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SharePoint Workflows
by:
Michael Mullin, Consultant ,
MCAD, CRCP
SharePoint supports workflows. This article provides a brief introduction to
workflows and how they are supported in SharePoint.
A workflow is a series of tasks required to complete a business process. For
example, an employee creates an expense report. This report must be approved by
his immediate supervisor and then forwarded to the accounting department. Within
the accounting department, the expenses must be analyzed to see if they comply
with the company’s reimbursement policy, assigned to various cost centers, and a
check must be issued and forwarded to the employee. This is a brief outline of a
workflow. To be complete it would have to address all the possibilities of the
workflow, for instance, the steps taken if the check is lost in the mail.
Workflow is not a new concept and did not originate with SharePoint. SharePoint
2007 has incorporated the idea.
In SharePoint 2007, a workflow can be attached to a library. In fact multiple
workflows can be attached to a library. When a document is added to the library,
it can be examined and a workflow attached to it. A simple example would be the
expense workflow just cited. An employee completes the expense report and places
the document in a designated document library. A specific instance of the
Expense Document Workflow is created and tasks are created for the appropriate
individuals. The first step in the workflow would be for SharePoint to generate
an email to the employee’s supervisor, which could be determined by SharePoint
by examining the document, informing him that his approval was needed. A task
would be generated for the supervisor. Whenever the supervisor approves the
report and marks his task as completed, SharePoint will forward the document to
the appropriate person in accounting. In this manner the document would progress
through the workflow. At any time, the workflow can be examined to determine
which steps have been completed and what remains to be done.
Workflows are supported in both Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) and
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). As one would expect, the support
of workflow by MOSS is more robust than that of WSS. Workflows created using
Windows SharePoint Services without a MOSS installation must use ASPX forms.
Therefore, the only way for the user to interact with these workflows is via a
Web browser. When a workflow is created using MOSS the user can interact with
the workflow using Office 2007 applications. In our example, the expense report
could be prepared in Excel. Also, with MOSS the SharePoint task list can be
synchronized with the users Outlook task list, giving the user a single task
list to work with.
Workflows can be created in three ways. The first is to use a predefined
workflow template. There are several
predefined workflow templates including:
Approval: This workflow routes a
document for approval. The workflow initiator specifies a list of approvers,
each of whom can approve or reject the document, reassign the approval task, or
request changes to the document. Our Expense Report example would be a candidate
for this workflow.
Collect Feedback: Routes a document for review, much like the Approval workflow.
Participants can provide feedback, which is compiled and sent to the document
owner when the workflow has been completed. Unlike Approval, which by default
assigns tasks to participants sequentially, this pre-defined workflow defaults
to parallel task assignment, allowing feedback to be returned in any order.
Collect Signatures: Routes an Office document for required signatures. This
workflow can be started only from within an Office client.
SharePoint Designer can be used to create custom workflows. Designer has a
graphical interface which can be used to create workflows. It has been described
as an improved version of FrontPage. I have read that Microsoft feels Designer
can be used by SharePoint end users. After briefly examining the product, I
consider that a very optimistic assessment. However, it can be used by
some end users who are comfortable
with web technology. One big difference between the pre-defined workflow
templates and those created using SharePoint Designer is their scope.
Pre-defined templates can be associated with many libraries; those created with
SharePoint Designer can only be associated with a single library.
The final alternative for workflow is custom development. The workflow
functionality is derived from Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) which is a part
of the Framework 3.0 (and why Framework 3.0 installation is a prerequisite to
SharePoint installation.) As such it is part of the .Net programming world and
developers can create customized and very complex workflows. Also, these custom
developed workflows can be made available to multiple libraries.
Whenever we discuss SharePoint features the first question is what is available
in WSS and what requires MOSS? Here is a brief summary.
Windows SharePoint Services alone is appropriate for:
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Adding application logic to Windows SharePoint Services sites that works
with documents and list items.
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Building workflow applications where user interaction via ASPX forms in
a Web browser is sufficient.
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Office SharePoint Server is required for:
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Using most of the pre-defined workflows that Microsoft provides. (The
exception is Issue Tracking, which ships with Windows SharePoint
Services and uses only ASPX forms.)
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Building workflow applications where user interaction via Office 2007
client applications is required. This option also allows using InfoPath
workflow forms, which are simpler to create and provide more
functionality than ASPX forms.
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I can't resist pointing out that with both WSS and MOSS custom workflows can be
developed. Also workflows can tie in with content management. What is content
management? Well, if I told you that, what would I have to write about next
month?
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