Geeky Girl : Business Process Management

Reusable no-code workflows

JessMeats — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:54:00 GMT

There are several short-comings with designing workflows in the current version of SharePoint Designer (but there’s always Visual Studio and some excellent third-party tools to combat those short-comings). One of the problems with SharePoint Designer workflows for MOSS 2007 is that you can’t reuse them. If I were to design a workflow on a document library and wanted to use that exact same workflow on a different document library, I would have to start all over again.

With the new SharePoint Designer for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, you just choose the option to create a reusable workflow in your initial design. Then you can attach the same no-code workflow to any list, document library or content type where it’s appropriate. You can also take an existing reusable workflow, use it as a template and make any necessary changes. This should cut the time needed to design multiple workflows considerably.

If you buy MOSS 2007 with Software Assurance now, you’ll get the upgrade rights to 2010 when it’s released. There’s no better time to buy!

Scenario: Stock Ordering

JessMeats — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:34:00 GMT

Another simple scenario where SharePoint and InfoPath can work together to make life easier. A SharePoint dashboard which monitors stock levels is linked to an InfoPath form for ordering new stock, which kicks of a workflow to get the prodcuts delivered.

Scenario: Holiday Requests

JessMeats — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:17:00 GMT

This is a short demo showing a potential scenario for InfoPath and SharePoint workflows improving common processes. In this demo, an employee requests holiday, their manager reviews and approves the request, and then the holiday is added to a SharePoint team calendar.

Generating a unique form number - a SharePoint counter

JessMeats — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:06:00 GMT

I’ve had a request to expand on my post about generating automatic numbers for InfoPath forms. I was asked to go into more detail about how to set up a SharePoint list to act as a counter.

Go to the SharePoint site where you have your document library and create a custom list by the standard process. There are a couple of different ways to do this. You can click Site Actions, then create. Or you can click on lists to get a list of all the lists on the site, and then click create. Or you can click on view all site content, then create. Either way, you will be taken to a menu screen offering a selection of things that could be created. The top link in the fourth column is custom list. Click this.

Now you have a new list with only one column showing, title, and no elements.

Click on settings and then create column. Add a column that contains a number with no decimal places. I’ve called this count. It doesn’t really matter what you call this column, so long as you remember the name.

Once you’ve got the column, add an element to the list. It doesn’t matter what you put in the title field but you need to put 0 in the count column (assuming there are currently 0 forms in your library).

That’s your counter made.

Now, open up SharePoint Designer. You’ll want to create a new workflow. Select the options to attach this workflow to the form library you want to set the auto-numbering in. Disable the options to allow users to manually start the workflow or to start the workflow when items change. Either of these would mess up your numbering.

Click next to get to the next screen in the wizard. This is an extremely simple workflow that only requires two actions. Click on the action button and add the inbuilt actions do calculation and update list item. Click on the first blue “value” links in the do calculation action, then click the function button that appears. This gives you the opportunity to choose an existing value. For source, choose your counter list with the count field as the field. Now SharePoint needs to know which item to bring back from this list, so set the field to be the ID field and the value to be 1 (since there’s only one item in this list). For the second value, just enter 1.

In the update list item action, click the blue this list. From the drop-down menu, choose the counter list. Add a field to be updated and choose the count field, selecting as the new value the calculated value (from the workflow data). Again, you need to specify the exact list item. Select the field ID and the value 1.

Then click finish. Now your counter will increment every time a form is added to your library. You can now reference this list from your InfoPath forms to create the form ID number.

Generating a unique form number

JessMeats — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:15:00 GMT

I’ve had someone ask me about automatically giving InfoPath forms a unique number. The scenario in question was one where the forms were being saved to a SharePoint document library with a unique number attached.

Documents in a SharePoint library do get given an ID, which is unique within document library. This can be used as the unique identifier of the forms out of the box with no additional work. The problem is, this only works so long as your forms remain in that document library. Once you start moving or copying forms (perhaps as part of a workflow) the ID will change.

In those situations, you will have to add a bit of work to your form to generate this number. You just have to be careful about when you generate it. If you have the possibility of multiple people filling out the form at the same time, you need to make sure the number is created in such a way that the method doesn’t result in forms being given the same number. If the form were to create this number on open, basing it on the number of files in the library, you would have issues when someone else opens the form template before the first form has been saved to the library. The easiest way round this issue is to have the number generated on submission.

