Advanced Workflow Creation in SharePoint
2007-2010
Streamlining Your Business Processes AND Making Users
Happy with Task Less Workflows
SharePoint Saturday Bend presents:
Advanced Workflow Creation in SharePoint 2007-2010
Agenda
• SharePoint Workflows – High Level• Differences - Tasks Workflow and Taskless• Demo: Standard Approval Tasks Workflow• Tools List• Demo: How to Build a Taskless Workflow• Benefits/Constraints of Taskless Workflows• Conclusion and Questions/Answers
What are SharePoint workflows?
“Workflow is a term used to describe the tasks, procedural steps, organizations or people involved, required input and output information, and tools needed for each step in a business process.” – WhatIs.com
SharePoint workflows allow organizations to move any SharePoint business artifact (Word document, InfoPath form, etc.) through a series of steps and approvals.
SharePoint 2007 has this ability built into the engine and comes with several out of the box workflows: Approval, Collect Feedback, etc.
Advanced Workflow Creation in SharePoint 2007-2010
What are SharePoint workflows good for?
• Publishing documents• Gathering approvals• Garnering feedback on work• Interdepartmental business processes• Automating manual paper driven processes• Controlling / Auditing processes• Eliminate human error• Performing tedious manual work• Saving your company money!
Advanced Workflow Creation in SharePoint 2007-2010
Why create Taskless workflows in SharePoint?
• Allows busy users to complete tasks faster
• Further streamlines business processes
• Still allows for auditing/workflow processing
• Keeps the ‘bounce’ factor to a minimum
• All the power of SharePoint workflows without all the messy tasks!
Advanced Workflow Creation in SharePoint 2007-2010
Demo
Task Workflow
What tools are required to build workflows?
Environment: • Critical - VMWare or Virtual PC
• Windows Server 2003/2008
• SharePoint Server 2007/2010
• InfoPath 2007 Forms Services
• Visual Studio 2008/2010
• Office 2007/2010
Advanced Workflow Creation in SharePoint 2007-2010
How do we create Taskless workflows
Magic. Well, even better than Magic actually…
The concepts of creating task less workflows:• Create two site columns to keep track of your
workflow ‘actions’ and your workflow ‘state’• Add the two columns into your InfoPath form.• InfoPath form reads the workflow state
column and displays the appropriate UI• InfoPath form sets the workflow action as the
user selects what they want to do with the form.
• The workflow reads the workflow action and depending upon what it says performs the next action in the workflow.
Advanced Workflow Creation in SharePoint 2007-2010
Demo
Taskless Workflows
What workflows have we created like this?
• Capital Expenditures
• Employee Status Changes V2
• Store Management Performance Evaluations
• S&SP List and Hiring Applications
• Assistant Manager List and Hiring Applications
• Store Manager List and Hiring Applications
Advanced Workflow Creation in SharePoint 2007-2010
How much time does it cut from the process?
Comparing two projects we have recently done, we have achieved at least a 25% improvement in time spent processing forms by eliminating tasks!
25% for this process equated to a savings of 40 hours of time each month!
A final step of the process cut out several human interventions as well, which further automated the process.
Depending on your process, of course.
Advanced Workflow Creation in SharePoint 2007-2010
Why do users like task less workflows?
• Users have the information right in front of them that they are going to process.
• Eliminates bouncing from one item to another and all processing happens right in the form.
• Users can see what has been done prior by other users in an Audit Trail.
• Greater control on their User Experience compared to Tasks.
Advanced Workflow Creation in SharePoint 2007-2010
What are the constraints for task less workflows?
• Constraints? What Constraints?
• Only works with InfoPath forms and not other artifacts that might need to run through a workflow like Word documents, images, etc.
• Multiple people cannot be tasked at the same time. Well…maybe.
• Tasks are good for activities that don’t directly relate to the item the workflow is running on like gathering feedback from multiple people.
Advanced Workflow Creation in SharePoint 2007-2010
Conclusion and Questions/Answers
• You can have the best of both worlds with task less workflows – streamlined processes and usability.
• It does save users time even though it’s a bit of investment to build.
• Almost any process can be automated using this approach.
Questions?
Advanced Workflow Creation in SharePoint 2007-2010
