SharePoint Workflow 2011

1. SharePoint and Workflow Chris Geier @ChrisGeier Chris.Geier@gmail.com

2. Long time IT guy Using SharePoint since 2001 Author of multiple books and articles. Regular Speaker at SharePoint Saturday and conferences All around pretty good guy About Me Mostly…

3. Defining our terms Business Process - A set of one or more linked procedures or activities which collectively realize an objective or policy goal, normally within the context of an organizational structure defining functional roles and relationships. Workflow - The automation of a business process, in whole or part, during which documents, information or tasks are passed from one participant to another for action, according to a set of procedural rules.

4. Lastly Business Process Management – The practice of developing, running, performance measuring, and simulating Business Processes to effect the continued improvement of those processes. Business Process Management is concerned with the lifecycle of the Process Definition.

5. SourceCode, IBM, BEA, Global360 Microsoft SAP Microsoft, Siebel, SAP, Salesforce.com Enterprise Business Process Automation and Workflow Portal and Collaboration CRM, Service Centers K2, Staffware, Lotus Notes and WebSphere Microsoft CRM, SAP CRM, SalesForce.com, SupportForce, SugarCube SharePoint and Office Graphical Designers, Reporting, Task Delivery Logic, Rules Processing, Reporting and tracking, Integration, etc Pipeline, Campaigns, Document Management, Workflow Sites, Docs, Rights Mgmt., Content Mgmt., Workflow, Document Mgmt., Lists, Chat LOB and LOA, WWF, .NET, J2EE, SQL Browser, J2EE, SQL, Oracle, Exchange .NET, SQL, WWF, RMS Process and Task Automation, H2H and H2S Integration, Efficiency Collaboration and Information Worker Empowerment Customer Service, Sales Management The Marketplace Companies Markets Products Features Technology Ideas

6. 90% 4.04 88% 3.92 88% 3.60 80% 78% 3.24 76% 3.12 66% 3.04 62% What do you see as the key benefits of workflow, document management and content management technology? What are the main reasons your organization is using, or plans to use, workflow, business process management, document management or content management technology? Productivity improvements Better customer service Improves knoweldge sharing Greater accuracy Cost savings Improved management control Enhanced team working Helps with legal compliance issues To improve service To introduce greater efficiencies or improved productivity To reduce operational costs To improve organizational agility To improve the visibility of Processes To meet regulatory requirements or legal compliance issues 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 = "not important" and 5 = "very important" Percentage of respondents Note: respondents could choose more than one option Source: PMP Research Why BPM / Why Workflow

7. Example Organization average employee fully loaded cost $50,000 Worker works an average of 46 weeks per year 230 work days Total of $1086 per week $217 per day $27 per hour .45 per minute If you make a processes 1minute more efficient per day. You save $103.50 per year, per employee

8. How does this relate to SharEPoint? SharePoint can be a repository, but can also be “process enabled” Adding process to SharePoint can improve collaboration and make life easier for Knowledge workers Insights and Auditing Collaboration is key to decision making. But after the process is over how do you capitalize and use that information used in the collaboration? What did they do? Why? What notes did they take? What information did they have access to? Do your workers have access to the right information at the right time. How do you GUARENTEE it is the right info

9. Where have we been Workflow Foundation (WF) For developers, and ISV’s Microsoft has introduced Windows Workflow Foundation as part of the .Net framework. Windows Workflow Foundation is a programming model/ framework for building workflows into your applications. The goal of WF is to provide a general framework that supports workflow, and make it a standard part of the Windows environment. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) The office team has seen a significant advantage in leveraging WF and hosting it inside of the SharePoint process to facilitate new functionality. For the 2007 release of SharePoint,(MOSS) Microsoft had a goal of providing an infrastructure that would drive work processes around what SharePoint does best: share and collaborate on documents. With this in mind you will see that there was a focus on document-centric workflows, processes that a particular document needs to go through during its lifecycle, such as being reviewed and edited or being approved for publication

10. The Microsoft Picture Moss Workflow Out of box Microsoft has built and is hosting some common workflows that will be shipping with MOSS, these workflows are easily configured and usable upon installation of Moss. We will touch more on these in a bit. SPD SharePoint Designer(SPD), will be released as part of the Office suite of products replacing the long standing FrontPage as the web designer. SPD can be used to create workflows that will be hosted in MOSS. Again more on this functionality and what to expect later. VS.net and WF Build it all from scratch Office Client The office 2007 and 2010 client supports and integrates with workflow right out of the box. Providing a somewhat seamless workflow interaction ability with the workflows that run in your MOSS deployment. This is a fantastic ability that will greatly increase the use of and success of workflows being deployed in a Moss environment.

