Geeky Girl : workflows

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!

Out of the box workflow customisation

JessMeats — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:34:00 GMT

MOSS 2007 came with a few out of the box workflows to do tasks which are common in a huge range of organisations. One of these was the approval workflow, provided out of the box because the majority of companies have an approval procedure of some form. This is a very easy to use workflow that can be run on any content type allowing someone to approve or reject a document for publication. The problem was that no two companies do business in exactly the same way.

The out of the box approval workflow is very generic. Companies that wanted something slightly different would have to recreate the entire thing. With Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, you have the ability to use the out of the box workflows as a template and customise them to get the precise workflow needed for your company policies. These changes can be made quite simply in SharePoint Designer 2010 with no need for custom code.

You can now make the out of the box workflows adapt to your needs without any coding and without having to start from scratch.

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: Budget Request

JessMeats — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:05:00 GMT

Another scenario where InfoPath and SharePoint can aid business processes. In this demo, an employee fills out a budget request form, which is ammended by a manager and the results tracked using key performance indicators.

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.

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.

Better with Office - Workflows

JessMeats — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:35:00 GMT

SharePoint has two levels of workflow capabilities. With Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, you get the ability to create your own custom workflows either with code or using SharePoint Designer’s workflow wizard. With Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 standard, you get that ability still, but you also get some out of the box workflows for common tasks such as document approval and collecting feedback. These capabilities can be accessed from within Office.

One of the options from the Office menu is Workflows. When you select this option, you get a menu listing the various workflows associated with a document that can be manually started. This will include any workflows enabled over the whole SharePoint deployment as well as any specific to the document library the file is stored in. You can start any of these workflows from right within the Office document.

For the out of the box workflows, this will open up a window within Office to enter any required information, for example, the name of the person to approve the document. With custom workflows, clicking on start from this menu will take you directly to a SharePoint webpage for the workflow to initiate it.

Once the workflow has started, this will assign tasks to the appropriate people. These tasks will be associated to the document. When someone opens this document, SharePoint will check whether that person has a workflow task assigned to them. If they do, a notification is given at the top of the document stating the task and with a button labelled “edit this task.”

If the workflow is one of the out of the box ones, a window will open up within Office to complete the task, otherwise, you will be taken to a SharePoint webpage to complete the task.

So, if using the out of the box workflows, you can complete tasks from within Office without ever needing to open up a SharePoint page. With custom workflows, you can be alerted to tasks and directed to exactly the right place to complete your assigned tasks. You don’t need to check back with a SharePoint site to know what work you’ve got to do or navigate through task lists to do what’s required.

Users get to stay within Office as much as possible and so experience an interface they're familiar with. This can mean significantly lower training costs and much greater product uptake from within the organisation.

InfoPath Introduction Part 6

JessMeats — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:34:00 GMT

Continuing my introduction series, this demo shows InfoPath working with SharePoint workflows.

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