I wrote up a detailed article a few weeks ago describing how to create a SharePoint Designer workflow that sends a task reminder email on a daily basis. It’s been kuchapishwa saa mpya SharePoint Magazine tovuti. More generally, makala inaonyesha jinsi ya kuunda muundo wa looping katika SPD.

gazeti ina aina mbalimbali ya makala ikiwa ni pamoja, miongoni mwa mambo mengine, kiufundi sana mambo, interviews and industry news. I recommend you add it to your RSS feed.

Kama una bidhaa au huduma ya kuuza, I’d also consider advertising on the site. It’s off to a strong start with several thousand pairs of eyes looking at it already. That’s sure to grow.

Mwisho, kama tumekuwa kuwasha kuandika kitu na kupata nje mbele ya watazamaji kubwa, this is a great time and place to scratch it.

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Mark Miller zaidi ya saa Mtumiaji wa mwisho SharePoint has posted my latest article about using SharePoint Designer to create great workflow solutions up on his site. Kuangalia ni nje.

Katika makala hii, Mimi majadiliano kuhusu mchakato wa kubuni na, kwa undani zaidi, jinsi ya kuanzisha kuaminika na repeatable mtihani mchakato wa kutumia makala SharePoint (desturi orodha, tovuti templates). The article targets End Users, lakini mbinu ni nzuri kwa watengenezaji pia.

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Wiki iliyopita, I was working out how to loop and implement a state machine using SharePoint Designer and mentioned, kama kando, kwamba napenda pengine kuandika post blog juu ya magogo bora workflow.

Vizuri, Sanjeev Rajput beat me to it. Have a look.

Saving log data into a custom list seems superior to using the regular workflow history:

• It’s just a custom list, so you can export it to excel very easily.
• You can create views, dynamically filter the data, nk.
• It’s not subject to the auto-purge you get with regular workflow history.

There are some risks / downsides:

• Many running workflows with a lot of logging could cause too much data to be written to the list.
• Maybe you *do* want automatic purging. You don’t get that feature with this approach (without coding).
• Security is tricky. In order to write to the list, the user must have permission to do so. That means that it’s probably not suitable for any kind of "official" audit since the user could discover the list and edit it. This could be overcome with some custom programming.

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This past week I finished off a proof of concept project for a client in Manhattan. While implementing the solution, Mimi mbio katika mwingine kasoro ya MOSS KPIs (kuona hapa kwa ajili ya suala uliopita KPI na workaround yangu).

Background: We used SharePoint Designer workflow to model a fairly complex multi-month long business process. As it chugged along, it would update some state information in a list. KPIs use this data to do their mojo.

We decided to create a new site each time a new one of these business processes kicks off. Aside from the workflow itself, these sites host several document libraries, use audience targeting and so forth. Just a bunch of stuff to help with collaboration among the internal employees, traveling employees and the client’s participating business partners.

We also wanted to show some KPIs that monitor the overall health of that specific business process as promoted by the workflow state data and viewed using the KPIs.

Hatimaye, we used KPI list items that do a count on a view on a list in the site (as opposed to pulling from another data source, like excel or SQL).

The Problem: As you can imagine, assuming we were to carry the basic idea forward into a production world, we would want a site template. Provision a new site based off a "business process" template.

The problem is that you can’t seem to get a functioning KPI that way. When I create a new site based on a template with a KPI List and KPI web part, the new site’s KPI data are broken. The new site’s KPI list points at whatever source you defined when you first saved it as a template.

By way of example:

• Create a new site and build it to perfection. This site includes the KPI data.
• Save that as a template.
• Create a new site and base if off the template.
• This new site’s KPI list items’ sources point to the site template, not the current site.

The instantiation process does not correct the URL.

I tried to solve this by specifying a relative URL when defining the KPI list item. Hata hivyo, I couldn’t get any variation of that to work.

I always want to pair up these "problem" blog posts with some kind of solution, but in this case I don’t have a good one. The best I can figure is that you need to go in to the newly provisioned site and fix everything manually. The UI makes this even harder because changing the URL of the source list causes a refresh, so you really have to redefine the whole thing from scratch.

If anyone knows a better way to handle this, tafadhali post comment.