11. Out of the box Approval: Routes a document for approval. Approvers can approve or reject the document, reassign the approval task, or request changes to the document. Collect Feedback: Routes a document for review. Reviewers can provide feedback, which is compiled and sent to the document owner when the workflow has completed. Collect Signatures: Gathers signatures needed to complete an Office document. This workflow can be started only from within an Office client. Disposition Approval: Manages document expiration and retention by allowing participants to decide whether to retain or delete expired documents. Group Approval: Similar to the Approval workflow, but uses a designated document library and offers a personalized view of the approval process(es) in which a user is participating. This workflow provides a hierarchical organization chart from which to select the approvers and allows the approvers to use a stamp control instead of a signature. This solution was designed specifically for East Asian Markets. Translation Management: Manages document translation by creating copies of the document to be translated and assigning translation tasks to translators. Issue Tracking: Manages the issue tracking process by creating tasks for Active issues assigned to users who own to a given issue. When the task related to an issue is complete hence resolving the issue, the creator of the issue is assigned a review task so that the issue can be closed.

12. OOB Benefits and drawbacks Benefits: Pre-made workflows you can just configure and go. Based solely in the office environment, no custom GUI to learn or deploy. Ability to change parameters during execution, such as add more approvers, redirect to a different approver, and request changes from the originator. Drawbacks and limitations: Each workflow is site bound, so no actions such as creating task or copying document can take place outside of the site that it is running on These workflows cannot be extended or significantly modified since they are compiled DLLS on the SharePoint server.

13. SharEPoint Designer 2007 Benefits: Workflows can be created very quickly Deployments are not complex and can be executed quickly Can be created by non development focused people Risks from deployments are minimal because of the trusted list of conditions and actions. Created from a finite list of conditions and actions, trusted by the system and its administrators, making the creation of workflow easier. Drawbacks and limitations Actions are site bound to the site they are run from. Need for IT skill sets, cannot be done by normal Business Users Limited support for advanced complexity and scope in building out workflow. No re-use capability, is authored against a specific list of document library cannot then be used again on another list. No ability to modify in flight. Must use ASPX pages. Limited customizability of these ASPX forms. Cannot be accessed directly from Office 2007 applications, must be accessed with a web browser other than through email notifications etc.

14. Conditions With Specifics words in the title or other fields Modified (either in a specific time window or by a person) Created by or in a specific time frame File type File size ADVANCED Condition(Custom condition)

15. Actions Create task Update task Delete task Send email Prompt for values Change Item Status

16. example Conditions Condition Create by = HRGroup And Condition words in Title = Human Resources Action Send Email to HR Policy Group Assign Action to HR Policy Group Copy Document from current Document Library to Policy Review Library Else If created by administrator Email HR Group Collect more information.

17. Visual Studio / Windows WF Advantages Disadvantages Graphical, flow-chart like development tools. Builds upon WF foundation, and adds SharePoint-specific activities. Supports custom association, initiation, modification, and task forms. Allows deployment through use of SharePoint features. Requires significant knowledge of the .NET development and the WF framework. Requires custom code to be deployed to the SharePoint server. Deployments can be tricky Requires the developer to fully understand the underlying business logic of the workflow process.

19. InfoPath Form Services

20. Business Connectivity Services

21. External Lists

22. SharePoint Designer

23. Visual Studio

24. API Enhancements

25. REST/ATOM/RSSCommunities Composites Content Insights Search

26. What’s new? Reusing Declarative Workflow — This feature enables reuse of SharePoint Designer “declarative workflows” on more than one list, as well as attaching declarative workflows to content types. Site Workflows - Not tied to a specific object High Privilege Workflows —enables users to safely control, design, and run declarative workflows that use the privileges of someone other than the workflow initiator. New Workflow Actions Ability to customize tasks, perform group approval Workflow Visualization —Visio® drawing that will allow a workflow designer to see the steps in a workflow visually. Import and Export with Visio — This feature enables workflow sharing between SharePoint® Designer and Visio.

