Workflow and SharePoint Presented by Ben Geers

Overview What is workflow? Windows Workflow Foundation How does workflow apply to SharePoint? WSS v3 vs. MOSS Building workflows in SharePoint Designer Beyond SharePoint Designer

What is workflow? Workflow is the movement of documents and/or tasks through a work process. Businesses depend on processes Automating process steps can do the following: ◦Improve how a process functions ◦Increase efficiency ◦Reduce errors ◦Force process compliance ◦Reporting Often business processes depends on people

Windows Workflow Foundation The goal of the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) is to provide support for creating applications that implement some kind of process Workflows in WF are made up of activities which can be defined by users WF takes care of all of the plumbing ◦A base set of activities ◦A runtime engine ◦Persistent state (long running transactions) ◦Tracking of execution Workflows are typically created using WF Designer which lives inside Visual Studio 2005.

Workflow and SharePoint Workflow templates can be installed on a SharePoint server Workflow templates can then be associated with SharePoint lists Workflows instances can then be started based upon that template Workflow instances can be started in the following manner ◦Manually by the user ◦Automatically when a list item is changed ◦Automatically when a list item is created

Workflow & SharePoint Workflow activities take the form of tasks Users interact with SharePoint workflow via forms There are four entry points for workflow forms: ◦Association – attaching a workflow to a list ◦Initiation – kicking off a workflow ◦Task Completion – letting users complete their tasks ◦Modification – changing a running workflow

WSS vs. MOSS Both can implement workflow WSS uses ASPX forms to interact with workflows MOSS provides the ability to interact with workflows directly from Office 2007 applications. MOSS adds the capability to use InfoPath forms as opposed to ASPX forms for workflow interaction MOSS includes a set of predefined workflows: ◦Approval ◦Collect Feedback ◦Collect Signatures ◦Disposition Approval MOSS adds the ability create reports on workflows in Excel

Building Workflows in SharePoint Designer SharePoint Designer empowers the Information Worker to create workflows Intuitive “wizard-like” interface Workflows can be deployed without administrator intervention ◦Administrators can control the activities users can select SharePoint Designer actually deploys the workflow There are limitations to SharePoint Designer: ◦Workflows are built for and associated with a single document library and or list ◦Cannot modify workflows while they are running ◦Can only create serial workflows ◦Cannot interact with WF from Office 2007 Applications ◦Only initiation and completion events are available out of the four possible event types

Demo

Building Workflows in Visual Studio 2005 Provides a graphical tool to build workflows While WF provides a number of standard activities, SharePoint provided additional tailored activities Custom activities can be created These workflows are deployed to SharePoint as features and can be reused across multiple lists, sites, site collections in a farm. SharePoint administrator must install the feature on the farm

Building Workflows in Visual Studio 2005

Conclusion SharePoint offers powerful workflow functionality Build sophisticated workflow applications using SharePoint Designer in WSS or MOSS Use MOSS pre-built workflows for quick, site- wide workflow implementation Integrate with WF and Visual Studio to get even more sophisticated