Here I will describe a simple method of creating this auto number.

Firstly, you will need to create a data connection. If your forms (or a copy of them) are going remain in the document library they are submitted to, then you simply need to create a connection to retrieve data from that library. You only need to retrieve the data from one column. For the sake of argument, we’ll say the unique_number column. I’ll discuss another possibility in a bit for the scenario where forms will be moved or deleted from the library.

Set up the data connection using the wizard as you normally would, but uncheck the box when it asks whether to retrieve data when the form opens. You won’t want to get this information until the end. You will also want to set up the data connection to submit the form to the appropriate form library. Do this as you normally would, but make sure that one of your promoted fields is the unique_number field where you’ll be storing the unique ID of the form. From the submit options menu, uncheck the box labelled Show the Submit menu item and the Submit toolbar button. This is because you don’t want your users to just submit the form; you need the form to perform other actions first.

To allow your users to submit, add a button to the form. You’ll want this button to be set to trigger rules and custom code. Click on the Rules button, then Add, then Add Action. The action you want first is to query using a data connection. Choose the data connection you created to retrieve data from the form library.

The second action is to set a field’s value. The field will be your unique_number field. Click on the function button next to the value field. Insert a function. You have a couple of different options here. You can choose to perform the count function on the items in any field, or the max function on the unique_number field. Either way, you should end up with the most recent unique number assigned. So now, you just add one to get your new one.

The third and final action you need to add to this button is to submit the form.

So there you have it. Your form will now check how many items there are in the form library, create a unique number based on that value and save the form back. Brilliant!

But you can probably see why this method only works for scenarios where you leave the forms in the library. If you have a process that involves moving the form from that library to another, the count value will almost certainly be wrong and the max value might well be. There are probably several different ways to work around this. One simple way is to create a SharePoint list to act as a counter.

Have a list with one numeric element. You’ll want to set this list up so that it’s not visible from the menus on the site since you’ll only want to access it through the form and workflows. Initially, this will have the value of 1. Create a one step workflow using SharePoint Designer and attach this workflow to the form library. The workflow should trigger every time an item is created in the form library and all it should do is add 1 to the value in the counter (using the calculate value and update list item inbuilt actions). Then your form should retrieve data from this list instead of the document library and use the counter value as the unique_number.

The phases of technology use

JessMeats — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:35:00 GMT

I’d like to make a sweeping generalisation about how people react to technology. Disregarding for the moment the variations and exceptions, I believe that people go through four phases.

Phase 1: What the heck do I do with it?

Phase 2: Wow! That’s amazing!

Phase 3: There’s this one little annoying thing...

Phase 4: I hate this thing.

The speed at which people move through the phases depends on many things, including how technology savvy the person is. My Granny would probably spend a lot longer in phase 1 for almost any product than I would. If a product has a well defined purpose, clear marketing and a good user interface, phase 1 might be kept extremely short. On the other hand, if the product’s purpose is unclear or the user interface difficult to navigate, people might get stuck on phase 1 and eventually give up.

Phase 2 is the ideal spot. How long phase 2 lasts is almost entirely dependent on product design. People in this stage are happily using the project and being pleased with the results. This could be that they’re having fun playing a new game, or it might be that their working is becoming for efficient, depending on the purpose of the product. If the product team has done their job right, people will be in the phase for months. If the team’s done exceptionally well, people might be here for a couple of years.

But nothing is perfect. No matter how well a product does its job, there will always be something it doesn’t do or some little quirk that starts to irritate you. The more you use the product, the more you notice the thing(s) that at first seemed insignificant. You’re now well into phase 3. You still use and like the product, but there’s something about it you wish you could change.

Eventually, the annoyance outweighs the usefulness and you slip into phase 4.

In an ideal product, phase 1 should be short enough to be unnoticeable. Phase 2 should last for years. Phase 3 should last even longer. If the product’s been well-designed, you shouldn’t reach phase 4 until the product is obsolete.

In my journey through using InfoPath 2007, phase 1 lasted about fifteen minutes. I opened up the program with no idea what it was, played around with it and quickly decided it was great. When I started looking into what could be done with conditional formatting and data connections, I was well into phase 2. By the time I realised the power of views, I was in love with the product!

