Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Technologies

616 18.9 Workflow and SharePoint Server 2007

2. To deploy the template, follow the instructions listed in the ear-

lier section on how to prepare a form template for deployment by

an administrator. Then inform your administrator of the tem-

plate location and ask them to upload the template to SharePoint.

If you are working in a development and have the necessary per-

missions, you can upload the template by following the informa-

tion provided in the sections that discuss uploading and

activating form templates.

A site content type should now be available for you to test your form

template’s functionality. Remember, the code used in this example was purely

for demonstration purposes only and does not contain sufficient code for a

production environment. For example, when a user creates a form based on

this form template, the Name field is populated by the username with which

they are logged onto their computer. If another user were to subsequently

edit this form, their name would replace the original author’s name—which

is obviously not good from a design perspective. Additionally, it would be

better if the username data was retrieved from the currently logged-on Share-

Point user, as this often times differs from the username used to authenticate

the workstation to the domain. Now that you know how to associate code

with your form template, you can implement your own code.

18.9 Workflow and SharePoint Server 2007

Before we jump into SharePoint’s workflow capabilities, we should spend just

a minute reviewing what exactly we mean by the term “workflow.” Workflow

typically refers to the flow of information that comprises a business process.

This flow includes the interactions, activities, and events that occur during

the process lifecycle. At a very high level, workflow can be divided into two

camps: system workflow and human workflow. System workflow represents

business processes that do not involve people, whereas human workflow rep-

resents business processes in which people play a key role in the flow of infor-

mation and in the progress of the overall process. Products such as BizTalk

server target system workflows, whereas SharePoint Server 2007, a product

designed for human interaction, targets the realm of human workflow. Since

this book focuses on SharePoint, from this point on, any time we refer to

workflow, we are specifically referring to human workflow.

Workflow automation refers to the software or technologies used to

model business processes. That is a pretty broad definition, however, and dif-

ferent types of software are better suited for different types of workflow. So

let’s dissect this a little more: