecollection', for a site-collection-relative URL.

My workaround, as this was an "emergency" workflow design, was less
elegant than I'd like. I configured the Tasks list to NOT send
emails. Then I configured each step in the workflow to send an email
with embedded links to the assigned person before actually assigning
the to-do item.

The benefit of my workaround was that the emails that get sent out
are formatted better than the MOSS default. Bad part is that the
emails aren't "task-formatted" with an "edit this task" integrated
into the Outlook ribbon.

I'm sure I can fix this to work like I want using Visual Studio. I
don't particularly feel like deploying this as an app-wide solution,
though, when it is explicitly for one document library.

Ideas?