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I’ve recently learned that it’s possible and even fairly easy to create a state machine workflow using SharePoint Designer. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that good stuff and I had a need this week that looked for an invention. Coincidentally, I came across this MSDN forum post pamoja. My personal experience this week and that "independent confirmation" lends strength to my conviction. I plan to write about this at greater length with a full blown example, but here’s the gist of it:

• The approach leverages the fact that a workflow can change a list item, thereby triggering a new workflow. I’ve normally considered this to be a nuisance and even blogged about using semaphores to handle it.
• SharePoint allows multiple independent workflows to be active against a specific list item.

To configure it:

• Design your state machine (i.e., the states and how states transition from one to the next).
• Implement each state as separate workflow.
• Configure each of these state workflows to execute in response to any change in the list item.

Each state workflow follows this rough pattern:

• Upon initialization, determine whether it should really run by inspecting state information in the "current item". Abort if not.
• Do the work.
• Update the "current item" with new state information. This triggers an update to the current item and fires off all the state workflows.

Aside from the obvious benefit that one can create a declarative state machine workflow, all that state information is terrific for building KPIs and interesting views.

It does have a fairly substantial drawback — standard workflow history tracking is even more useless than normal 🙂 That’s easily remedied, hata hivyo. Store all of your audit type information in a custom list. That’s probably a good idea even for vanilla sequential workflow, but that’s for another blog post 🙂

I call this a "mea culpa" because I have, kwa bahati mbaya, said more than once on forums and elsewhere that one must use visual studio to create a state machine workflow. That simply isn’t true.

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It’s possible to cause an endless loop in a SharePoint Designer workflow. A common implementation pattern like this causes the problem:

• Kujenga workflow na kujiunga na orodha.
• Zinaonyesha kwamba ni lazima kuanza juu ya kujenga ya vitu mpya na update ya vitu zilizopo.
• A step in the workflow updates a field in "Current Item".
• Tangu sasa bidhaa iliyopita, workflow kuanza upya.

Ili kuzuia hili kitanzi kutokuwa na mwisho, kutekeleza semaphore rahisi:

• Kuongeza safu ya tovuti (au safu ya orodha maktaba / kama wewe si kutumia aina maudhui).
• Kujificha kutoka ukurasa hariri (rahisi kufanya kama safu ya tovuti kupitia tabia yake ya, kama si rahisi kama safu ya orodha).
• Katika workflow, kuangalia kuona kama thamani ya safu semaphore ni tupu.
• Kama ni tupu, kuweka kwa thamani si tupu na kuendelea.
• Kama ni si tupu, exit mara moja.

Hii inaweza kuwa ufumbuzi haki pongezi, kulingana na mahitaji ya biashara na kadhalika, lakini imekuwa muundo workable wakati nimekuwa zinahitajika.

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Kama watu wengi kujua, the Employee Training template provided by Microsoft here has a bug that we can reproduce following these steps:

• Kujenga darasa na kawaida max ya 10 wanafunzi.
• Kujiandikisha –> Total available seats properly decrements by one. Kusababisha: 9 inapatikana viti.
• Futa: –> Bug. Total available seats should increment by one. It does not. Kusababisha: 9 available seats as per SharePoint, but in fact, there are 10 inapatikana viti.

Ufumbuzi: Use SharePoint Designer to correct the workflow.

Kwanza, open up the site. The folder list for me looks like this:

If we have a look at the "Attendee registration" workflow, we see that there is a step labeled "Enforce seating policy". It looks like this:

This step in the workflow updates the item by incrementing the "Filled Seats" metadata column on the course. If we pull that up in more detail, we see this:

That’s all the information we need to fix the unregistration workflow.

If we flip over to the unregistration workflow, there is no similar workflow step. Add it as follows:

1: Expand "Attendee unregistration" and open up the XOML (see first screen shot if you’re lost).

2: Add a new workflow variable, "New Filled Seats" of type "Number".

3: Assign a value to "New Filled Seats" kama inavyoonekana:

4: Decrement the Filled Seats by 1:

5: Update the related Course item:

6: Make sure all the steps are in the right sequence. Kwa ajili yangu, inaonekana kama hii:

7: Finish the workflow to re-build it.

8: Mtihani.

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Moja ya chati kujitokeza katika kuandika mimi kupata ufumbuzi SharePoint leverages SharePoint Designer workflow na mpokeaji tukio.

