Overview

This entry describes a case study describing an actual MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Operations) workflow approval process implemented in MOSS.

This is not an overtly technical discussion, but instead serves to provide a real-world example that demonstrates how the MOSS platform met a real-world need.

(This entry is cross posted between http://paulgalvin.spaces.live.com and http://blogs.conchango.com)

Background

The client’s MRO process had been characterized by the following

• Manual approval process.
• Some support using excel spreadsheets.
• Irregular approval process.  The same MRO purchase approval process would vary day to day, person by person.
• Lots of paper and hand-written signatures — purchase requisitions required up to 3 written signatures before final approval.

The objectives of this project included:

• Fully automate the process.
• Enforce enterprise standards for approval.
• Provide consolidated view of MRO purchasing to various managers.
• Detailed audit trail.

As a side effect of the solution, written signatures were no longer required.

Approval Process

The approval process consists of four "swim lanes": Originator, Direct manager, Functional manager and division manager.

Originator:

Sees the need for the purchase and starts the process.  Note that the originator may or may not actually enter the purchase requisition, but instead direct another staff member to do so.  Some times, the originator does not have the technical expertise to fill out the PO requisition.  For example, a user may want to requisition a new laptop computer, but does not know the best vendor, IT standards, etc.  In this case, the originator works with IT and IT actually fills out the requisition. 

Direct manager:

This is the direct manager of the originator (which may be different from the person who actually entered the PO requisition into MOSS).  Direct managers must approve the PO requisition before the system seeks approval further down the line.

Functional Manager:

The functional manager is the individual responsible for ensuring that the proposed purchase conforms to enterprise standards within the scope of a particular corporate function.  For example, IT purchases are approved by an IT functional manager. 

Division Manager:

Division managers approve purchase requisitions strictly by dollar amount.  Division manager approve purchase requisitions in excess of a configurable dollar amount.

The Solution

We used the following tools and components to implement the solution:

MOSS: Serves as the platform off which everything else "hangs".   MOSS provides bedrock services for security, master data, audit trails and other features.

InfoPath forms services: A MOSS component, this enables users to fill out purchase requisitions via a web browser.

SharePoint Designer (SPD): We used SPD to implement the automated workflow process.

Web Service: A c# web service enhances the user experience by enabling cascading selections lists in the InfoPath form and provides better performance with respect to filtering data.  See here for a technical deep dive on this subject and our reasons for using it.

Custom Lists: MOSS user profiles provided a given user’s direct manager, but did not provide most of the data that controlled workflow decisions (e.g. whether the divisional manager is required to approve the PO requisition).  We used custom lists in an "Enterprise Data" site to maintain data such as "Divisional Manager Approval Dollar Amount", "Functional Area Manager" and so forth.  Lists integrated very nicely with InfoPath and also provide create/update/delete (CRUD) functionality with auditing and security out of the box.

Use Case

This use case illustrates how the solution fits together:

1. Paul wants a new laptop.  He describes his needs to Vivek, an IT person familiar with corporate laptop standards, preferred vendors, etc.
2. Vivek logs into MOSS, accesses the PO Requisition form and enters the requisition on behalf of Paul.  The form prompts Vivek for a purchase category which then uses the web services to populate a drop-down list of company-approved vendors.  Vivek also specifies the corporate functional area of this purchase (e.g. "IT" or "Finance").
3. SPD based workflow starts, determines Paul’s direct manager and routes the requisition to his manager, Stacy.
4. Stacy approves the purchase requisition.
5. SPD workflow inspects the requisition and determines it’s an IT purchase.  It routes the workflow to the IT functional manager, Wonson. 
6. Wonson approves the requisition.
7. SPD workflow again inspects the requisition and determines that the purchase amount exceeds a maxium dollar amount and routes it to the division manager for approval.
8. The division manager approves the purchase requisition.

Notes

• The use case demonstrates a "clean" run with no rejections or jumps. 
• Every approver has the ability to approve or reject the requisition as well as provide written comments.  These are logged in the audit trail.
• If a responsible manager rejects the purchase requisition at any point, the PO requisition is "dead" and the process must be started from the beginning. 
• Workflow notifies the originator at every step of the process.
• No written signatures — the client determined (after some forceful recommendations) that the audit trail as provided via workflow history, served their auditing needs.
• Effort — it took approximately three man weeks to implement this solution.

Conclusion

This solution leverages MOSS as a development and run-time platform.  The client was able to leverage core MOSS features to automate a routine business process that affected nearly every employee in the company.  With the exception of a simple web service (which itself leverages MOSS), almost no actual "programming" was required.

The solution also serves as a "showcase" for the client, demonstrating how different MOSS features can be combined to create a fully featured business application and generate new consulting opportunities in the future.

