BUILDING WORKFLOWS FOR SHAREPOINT 2010 WITH
SHAREPOINT DESIGNER AND VISIO
Eben Illingworth and Elaine van Bergen
• Collaboration happens in SharePoint• People at work
• Data they make and use
• Workflows to manage it
• Two flavours• System – move data in
and out of SharePoint
• Human – support peoplewith long-running processes
HUMAN WORKFLOW EXAMPLES
• Managing how people work• Document approval & feedback
• Collaborative reviews & discussions
• Gathering signatures
• Business logic in action• Rules for SharePoint content
• Applied automatically or on demand
• “Glue” used to build common business apps
HOW IT WORKS: THE “OFFICETASK”
Workflow activity Approval activity(OfficeTask) Workflow activity
HOW IT WORKS: THE “OFFICETASK”
Workflow activity Approval activity(OfficeTask) Workflow activity
Approval start behavior Approval in progress Approval end
behavior
HOW IT WORKS: THE “OFFICETASK”
Workflow activity Approval activity(OfficeTask) Workflow activity
Approval start behavior Approval in progress Approval end
behavior
Task start behavior Task in progress Task end behavior
HOW IT WORKS: THE “OFFICETASK”
Workflow activity Workflow activity
Approval start behavior Approval in progress Approval end
behavior
Task start behavior Task in progress Task end behavior
?
EXAMPLE: EXPENSE REPORTING
Workflow activity Workflow activity
Check metadata on uploaded report
Approval in progressSet status to either
Approved or Rejected, and notify submitter
Task start behaviorSend daily
reminders when due date passes
Task end behavior
?
A Gartner 2008 survey showed that:
• 67% of companies that are "doing BPM" changed some of their business processes at least twice a year.
•18% needed to make changes on a monthly basis
•10% on a weekly basis and
•4% on a daily basis
WINDOWS WORKFLOW FOUNDATION• Workflow engine shipped as part of the .NET 3.0 Framework
• Model workflows as state machines or sequential steps
• Long-running and stateful
WorkflowRuntime
Workflow
WINDOWS WORKFLOW FOUNDATIONWORKFLOW SERVICES
Scheduler Persistence Tracking Batching
SharePointCRMLOB
Workflow Workflow
DECLARATIVE VS. CODE-BASED WORKFLOWS
Code-Based Workflows
• Developed with .NET code
• Compiled to template assemblies
• Packaged as features
• Deployed via WSP packages
• Added to feature galleries
• Activated per-site collection
• Versioned like code
• Can do all of the work in internal code and/or call activities
Declarative Workflows
• Developed as XOML (eXtensible Orchestration Markup Language)
• JIT compiled and run by a template assembly provided by SharePoint
• Published to containers (lists, libraries, etc.)
• Versionable like documents (with help)
• Connect activities together, but the activities do the work
WORKFLOW SOLUTION SPECTRUM
Incr
easin
g Fu
nctio
nality
Browser Visual StudioSharePoint Designer
PROTOTYPE, DESIGN AND DEVELOP• SharePoint 2010 offers new development process
• Envision workflows in Visio
• Import into SharePoint Designer
• Parameterize
• Export to Visual Studio 2010
• Add code
VISIO TO DESIGNER
DECLARATIVE WORKFLOWS
• Performance improvements*
• InfoPath forms for association, activation, tasks
• Reusable workflows
• Content types
• Association columns
• Promotable to “globally” reusable
• Out-of-box workflows work this way now
• Site workflows*
• Workflows on document sets*
• Impersonation steps*
• Export to Visual Studio
*not just for declarative workflows; also for code-based workflows
REUSABLE WORKFLOWS
• Not tightly coupled to specific lists
• Associated with lists or content types
• Association columns
• Promotable to “globally” reusable
• Out-of-box workflows work this way now
SHAREPOINT 2010 WORKFLOW TARGETS
Site List Item
SITE WORKFLOWS
• Bound to site, not to a list or content type
• Started manually
• Accessible from Site Actions menu• Go to View All Site Content to see them
• Perfect for workflows that:• Work on groups of content
• Work mostly on non-SharePoint content
CUSTOM ACTIVITIES
• Plug in your own custom activities• Fully trusted deployment model
• Sandboxed code in the user solution gallery
• Build on top of existing activities• OfficeTask exposed in Visual Studio
• Flexibility of custom code, reusable in code-based and declarative workflows alike
NEW AND IMPROVED OUT-OF-THE-BOX ACTIONS
• User profile lookups
• Document sets
• Declare record
• Set permissions
• Read/write to external lists
• Utility actions
• Task Processes• e.g., Office Task
• Composite activities
• Design dialogs
TOOL ENHANCEMENTS
• SharePoint Designer 2010• Big design interface improvements
• Full screen, more available context data, import/export, nested logic
• It’s what we’ve been using for all of the demos so far
• Visio 2010• Allow business analysts to design workflows
• Provide graphical workflow status (Visio Services)
VISUAL STUDIO
SUMMARY
• SharePoint is a serious workflow platform• The perfect place for human workflow
• The perfect stopover point for longer-running business-to-business and application-to-application processes
• Declarative workflows’ limitations are nearly gone
• Plenty of tool options exist
QUESTIONS?
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