Beginning SharePoint® Designer 2010

Chapter 11. Workflow Basics

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS CHAPTER

• The different types of workflows that can be created in SharePoint

• SharePoint Designer workflow fundamentals

• Creating List/Library workflows

• Building Reusable workflows

• Utilizing the Site based workflows

• Limitations and considerations when using SharePoint Designer workflows

The ability to create powerful and robust workflows is one of the most promising features of SharePoint Designer 2010. If you are familiar with the workflow story in SharePoint Designer 2007, much has changed since those days. This chapter explores all the workflow fundamentals as they exist in SharePoint Designer 2010 such as the ability to create list, reusable, and site based workflows. The story continues in Chapter 12 where you will dive even deeper into workflows with more advanced functionality and integration with other Microsoft Office applications.

WAYS TO CREATE WORKFLOWS IN SHAREPOINT

Workflow components come bundled with the .NET 3.5 framework. When the .NET framework (a prerequisite for installing SharePoint) gets installed on top of Windows Server 2008, the building blocks of workflow get baked into the platform. Because SharePoint sits on top of Windows, it is able to utilize these building blocks to create the workflows.

There are two types of workflows: sequential and state machine. Sequential workflows are those that follow a prescribed path with a definite beginning and end. State machine workflows, on the other hand, are typically much ...