Glossary

MRO: Maintenance, repair and operations.  These purchases typically include items such as notepads, chairs, personal computers, printers, cell phones and the like.

This may be obvious to many, but while studying for my MOSS programming exam, I learned that it’s pretty easy to get the actual XML from a search query via the user interface.

One quick method is as follows:

• Access advanced search.
• Perform a search that returns some data.
• Edit the page (via site settings).
• Change the XSL to the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/>
  <xsl:template match="/">
    <pre>
      <xsl:copy-of select="*"/>
    </pre>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

• Hit apply.
• View Source in the browser.

Note that the <pre> tag doesn’t do much except serve as a convenient marker when you view the results. 

This trick can be very helpful when working with managed properties and customizing search.  It will provide a definitive list of the XML available for you to use in your xslt which would have been very helpful the last 25 times I created some customized search results.

This ought to work for dataviews as well, though I have not tested that out as yet.

I see that Eric Kraus was faced with a requirement normally met with a content query web part.  The problem?  He was in a pure WSS environment with no access to the CQWP.  Rather than curling up in the fetal position (an urge I have to fight every day, it seems), he came up with solution that at least gives WSS shops a fighting chance to succeed.  It’s described here.

Stefan Goßner has put together a terrific 4-part series on the SharePoint Content and Deployment API here.  It offers a great overview and very good examples in code (C#). 

I first picked up this link from joris poelmans blog at http://jopx.blogspot.com/.

Even if you’re like me, in that you have not had to do much hands-on work for content management, this is well worth 20 minutes of your time to read. 

Using the API, one can:

• Export and import content very easily.
• Re-parent content.  If you want to export some content from a site "A" and send it to site "B" but in a totally new place in the hierarchy, this is possible.
• Export content from a site A and import selected bits into site A.
• Re-link content (meaning deal with all the hyperlinks).

Someone on the Internets was asking about how to create a calculated column on a list that would show a value formatted as "[User] – [Status] – [Location]" as in "Paul Galvin – Drinking [free] Beer – The Beach".

Paul would go in and update his entry in the list and the calculated column would update appropriately.  The [User] should default to the the user entering/updating the list.

A calculated column cannot use "volatile" functions such as [Me] or [Today].  I solved it in a test environment with these steps:

1. Create a text column named "Current User".
2. Set its default value to [Me]
3. Create a calculated column called "Calc Test".
4. Set its value = [Current User]

I went in, added an item to the list and it worked.

I’ve been plagued by this for 9 months and I see that people on the MSDN and Usenet forums have it too.l

Sometimes, when accessing a word document (or other doc types) from a document library causes Internet Explorer to simply crash and go away (taking all the tabs with it if any are open).

This MS hotfix may solve it: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938888

Also, there’s some description about the problem here:

http://jopx.blogspot.com/2007/07/solving-internet-explorer-crash-when.html

Overview:

Created a custom list that manages a content type with some dozen columns.

Added it to a page and then via SPD, converted into a data view.

Problem:

My Xpath expression was returning blank for a column named "Current Position".  I referenced it thusly:

    <table border="1">
      <xsl:for-each select="/dsQueryResponse/Rows/Row" >
        <tr>
          <td>
            Current Status:
            <xsl:value-of select="@Current_x0020_Status"></xsl:value-of>
          </td>
        </tr>
      </xsl>
    </table>

The column in the CT is named "Current Status".  It shows up in the lookup as "Current Status".  Everywhere you look, you see "Current Status".

While thrashing madly about, looking for a solution, I instead referred to "@Recruiter" and behold! — that actually returned back the current status.  I expected it to return back the recruiter when I did that.

Solution:

I poked about in SPD.  Go to that page in SPD and it shows the data view.  You can inspect the actual data provided to the view and associated Xpath.  Here I found out that indeed, the Xpath pointed at "Recruiter".  Strangely enough, the "actual" recruiter field pointed from "Recruiter1".

Take Away:

SPD provides authoritative Xpath expressions for rows & columns in a data view.

Second, it shows the actual data.  So for example, a column of type shows this:

<nobr><span><A HREF="/sites/Corporate/HumanResources/TalentAcquisition/_layouts/userdisp.aspx?ID=17">Galvin, Paul</A><img border="0" height="1" width="3" src="/_layouts/images/blank.gif"/><a href=’javascript:’ onclick=’IMNImageOnClick();return false;’ class=’ms-imnlink’><img name=’imnmark’ title=” border=’0′ height=’12’ width=’12’ src=’/_layouts/images/blank.gif’ alt=’No presence information’ sip=’PGalvin@xxx.com’ id=’imn_77,type=smtp’/></a></span></nobr>