I stayed there for several months but now I’m slipping into the early stages of phase 3. I still think InfoPath is fantastic and can be used in an incredibly powerful way to improve processes in many situations. It’s still my favourite Microsoft product (not that SharePoint and the Xbox don’t have their merits). But there are a few things just are starting to bug me. Like when I have to click “OK” five times to get back to the form after setting a filtered value as the default value for a field. Or when I want to set exactly the same conditional formatting rules for multiple fields and have to manually set the rules for each one.

But now I’ve seen 2010!

I’ve skipped straight past phase 1 and into phase 2. You’re going to be seeing quite a lot of excited posts from me about 2010 over the coming months.

How to: Hide a Section

JessMeats — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:40:00 GMT

Continuing my series of "how to" videos, I show how to use conditional formatting to hide or show a section based on the values entered elsewhere in a form.

Conditional formatting can be incredibly valuable when you're creating a long, complex form where people might need to fill out different parts depending on the circumstances. By including a few, logical rules, you can ensure that people only see those parts of the form that are relevant to their circumstances. This makes the process of filling out the form much easier and reduces the frequency of errors, which can in turn reduce process costs.

If you have suggestions of features you'd like to see in this series, please leave a comment and I'll see what I can do.

InfoPath in the Real World - Commitments

JessMeats — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:47:00 GMT

This is my second post about real-world implementations of InfoPath. Again, I’m sticking close to home. Microsoft have certain processes around employee commitments. At the start of the year, we have meetings with our managers to come up with various commitments and ways to measure whether we’re achieving them. Half-way through the year, we have meetings to discuss whether we’re on track, whether any of the commitments should change (if there were changes in company goals or something) and make sure we’re working on the things that we should be. At the end of the year, we have to decide whether we’ve underachieved, achieved or exceeded our commitments.

This whole process is handled using an InfoPath form. For each commitment, there are various fields, such as a title, execution plan, status and whether it’s aligned to a manager’s commitment (to ensure that individual goals support team goals).

The form has some basic information auto-filled in. So my name, title, manager’s name and so on are all included on the form without me having to type a thing. This is done using the data connection capabilities of InfoPath.

Then there are repeating sections for the commitments. Different people might create different numbers of commitments so the form must be flexible. So each person can add as many commitments as they feel necessary by clicking to add a new section with all the appropriate fields. The data connection capabilities allow for the form to reference commitments set by the person’s manager and consume that information in the form.

There is the option to attach supporting documents. There is even a help panel giving instructions on how to fill out the form properly.

When you’re done, the user can choose to save the form as a draft or request approval. Either of these options will save the form to the server so that it can be accessed by the person or their manager. Clicking to request feedback will save the form and email the manager with an automated message informing them that the form is ready.

The form is incredibly easy to use and both the user and their manager can be sure they’re seeing the correct view of the latest version.

SharePoint for Business Processes

JessMeats — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:07:00 GMT

Continuing my series of short introductions to how SharePoint can be used to solve various business problems. This video touches on custom and out of the box workflows, as well as browser-enabled InfoPath forms.

InfoPath Introduction Part 4

JessMeats — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:06:00 GMT

In this part of my introductory series, I will show how InfoPath can be used with SharePoint or Forms Server to provide forms through the internet browser.

InfoPath Partner Training

JessMeats — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 12:27:00 GMT

I am going to be running training on InfoPath at Microsoft's UK Campus in Reading. This course is called Business Benefits of using InfoPath in Forms Development. The training is aimed at partners and intended to give a detailed overview of the business value and functionality of InfoPath 2007 and Forms Services. I do not plan on going into much technical detail, though the training is largely demo based and I will be willing to go into more detail on areas that are of particular interest to the attendees.

The training is on 23rd February from 12 noon.

This course is only open to Microsoft partners (or Microsoft employees who feel this would benefit them).

More information and registration details can be found on the Partner Learning Centre.

Why I love InfoPath

JessMeats — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:28:00 GMT

The best way to explain why I love InfoPath and InfoPath Forms Services is to explain why I hate other incarnations of forms.

When I was a student, I spent the summer holidays doing temp jobs so that I had money for the rest of the year. Temp jobs are generally not all that exciting and my work often involved tedious data entry and other miscellaneous office tasks.

