SharePoint Workflow

Standard out-of-the-box workflows in WSS 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007

Out-of-the-box SharePoint workflows

Learn which standard out-of-the-box workflows are available for document management in Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Workflows in Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0

Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 comes with only one workflow template out-of-the-box (OOTB):

• Three-state workflow

Three-state workflow

The Three-state workflow is a simple issue tracking workflow that shows the status of active and resolved issues. You can use this workflow to move a document along one or 3 states, for example a Pending, Approved, and Rejected state.

The Three-state workflow works with an Issue Tracking list or any other list that has a Choice column with 3 values.

Workflows in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 comes with the following workflow templates out-of-the-box (OOTB):

• Approval workflow
• Collect Feedback workflow
• Collect Signatures workflow
• Disposition Approval workflow
• Group Approval workflow (available only in some languages)
• Translation Management workflow

Approval workflow

The Approval workflow routes a document for approval. You can set up this workflow to be serial or parallel, and preset the approvers.

The Approval workflow is typically used to send out a document to people who need to approve the document, often as a prerequisites to publishing the document.

The document can be sent to:

1. People one by one after each other ( = serial), or 
2. Everyone at the same time ( = parallel)

Collect Feedback workflow

The Collect Feedback workflow routes a document for feedback. When the workflow completes all the feedback is aggregated and sent to the originator of the workflow.

Collect Signatures workflow

Rather than just sending a document for approval, the Collect Signatures workflow requires digital signatures on the document. This workflow requires Office 2007 and can only be initiated from an Office 2007 client application.

Disposition Approval workflow

The Disposition Approval workflow works with the records management capabilities and Records Center in SharePoint. It allows you to manage document expiration and retention.

You can use the Disposition Approval workflow to make decisions as to what you want to do with documents after they expire; not just delete the documents, but for example, archive documents, send out notifications, etc.

Group Approval workflow (East Asian Document Approval)

The Group Approval workflow routes a document for approval using stamp signatures and a group-oriented consensus process. It is only available for East Asian cultures.

To support hierarchical approvals, this workflow uses a hierarchical control to select the approvers and stamping rather than signatures for approval.

Translation Management workflow

The Translation Management workflow is used with the Web content management features of SharePoint to support a translation workflow for content to multiple languages.

SharePoint Designer 2007 workflows

Introduction to SharePoint Designer workflows

If you want to know whether you should be using SharePoint Designer to design your workflows

Before you can create custom workflows in SharePoint Designer you must:

1. Have access to the SharePoint site on which the list or library to which you want to add a workflow resides.
2. Have access to the list or library to which you want to add a workflow.

To create a workflow in SharePoint Designer 2007, you must:

1. Open a SharePoint site.
2. Create a new workflow.
3. Design the workflow. This includes attaching the new workflow to a list or library on the SharePoint site, and adding steps, conditions, and actions to the workflow.
4. Publish the workflow to the SharePoint site.

Open a SharePoint site

To open a SharePoint site in SharePoint Designer 2007:

1. On the File menu, click Open Site.

 SharePoint Designer 2007 Open Site menu item on the File menu.

2. On the Open Site dialog box, select the SharePoint site you want to open, or type the URL to the SharePoint site in the Site name field, and click Open.

SharePoint Designer 2007 Open Site dialog box.

Create a new workflow

To create a new workflow in SharePoint Designer 2007:

1. On the File menu, select New, and then click Workflow.

SharePoint Designer 2007 menu items to create a new workflow.

2. You are now ready to attach the workflow to a list or library and create its steps.

Design the workflow

For an example and instructions on attaching a workflow to a SharePoint list or library and adding steps, conditions, and actions to the workflow

Publish the workflow

Once you’ve designed your workflow, you can click the Finish button on the Workflow Designer to save your workflow to the Workflows document library in the Folder List, and also publish your workflow to the SharePoint site.

MyWorkflow workflow selected under the Workflows document library.

If at any time after saving and publishing the workflow you want to modify the design of your workflow, you must:

1. Expand the Folder List of the SharePoint site and locate the Workflows document library.
2. Under the Workflows document library, locate the workflow you created.
3. Double-click the <YourWorkflowName>.xoml file to open the Workflow Designer.

You can now modify your workflow and re-publish it.