27. Workflow Solution Spectrum Increasing Functionality SharePointDesigner Browser VisualStudio

28. Solution Complexity Highest Adoption Capabilities & Complexity SPD Workflows OOB Workflows WF Workflows Documents Lists Sites Records List Forms (InfoPath) BCS InfoPath ASP.NET Web Services & WCF General DAL Reporting & BI Search Publishing .NET Development Effort SharePoint Users Power Users DevelopersAdministrators Developers

29. Built-In Human Workflows Approval, Collect Feedback, Signatures, Publishing What's new? Reusable “declarative” workflows Matters where it is published to Better use of forms (InfoPath) Visualization of running workflow (with Visio Services)

30. Site Based Workflows No more list requirement Workflows Can be built in VS2010 or SPD 2010 Manage them via “Site Workflows” under “Site Actions” Caveats. Workflow must be started manually Requires instantiation form

31. What’s not new? SharePoint 2010 Is based on the .NET framework version 3.5 Thus all workflows in SharePoint Server 2010 are *not* WF 4.0 Workflows

32. Changes in SPD

33. High-Privilege Workflows

34. Extend out-of-box workflow Get a Jumpstart by building on top of the out-of-box workflows

35. Actions

36. Designer Interaction Create a new reusable workflow in SPD Once deployed it can be saved to a template Template can be imported into Visual Studio 2010 and modified Deploy Package Save to File System Create New ProjectImport WSP File system WSP Visio

37. Transfer workflows from Visio to SPD and back Visio Workflow Interchange

38. Caveats 10 Nested If’s Only 1 stencil No (back to parent or re-work steps)

39. Workflow Visualization Visualization of status of your workflows via Visio Services

41. Putting it to use

42. Basic approval workflow How the business thinks… START More Info needed Approval Approved Declined

43. Visio representation of workflow Log to History List Compare Data Source Compare Data Source Compare Data Source Compare Data Source Compare Data Source Compare Data Source Compare Data Source Log to History List Assign item for Approval Send An Email Log to History List Send An Email Log to History List Log to History List Assign item for Approval Log to History List Assign item for Approval Rework Step Validate: Completed Yes/No Approval Step Validate: Approved Yes/No Rework Step Validate: Canceled Yes/No Approval Step Validate: Declined Yes/No Approval Step Validate: Rework Yes/No Approval Step Validate: Approved Yes/No Log to History List No No No Approval Step Validate: Declined Yes/No Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No Yes No Yes No

44. Instead they got this: The solution falls short on requirements: VB like condition based syntax to create workflows What the business asked for: Not graphical Static workflow that only caters for a single Rework step Duplication of business logic Approval Duplication of business logic START START No way to go “back” in the workflow Complex visual representation of workflow via Visio Approved Declined More info needed More info needed Approval Approved Approval Approved Declined Declined

45. Final process Model in Visio

47. But Chris There are a lot of ISV’s out there that do this right?

48. Workflow Solution Spectrum Other Increasing Functionality Complexity Power

49. Solution Example “I have a simple workflow” “I want to reuse…” “I need route work based on your skills” Submitter “I need have my workflow tied to an SLA and be able to escalate” Review and Approvals Rework Capabilities SPD Workflows OOB Workflows WF Workflows Documents List Forms (InfoPath) .NET Development Notification Effort

50. Solution Example “I have a simple workflow” “I have a simple business process” “I want to update our finance system…” “I want to delegate parts of my work…” Submitter “I want to audit and report on my process…” Review and Approvals Rework Capabilities WF Workflows Documents List Forms (InfoPath) .NET Development Sites BCS Web Services & WCF InfoPath ASP.NET Search Records Reporting & BI Notification Notification Effort

51. Components of a process/solution

52. Call to action figure out what your true needs are Today and…..Tomorrow How complex are your workflows? Who will be building these workflows? Where will your data live? How much detail do I need in auditing, and reporting? What interfaces do I need? Keep in mind 85% of all workflow involves humans. (so focus on that) work to your strengths. (80/20 rule) People confuse and over prioritize the system Now.. Map out your process. Start experimenting, build something have some people use it. Find a process and whiteboard it