A job I had a couple of summers ago was for a company that (among other things) provides training and qualifications for nurses. This involved a heck of a lot of forms for me. I would send out forms, either by post or by email, to the various companies that were interested in the training. Then someone in that company would fill it out and send it back, usually by post or fax. On one occasion, I emailed a form to someone who printed it out, filled it in, scanned it back into the computer and then emailed the scanned image back to me. That’s a lot of effort for one form.

Then came more effort. I would have to take the forms and enter the information on the computer about the trainees, log which trainer had been assigned and then store the paper form (I would have to move the forms later on because there were different folders for training that was booked, in progress and complete).

I also had to be careful if one company had a lot of people registering for the training because they would send in multiple forms. I had to make sure that those forms were dealt with as though they were a single form to prevent someone setting up two training sessions when only one was wanted.

And those were just the internal forms!

The company I worked for gave the training but qualifications were given by a well known UK exam board. So every single person the company trained had to be logged with the exam board. This involved the trainee filling out a form and me copying the information into the exam board’s system through their website.

There was some information that was exactly the same for every single form because I had to enter information on the training centre each time. There was no way to get the system to save a half-filled out form so that I could use the same information. I had to enter it over and over again until it felt like I could type the details in my sleep.

There was some information that was the same for a batch of forms. A lot of the training was done in groups, so there would be between twelve and fifty forms all with the same company details on, which I would have to enter manually every single time. Also, many of the trainees did multiple courses. They might do an NVQ level one in nursing but also do a separate course on some specialist area, but I could have to enter that person’s information for each qualification separately. It didn’t matter how many previous courses a person had registered for, I would have to do exactly the same data entry as I would for a new person.

If there had been some way of storing the data and reusing it, I probably would have been able to work half the hours and still have more time for doing the filing and answering the phone.

There were also occasionally issues with people not filling out their forms correctly. Some fields on the exam board’s forms were mandatory. Which gave me a problem if the trainee hadn’t filled out the relevant field on their form. I got a very annoyed man on the phone at me once because I’d registered him with the exam board as female. He hadn’t ticked the box and he had a name that could be either male or female, so I went with statistics given that he was applying for nursing qualifications. What I needed was some way to enforce the filling out of fields in the forms the trainees got sent so that I could make sure I had the information I needed to fill out the exam board’s forms.

Another experience I had with forms was before then, when I was starting university and applying for my student loan. The forms were extremely confusing and came with a huge, thick help booklet so that we stood a chance of getting them correct. There were loads of “if yes, go to section 5.6, if now, go to section 7.2” instructions, so I ended up not entirely sure I’d filled out all the relevant sections. I checked through over and over again just to be safe.

This confusion isn’t just limited to the student loan company. If you apply for a new passport, there’s a service you can get at the Post Office where someone checks your form to make sure you’ve filled out all the right sections. Presumably this service exists because a lot of people get confused and don’t know whether they’ve written everything they need.

So, that’s why I’ve been annoyed by forms in the past.

When I was told I was specialising in InfoPath, I did a lot of playing around to see why I could do with the program. My initial reaction: “Why doesn’t everyone in the world use this?”

InfoPath allows users to create, with no coding, incredibly complex forms with a lot of functionality. Without any training, I was able to create forms with different sections and controls, conditional formatting, links to databases and lots of flexibility.

One of the points in my rant was about having to enter the same information over and over again. InfoPath allows people to design forms which can auto fill sections. I could create a form which looks at a database or list to find information. If I enter some unique identifier in one field, the form can go to a database so see if my details are logged, and then take other relevant details from that database and put it straight into the form.

A good example of where this would be useful is customer orders. A new customer will get fields to fill out with their name, address, contact details and so on. A recurring customer will have those details logged from previous transactions. Filling out one field will cause a lookup that will put the rest of the details into the other fields as default values. Maybe even filling out no fields. InfoPath has a built in function called username. If I’ve logged into a system to fill out the form, InfoPath might take my username and use that to find the relevant details from a backend system.

So, if the exam board had used InfoPath, my logging into the system to enter new trainee information could have caused all the training provider details to be filled in for me. Then, when I entered the name of the company where the trainee worked, InfoPath could look up to see whether that company was already in their system and, if so, fill out the rest of the information about that company. So I could have logged most new trainees by entering details in four or five fields, instead of in dozens.

