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AvePoint is proud to announce the continuous participation
in this newsletter of one of the most experienced
consultants in the Microsoft SharePoint community,
Errin O'Connor. Errin is founder and CEO
of the
EPCGroup.net, and Author of "Windows
SharePoint Services 3.0 Inside Out" from
Microsoft Press. |
Custom SharePoint Workflows:
Automating your organization’s manual process and SharePoint Designer’s no-code solutions
Does your organization have a few manual processes that are executed on a daily or weekly basis? Do you have forms or spreadsheets that must be emailed, printed out, and completed by multiple users and then returned, aggregated, and possibly scanned to continue the process?
More than likely you do, but has anyone in your organization ever taken the time to sit down and attempted to actually automate them or at least scope out what it would take to do so? With the latest version of Microsoft SharePoint and the Microsoft Office 2007 platform it is something you and your organization can actually accomplish.
Process Automation
Process automation entails more than custom workflows as you will need to create the actual forms that will collect and manage this data. InfoPath 2007 and Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 provide a powerful and scalable way to present these forms to your user base. A number of you reading this right now just said to yourself, “Yes, but we don’t have Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007”. Don’t fret; this can be accomplished by utilizing custom ASPX pages as your custom forms.
These custom workflow “applications”, based on the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), drive the logic behind the scenes that make the automation of your organizations business processes possible. A skilled developer within your organization can utilize the Visual Studio 2005 Designer for Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) to develop new custom workflows or possibly even SharePoint Designer 2007.
Note: For more information on the Windows Workflow Foundation, please visit:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663328.aspx
Requirements Gathering
The most important piece of a custom workflow development initiative is the requirements gathering portion - you want to make sure you have as much of it nailed down as possible from the beginning to avoid having major changes or updates in the middle of your development. Take a phased approach if you can, as you may not be able to accomplish everything upon the workflows first release. However, try and level set with all those involved and let them know that advanced features and functionality may be coming in a later development phase. My organization, EPC Group.net, develops custom “swim lane” diagrams for our custom workflow initiatives, so that we can obtain sign-off from
our clients. This way we know exactly what should be developed and everyone has a chance to review the final requirements. I would recommend you use this approach whenever possible.
Custom Workflows and the Easier Side
of Automating Business Process
It is beneficial for your organization to create
a gallery of custom SharePoint workflows for which
departments, operating companies, or power users can
pull from and utilize. With this workflow gallery
approach, the exact custom workflow a user may need
may not exist, but there might be one available in
the gallery that can be slightly modified or
“tweaked” to accomplish your goals. Having this custom workflow gallery also provides
ideas to those who are thinking about using custom
workflows but have not seen them in action. It’s a
great way to increase buy-in and get more users
involved in workflow utilization.
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Washington DC
April 1-3, 2008
FOSE
2008
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Pass, compliments of AvePoint, register and enter
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Montreal, Canada
April 8-9, 2008
SharePoint Summit 2008
SharePoint business-
and developer-focused session
Orlando, Florida
April 20-23, 2008
SharePoint Connections - Spring 2008
Attend this conference an you could win a Harley!
Courtesy of Penton Media
London, UK
8 April and 9 May 2008
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 –
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SharePoint Dubai Conference 2008
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Date: March 17, 2008
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SharePoint Designer 2007 has powerful built-in tools to automate business processes with its Workflow Designer. It gives you a powerful and easy-to-use application tailored specifically for SharePoint. SharePoint Designer 2007 works with ASP.NET 2.0 and the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) to give you the ability to apply workflows to automate business processes. SharePoint Designer 2007’s Workflow Designer allows you to set up custom workflow conditions and actions, link them to your SharePoint data, and deploy them with a single click, all without installing server code.
One of the best features of SharePoint Designer 2007 is its no-code solutions which are ideal for your organization’s administrators and power users. No-code workflows are based on rules built on Windows Workflow Foundation hosting within SharePoint. They are composed of pre-existing building blocks and conditional logic based on events, actions, and conditions. They support rich data bindings to list items and are extensible via custom actions and conditions.
Although using Visual Studio 2005 and implementing custom .NET code is the most powerful way to get the exact solution you and your organization are looking for, it may be possible to develop that same solution in SharePoint Designer 2007 if the requirements are not too complex. Menus, task panes, and templates guide the user through the creation process.
Tip: Designing a New Workflow by Using Workflow Designer
Once a workflow has been logically defined and is ready to be created, you can create a new workflow by performing the following within SharePoint Designer 2007:
Note: Prior to performing these steps please make
sure you have discussed this with your SharePoint
administrator and have the appropriate permissions
to avoid any possible issues.
