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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