Designing, Deploying and Managing Workflow in SharePoint Sites  Steve Heaney

Product Development Manager

OBS

steve.heaney@obs.com.au

Agenda

• Office workflow vision and ecosystem• End user workflow concepts• Workflow design and development tools• Workflow design using SharePoint Designer• Office workflow hosting & activities• Questions

Office Workflow Vision

• Facilitate human processes by attaching businesslogic to items and documents in Windows SharePoint Services, while providing context and tracking progress

• Empower information workers using Office Serverwith out-of-the-box solutions and self-service tools to support a broad range of routing and tracking scenarios without IT involvement

• Empower organisations to build a broad range of sophisticated workflow solutions that take advantageof the full functionality of the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) platform and integrate into the SharePoint and Office experiences

Office Workflow Ecosystem

SharePoint Services

WF WebService

HistoryList

Reporting& Admin

SourceList

TaskList

Initiation and parameter settingAd-hoc Customization(Forward/Delegate)Task Completion

Authoring AppsBrowser UI

AdministrationReporting/StatusInitiationParameter settingAd-hoc Customization(Forward/Delegate)Task Notificationand Completion

Outlook

Task NotificationTask Completion

SharePoint Designer

Wizard-based authoringForms integrationApplication deployment

Access

Initiation and parameter settingTask CompletionReporting

Workflow Authoring ScenariosVisual Studio andWorkflow SDK

Out-of-the-BoxSolutions(with customization)

SharePoint Designer Workflow

Routing and Approval

Review – ApprovalSignature collectionEast Asian workflow

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ctu

red

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d H

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Office Server FeaturesList Moderation

Publishing ProcessDocument Expiration

Tracking ApplicationsIssue tracking

LOBIntegration

Custom Form ActionsEmail Notification

Exception Handling

Document Processes

Spec Review Weekly Status

Report

Custom Tracking Apps

Service RequestsAsset Tracking

Industryspecific processes

Purchase ordersProduct lifecycle mgmt

Who Uses Workflow?

• Adhoc participation by Knowledge workers– Participates in WSS, Office, and Outlook– Starts workflows, completes tasks– Focus – flexible and familiar

• Familiar to WSS Administrators– Set workflow settings (available workflows, default

settings)– Manage Site/Box (deployment, activation)– Focus – consistent and integrated

• Powerful tools for Developers– Suited development tools

• VS for professional developers• SharePoint Designer for site authors

– SDK with activities and samples

Using in built workflow templates

What did we see?

• Associating a workflow• Workflow initiation• Task completion

Workflow Authoring Tools

SharePoint Designer (Web Designer)

ActivitiesRe-use OOB/deployed activities

FormsAuto-generated Forms-ASPX

Deployment Workflow authored live against serverRuntime compilation

Development ModelWizard-based workflow designer

Visual Studio (Pro-Dev)

ActivitiesRe-use OOB/deployed activitiesCan author new activities

Forms Designed Forms-InfoPath-ASPX

DeploymentSolutions package generatedBox administrator installable

Development ModelVisual workflow designer

The role of forms in workflow

• ASPX Forms (Windows SharePoint Services and Office servers)–Server only

• InfoPath Forms (Office servers)–Server rendered by Office Forms Server–Office client integration–Write once, run server, and client (same

form)

Forms are used for: Configuring workflows,starting workflows, and completing tasks

Workflow Authoring with SharePoint Designer• Scenarios: Authoring SharePoint apps

– Document Workflow, e.g. My route for review– Web ‘Guided Process’, e.g. New Hire Process– Custom Form Action, e.g. on click, send email

• Authoring environment includes– Workflow designer based on Rules Wizard

experience– Building blocks for workflow based SharePoint apps

• Document workflows• Send mail, update list item• Custom developed workflows and building blocks

– Verification and deployment of workflows

Designing Workflows in SharePoint Designer

What Did We See?

• Workflow Creation Wizard• No code workflow authoring

Office Workflow Hosting

• Windows Workflow Foundation• Office Activities• Windows SharePoint Services Host

Windows Workflow Foundation

• Common workflow technology for Microsoft products, ISVs and customer solutions

• A framework to build on – not a server or application• Key features

– Unified model for human and system workflow– Extensible activity framework– Allows workflows to run in any application or server– Visual designer for graphical and code-based authoring

• Availability– Included in .net 3.0 – powers Office 2007 workflow

Extensible framework and tools for building workflow into Windows applications

Windows Workflow Foundation

Key Concepts• Workflows are a set of activities• Activities are the building blocks• Workflows run within a Host Process:

Any application or server• Developers can build their own

Custom Activity Libraries

Components• Base Activity Library: Out-of-box

activities and base for custom activities• Runtime Engine: Workflow execution

and state management• Runtime Services: Hosting flexibility

and communication• Visual Designer: Graphical

and code-based construction

Host Process

WindowsWorkflow Foundation

Runtime Engine

A Workflow

An Activity

Runtime Services

Base Activity Library

Custom Activity Library

Visual Designer

Host Process

What Are Activities?

• Workflow consists of Activities… – The workflow itself is an Activity

• Activity is the basic building block– Unit of Reuse– Unit of Execution

• Has associated properties, conditions and events– Configured in Markup and/or Code– Supports pre/post interception hooks into execution in user

code

• Activities fall under two broad categories– Basic– Composite

Office Activity Examples

–Create Task–Complete Task–On Task Change–Delete Task–Update Item–Create Item–Copy/Delete Item–On Item Change–Log to workflow history list

Activities are the building blocks of workflows.

Office Workflow Host

• WSS host provides:–Persistence–Event Delivery–Timer–History and Reporting–WSS Application Integration

• Workflow Foundation is hosted in WSS process on all front-end machines

• Workflow instances are aggressively dehydrated to the back-end database

Visual Studio Workflow Designer

• The Visual Studio Workflow Designer Provides a project system for developing workflow solutions

• It lets you quickly define a workflow graphically– Drag activities from Toolbox onto design

surface• Configure activity properties in Properties window

– Code-beside for business logic (your code)– Provides a mechanism for compiling

workflows – Integrated workflow and code debugging

More information…

• DEV05 - Developing Visual Studio Workflows and Activities for SharePoint Sites  (Tomorrow morning 9:15 Level 2, Room 3)

Thank you!

•Questions