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On the File
menu, click Open Site.
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In the Open Site dialog box, browse to and
select the SharePoint site where you want to
create the workflow. Then click Open.
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On the File menu, point to New and then
click Workflow. The Workflow Designer will
then load.
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In the Give A Name To This Workflow Box,
type a name for this workflow. Users of the
site will see this name when they view the
workflow’s status and other related pages in
the browser.
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Click an option in the What SharePoint List
Should This Workflow Be Attached To list.
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Under Select Workflow Start Options For
Items In (This List), select one or more of
the following check boxes:
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- Allow
This Workflow To Be Manually Started From An
Item
- Automatically Start This Workflow
When A New Item Is Created
- Automatically Start This Workflow
Whenever An Item Is Changed
After you have chosen your options, click
Next. |
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In the Step Name box, type a name for the
first step of your workflow. |
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You will now create the workflow rules by
choosing the actions that you want the
workflow to perform. For each condition that
you want to specify, click Conditions and
then click that condition in the list.
Repeat until you have specified all of the
conditions that you want to include.
SharePoint Designer 2007 provides you with a
number of predefined conditions.
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After you insert a condition, click each
hyperlink and then choose a value for the
required parameters. |
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For each action that you want to include,
click Actions, and then click that action in
the list. Repeat until you have specified
all of the conditions that you want to
include. |
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After you insert an action, click each
hyperlink and then choose a value for the
required parameters. |
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If you would like to add a conditional
branch, click Add ‘Else If’ Conditional
Branch and then repeat steps 7–12 to create
another rule. When this step of the workflow
is complete, click Next. |
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For each step in the workflow, repeat steps
7–12 to create additional sets of conditions
and actions. |
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To check the workflow for errors before you
exit the Workflow Designer, click Check
Workflow. After you have checked the
workflow for errors, click Finish. The
workflow is saved and will be attached to
the specified list. |
Note: SharePoint Designer 2007 can be purchased at major computer software retailers as it is not included with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, or bundled with any version of Office.
More information can be found on SharePoint Designer 2007 at
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/FX100487631033.aspx
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SharePoint Conference 2008 - In Case You Missed It
Lots of content, lots of fun, plenty of corny
jokes, but best of all, hoards of SharePoint
enthusiasts with an unquenchable thirst for
knowledge – that’s how I would describe the sold out
SharePoint Conference 2008 held in Seattle,
Washington earlier this month. With over 3,400
attendees from around the world, this was one HUGE
conference. It was great to network with SharePoint
peers from all over the world at a bustling little
town in the Pacific Northwest best known for its
insatiable appetite for coffee. AvePoint was there,
along with many other conference sponsors and
SharePoint solution providers.
Among the key conference highlights:
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Keynote
addresses by Bill Gates and Kurt
DelBene, highlighting the tremendous
growth in SharePoint and the impact
it has had on organizations large
and small. $1 billion in revenue,
100 million licenses, and 75% of the
Fortune 100 – it seems like the
sky’s the limit! |
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Over 100
breakout sessions, ranging from
SharePoint administration and
deployment planning, to real-world
implementations of Web 2.0-driven
SharePoint solutions. |
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An
exhibit hall filled to capacity,
with dozens of sponsors and
innovative solutions, and plenty of
fun giveaways. |
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A moving
keynote by legendary American
cyclist Greg LeMond |
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And as always, an
infinite list of late-night social
events. Don’t miss it next year! |
Congratulations to our lucky Ducati raffle winners!
Seven lucky recipients walked away
from the SharePoint Conference 2008
with radio control Ducati
motorbikes. With roughly 1,000
entrants to the raffle drawing,
AvePoint’s conference giveaway was
quite the “draw” (pun intended).
Featuring blisteringly fast speeds,
a full electronic brake system, and
front and rear suspension, these
gadgets certainly won the envy of
many conference attendees. For those
of you who did not win, or could not
make it to the SharePoint
Conference, it is time to look ahead
to Tech Ed 2008. Come see us in
Orlando, Florida and check out the
surprise raffle giveaway we have in
store for you!
- Andrew
Yeung, AvePoint
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Thank you for reading
this newsletter! Should you wish to unsubscribe,
please refer to the link at the bottom. Please
let us know if there are any article topics you’d like
us to cover by e-mailing your suggestions to
marketing@avepoint.com.
If you have any questions for
EPCGroup.net,
they can be reached via email at:
sharepoint@epcgroup.net
or at (888) 381-9725.
To purchase Errin's book "Windows SharePoint Services
3.0 Inside Out"
visit this page. |
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