Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Technologies

18.10 Workflow Authoring 623

Chapter 18

perspective, this means that as an end user, you will see an additional menu

item on the Actions menu, called Process all tasks. If you are a participant in

multiple workflows within your organization, the benefits of this capability

are quickly realized. When you click the Process all tasks menu option, you

are presented with a collated list of all the workflow task types, sorted by

workflow template. If you click on a specific task type, you are presented

with an editable form, implemented through InfoPath, that allows you to

edit the tasks in bulk. Only the workflows that support bulk edits are dis-

played in the list. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 does not support the

capability to process workflows in bulk.

The predefined workflows for SharePoint Server 2007 leverage InfoPath

form templates. If you examine the Feature folders of each of these work-

flows, you will notice a folder named Forms that hosts the InfoPath forms

associated with the workflow. Before we show you how to integrate InfoPath

forms with workflow, let’s take a quick look at how workflows are authored

in SharePoint.

18.10 Workflow Authoring

When it comes to authoring workflows, there are a variety of tools provided

for Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Server 2007. Which tool to

use and when really depends on what you are trying to achieve with your

workflow. For example, if you want to create a custom workflow that lever-

ages the use of InfoPath forms, you would choose SharePoint Server 2007

Table 18.3 SharePoint Server 2007 Predefined Workflows

Workflow Name Description Feature Name in Browser

Approval Routes a document for approval.

Approvers can approve or reject the

document, reassign the approval task,

or request changes to the document. By

default, the workflow assigns tasks to

participants sequentially.

Routing Workflows

(Folder Name = ReviewWorkflows)

Collect Feedback Routes a document for review. Review-

ers can provide feedback, which is com-

piled and sent to the document owner

when the workflow is completed. By

default, this workflow assigns tasks to

participants in parallel.

Routing Workflows

(Folder Name = ReviewWorkflows)

624 18.10 Workflow Authoring

and Visual Studio 2005 with the WWF extensions and the SharePoint SDK

templates applied. If you want to build a workflow application that uses

ASPX forms only, then you would choose Windows SharePoint Services and

either SharePoint Designer 2007 or Visual Studio 2005 with the WWF

extensions applied.

18.10.1 Authoring Workflows in Windows SharePoint

Services 3.0

Two options are available for authoring workflows targeted for the Windows

SharePoint Services 3.0 platform. The first option involves the use of Visual

Studio 2005 with the WWF extensions applied. The Visual Studio 2005

Extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (Windows Workflow Foundation)

extends the native Visual Studio environment to provide support to develop-

ers for building workflow applications that leverage Windows Workflow

Foundation. This is great news for developers already familiar with develop-

ing applications in Visual Studio 2005, as it offers a familiar environment

from which to build workflow applications. Once the workflow extensions

have been installed, an additional Workflow option appears under both the

Visual Basic and C# project types in the New Project dialog (Figure 18.55)

The Workflow option offers a number of workflow project templates that

you can use as the foundation for your custom workflow solution. The

project templates include workflow libraries used for creating sequential

workflows, state machine workflow libraries used for creating state machine

workflows, and activity libraries used for creating a set of activities that can be

reused in future workflow solutions.

Collect Signatures Gathers signatures needed to complete

a Microsoft Office document. This

workflow can only be initiated from

within an Office application.

Collect Signatures Workflow

(Folder Name = SignaturesWorkflow)

Disposition Approval Manages document expiration and

retention by allowing participants to

decide whether to retain or to expire

documents.

Disposition Approval Workflow

(Folder Name = ExpirationWorflow)

Translation Management Manages document translation by cre-

ating copies of the documents to be

translated and assigning translation

tasks to the translators.

Translation Management Workflow

(Folder Name = TranslationWorkflow)

Table 18.3 SharePoint Server 2007 Predefined Workflows (continued)

Workflow Name Description Feature Name in Browser