Workflow:
Workflow management is a system of overseeing the process
of passing information, documents, and tasks from one employee or machine
within a business to another.
Through proper workflow management, each of these
employees or machines will pass the work on according to a predetermined
procedure.
As technology
advances, much workflow management has become automated and takes advantage of
special software to make the process much smoother
SharePoint Supported workflows:
We have different choices to develop workflows in
SharePoint, below are some choices.
1.
Workflows
in SharePoint UI
2.
Workflows
in SharePoint Designer
3.
Workflows
in Visual Studio
4.
Workflows
in Visio
5.
Nintex
workflows
6.
Other
third party products (K2, ...)
Workflows in SharePoint UI(OOTB
workflows):
There are few very basic built-in workflows in SharePoint
which can be implemented within minutes but are very rigid and inextensible.
Pros & Cons:
·
You can create very
simple approvals and you are sure that the functionality wouldn’t extend
·
you can’t access other SharePoint contents in the site
like Lists and lookups
·
You can’t get more Inputs
from approvers, except accept/reject and comments.
·
More suitable for
in-house implementation not in projects where you are always expecting
challenging changes request from an inconsiderate client
Workflows in SharePoint
Designer:
With SharePoint designer simple workflows can be designed
with the help of a wizard using built-in activities.
Pros & Cons:
·
Unlike with the OOTB
workflows, you can also access other SharePoint contents in the site like Lists
and lookups
·
You can also define
workflow variables and use them in the activities and notifications.
·
With some tweaking you
can also apply branching or parallel approvals.
·
Unfortunately SPD
workflow definitions are not portable but fortunately these are part of site
backups.
·
Business Users can create
them
·
No source control
·
No automated deployment
method
·
No version control
Workflows in Visual
Studio:
Visual Studio provides flexibility to create workflows to
support virtually any business process, regardless of its complexity, and
allows debugging and reuse of workflow definitions.
Pros:
·
More Activities
·
Fully customisable
·
Easier to debug
·
Integration with InfoPath
schemas
·
Can be assigned to a site
content type
·
Sequential and State
workflows
·
Integrate with ASP.NET
forms AND InfoPath Forms
Cons:
Overhead to learn .NET and SharePoint
Programming
Overhead to learn .NET WF
Workflows in Visio:
With Microsoft Visio Premium, you can create a workflow in
Visio and then export it to Microsoft SharePoint Designer. Business analysts
and process analysts who are already familiar with flowcharting in Visio can
use Visio to design a workflow that represents their business logic, export the
workflow
Pros & Cons:
·
Needs Microsoft Visio
2010 Premium
·
Good to start with
flowchart with future import to SharePoint Designer
Other third party workflow
products :
Below are the some third party workflow products
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