Another point I mentioned as annoying me was the fact that the same data had to be copied from forms and put somewhere else. Wouldn’t it be much easier for everyone if sending the form put the information where it needed to be? Instead of the trainee filling out a form and then me copying the information into the system, wouldn’t it be great if the data went straight from the form into the fields in the database? It would make the whole process a lot quicker and reduce one stage where human error could introduce mistakes. No matter how careful I might be, I’m sure that some of those company and training details included typos, just by the sheer number that I had to enter. It is possible to create submit connections in InfoPath, with no coding at all, that lets users send information straight to a database or web service when they click to submit the form.

Another issue I brought up was one about people running out of space on forms. I’m sure it’s happened to most people at some stage or another. You fill out a form and it’s given you five rows were you need six and you have to go get another blank form and fill that in for the sake of one extra line. InfoPath has the option to create repeating sections and tables. If I put a repeating table into a form, it appears as a table for the user to enter information, with a little button next to it to add a new row. The user can click this as many times as necessary so he or she always has exactly the right number of rows to enter the information they need. The same principle applies to columns or whole sections. If I put a repeating section into the table, I could include text boxes, tick boxes, formula fields, tables, images and anything that I could put in the rest of the form. The user can have this section appear as many times as needed when filling out the form.

I brought up the subject of data validation. I’m sure that anyone who’s registered for something online will know what I’m talking about. Certain fields have to be filled in for the form to be submitted successfully. InfoPath comes with several different types of data validation, including “can’t be blank,” “must be greater/less than,” “is an integer,” “matches pattern.” The pattern one is useful for things like checking whether the data entered is a phone number or a post code. There are options such as checking whether a date is in the past or the future. You can write your own custom messages for if the value entered doesn’t meet the validation, or set up conditional formatting so you can do things like change the colour of text boxes depending on whether or not the data is valid.

The mention of conditional formatting brings me neatly on to another of the features of InfoPath I think is brilliant. With conditional formatting and views, the person filling out the form sees only what they should. You can design forms with different views so that a customer will see something completely different from an employee, who will then see something different from an employee with a different job role. Conditional formatting allows sections to be shown or hidden based on values in previous fields. There are plenty of examples of situations where a yes/no option is followed by “if yes, please give details.” In an InfoPath form, selecting the yes option could cause a text box to appear that was previously hidden. In the example I gave about the student loan forms, I saw every section of the form, regardless of whether I needed to fill it out. An InfoPath form can show only those sections that are relevant to the person filling it out, saving a lot of confusion.

So, InfoPath is a wonderful tool when it comes to forms. But not everyone has the same software. If you’re sending forms to people, you can’t be sure that they’ll have InfoPath installed, or even be running an operating system capable of supporting InfoPath. That’s no longer a problem.

With the 2007 version of InfoPath, it’s possible to create forms that are browser enabled. This means you can embed them as part of a webpage or inside a SharePoint site. The person filling out the forms doesn’t need InfoPath; they just need a web browser.

It’s also possible to embed forms in emails. I could email out a form to someone. They would open it within their email client, fill out the form and then click send. They would never need to install or use InfoPath itself.

The only person who needs InfoPath is the person creating the forms. This means companies can use InfoPath for things like request forms and expenses claims without having to buy licenses for every employee. They can put InfoPath forms in their websites and not have to worry that the people coming to fill out the form might be running Linux or a Mac OS.

The best thing of all: InfoPath is easy to use. I was creating incredibly complex forms within a couple of hours of first using the program. I didn’t have any training and I was able to link to databases, submit to SharePoint, include functions and arithmetic in the form, auto fill fields, have repeating tables and conditional formatting, create different views and more. No coding is required (though custom coded controls can be included if so desired) so administrators and those who want to deal with the forms can make them exactly as they want without having to go to IT for help.

SharePoint Business Process Management: I Choose You!

JessMeats — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:51:00 GMT

The title for this post and the inspiration for the cartoon come from a joke that was made during my first couple of weeks at Microsoft. I joined Microsoft as a Partner Technology Specialist, with my area of speciality being SharePoint, with a focus on its Business Process Management capabilities. A conversation about my new role led to us joking that those in different roles within Microsoft would, when asked a tricky question, summon the relevant PTS to launch them at the problem. The ensuing Pokemon references amused me enough to ask a friend (I’m not particularly artistic myself) to draw this little cartoon.

I've been with Microsoft for a couple of months now. I'm considerably further up the very steep learning curve than when I started, and now I'm ready to be launched at some of those SharePoint questions.