Hapa ni mazingira ya biashara na kuiweka katika mazingira ya:

• Mimi upload hati lib doc.
• Mimi kick off hatua mbalimbali workflow kuundwa kwa kutumia SharePoint Designer.
• Wakati fulani wakati wa mchakato huo, workflow inateua kazi kwa mtu (kupitia kukusanya data kutoka kwa mtumiaji au hawawajui kazi).
• We want to use a KPI to track how long that task is awaiting completion. The KPI shows green for tasks that are completed or due more than 3 days from now. It shows yellow if the task is due tomorrow or today. It shows red if the task is past due.
• Hapa ni kicker: Nataka tarehe ya kuendesha KPI kuwa likizo-kufahamu.

I can’t calculate a holiday-aware due date in SharePoint Designer workflow very easily. I would have to create a custom action or use a 3rd party tool. Hata hivyo, it’s easy enough to calculate such a date in an event receiver. Merge those two together and we get a pattern like this:

• Define a hidden yes/no site column on the document library labeled "DoCalcualteDueDate".
• Initialize ya uongo.
• Kwa wakati muafaka katika workflow (e.g. just before the "collect data" hatua), hawawajui kwamba thamani ya Kweli.
• ItemUpdate() event receiver looks to see if "DoCalculateDueDate" is true. Since the event receiver runs on every update, "DoCalculateDueDate" kawaida ni ya uongo.
• Wakati workflow inateua DoCalculateDueDate kwa kweli, receiver tukio mahesabu ya likizo-kufahamu kutokana na tarehe.
• Wakati receiver tukio gani hii hesabu, unaweka bendera DoCalculateDueDate ya uongo.

Katika mwisho, SPD workflow is communicated with an event receiver via the DoCalculateDueDate semaphore and we have holiday-aware due dates that are assigned at the exactly correct moment in the workflow’s life. SharePoint Designer controls when the due date is assigned but the event receiver performs the actual calculation and assignment.

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UPDATE: I’ve been researching how to embed a SPD workflow into a site definition. This MSDN forum chain has some interesting information. It’s not conclusive, lakini pointi kwa njia ya kupitia jungle.

I’m giving this post a slightly oddball "Observed Behavior" lead since I’m a little leery of drawing conclusions from it. SPD workflows are … temperamental.

People are often asking / wondering / fretting over moving SPD workflows from one place to another. Leo, I followed these steps and made these observations:

• I created a workflow using SharePoint Designer in a site attached to a document library.
• The associated document library already housed several documents.
• I saved the site as a template.
• When I saved the site as a template, I saved the content as well.
• Mimi umba tovuti mpya katika ukusanyaji sawa tovuti kutumia template.

Katika hatua hii, I tried to run the workflow. It promptly terminated itself with the log message, "Failed on start".

I expected this. I have low expectations when it comes to moving SPD workflows around.

Mimi iliendelea:

• Kufunguliwa tovuti katika SharePoint Designer.
• Had a peek at the workflow. It seemed fine.
• I clicked "Finish".
• Mimi mbio workflow.

Wakati huu, ni kazi nzuri.

I’ll add that this workflow used the "collect data from user" hatua ambayo ni hatua ya kiasi tata chini ya kofia.

I tentatively conclude that the process of "finishing" the workflow caused SPD to properly associate the SPD workflow with the new document library. I also conclude the XOML and other XML artifacts are reasonably "loose". They are not super tightly coupled to the document library.

What does this mean? Assuming it’s a reliable and reproducible process, there’s at least one rough method we can use to move them around. I don’t know if this would work if we crossed site collection boundaries or even more drastically, entire new farms (e.g. dev to stage to prod).

If you’re reading this and inclined, please post a comment or email yangu your SharePoint Designer migration story. I’ll gladly update this posting with any insights thus offered.

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It’s often useful to store status information in a custom list such as an approval code which should never be directly manipulated by end users. This is a common business scenario. I have been working on a project this year that generates various status and reminder dates via SharePoint Designer workflows that then drive KPIs and generally support time-critical business processes.

Kutumia maudhui tovuti aina / safu ya kufanikisha athari.

Kujenga maudhui tovuti aina na safu hali kama inavyoonekana:

Note the "Status (kwa Demo)" shamba chini.

Ijayo, click on the column name to access the column’s properties. Select "Hidden (Si kuonekana katika aina)" katika Column Settings sehemu kama inavyoonekana:

This removes the field from the standard edit/update forms. Hata hivyo, bado ni inapatikana katika maoni, KPIs, mfano kitu na mahali popote unataka kutumia, including SPD workflow.

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