So I’ve got a big project that is, apparently, to be based around workflow coming up. I’m a little scared of this, to be honest. I’ve noticed a few things:
- The most viewed item on my blog is currently ‘Blood, Sweat, and Windows Workflow in SharePoint‘.
- There are so many questions on the SharePoint UK user group about workflow.
- There are so many questions on the Microsoft forums.
So, anyway, my boss was wise enough to give us some time to refresh ourselves about SharePoint workflow, and to try out some things we didn’t do before (like using ASPX forms). It seems to me that some things have moved on - the projects in Visual Studio have got better (although I’m not sure I like the ‘deploy’ thing in the Visual Studio 2008 templates - what if I have other steps to perform? Is the deploy the same as what I would do if I was deploying a new WSP? It doesn’t seem so - it appears to be too fast!)
However, some things still really don’t work:
- We can still see odd (and incorrect) behaviour for infopath forms that use Repeating groups. One of my colleague gave this a look - it still doesn’t work.
- Still no proper tracking and auditing - I guess we’ll have to build it into the workflow ourselves.
- Still a general lack of documentation about workflow, and this is 18 months after release.
Anyway, I’m off to try using ASPX forms - I remember reading that that was possible. Wish me luck (for the ASPX and for the project). I’ll blog about how it goes
I noticed that you’re off to write custom forms in ASP.NET. I feel for you, it’s a tough task to start out on. You might want to take a look at this codeplex project:
http://www.codeplex.com/wss3workflow
Best case you find it useful, worst case, it’s an example of how to write custom ASP.NET WSS workflow forms.
Hi Chris,
Cheers! I’d just found out about that project myself! I tried the ASP.NET workflow forms, and it’s been horrible - but I’d an email the other day from Ted Pattison Group (who Wouter Van Vugt does instruction for) mentioning the Workflow tools for WSS. I took a look, and decided to give up and try those.
Fortunately this is all a bit of a prototyping exercise, so I can try different approaches.
But yes, my post about how tough it was should be up later today!
[...] I said I’d blog about how well I managed with using SharePoint Workflows with ASPX forms. The short answer - [...]
It’s a small world. I teach for the Ted Pattison Group as well. I’m the author of the Workflow course there and have been working with Wouter off and on for a year now.
I’d be interested in any feedback you have on the workflow tools since they were somewhat designed based on my experiences teaching the class. Some of the areas that have been talked about are auditing as well, which I see was a topic you were interested in.
Yes indeedy - the company I work for comes from an EDRMS sort of back - Livelink, Filenet, Merido, that sort of thing - and all our customers want decent auditing on their workflows, and reporting so that they can try to optomise their business processes.
Sadly, SharePoint 2007 doesn’t really give us that.
I’ll definitely give you feedback on the workflow tools - when I get a chance to play with them. I’m busying back working on an Outlook 2003 - SharePoint integration again
Still, workflow stuff is coming up, and I’ll try and make some time for some testing…