No Need Any Programming
This post could otherwise be titled “Workflow Hell.” It's where I've been for the past couple weeks. Granted Beta2 just came out but for those of us who can't wait, we stick our hands in and get all confused on what it isn't documented yet. There are essentially 3 ways to do workflow on the new Office Server platform... I think. Basic built in workflow, Sharepoint Designer Workflows and custom workflows via VS2005.
I've done all 3. The basic one doesn't address anything but the absolute most basic of business needs. I can't think of an example of when, in legal anyway, these workflows would meet basic business processes (it is legal afterall). The Sharepoint Designer one is very limited. It is an If..else if... statement only. I think VS2005 workflows are the most promising; however, even when I walked step by step, remembering back to my C Programming 101 class in college... We had this instructor whom, if you called for help, would literally make you read your code letter by letter. Seriously “Hello, Mr. Raymond, yea, I just can't figure it out and... “ ... “yes,... I - F *space* m y v a r i a b l e *space* ... “ all the way through from the start of your code til the line you were having a problem on. I think maybe this was before email was big (am I that old?). Anyway, I walked through that walk through at least 4 times... line for line... and I never did get it to run. Always some wierd error about a null value when the workflow never even invoked to the first line in my assembly... clearly something on the server.
For the first time in my career, I actually considered giving up. I gave my brain one more attempt to figure something out for my demo on Monday morning... and, finally, I got something.
I created a simple InfoPath form with 4 main “intiation” fields. Name, Address, Start Date, for example. Then I created a Form Library based on said form as the content type. Then I created a submit data connection in the content type which threw the data back at custom fields in the content type. Each time the user selected new, a new entry was built in the library with the 4 main pieces of data.
I then designed a workflow in Sharepoint Designer. I don't think Sharepoint Designer is going to be robust enough to actually handle the totality of this project. In the end, I got it to work. I've never done a proof of concept demo without it looking nice and this doesn't look nice but it works. I created a custom view on the library to show only my custom fields and then the task list with it's own custom view. When you create a new item, the workflow kicks off, initiating a new task to an assigned user and shooting them an email with pertinent information (and hopefully someday a link directly to the edit item but I could never figure out how to make a link work). They edit their task using a bunch of custom fields, the workflow notes the completed task target and write the extended properties back to the original list item... then kicks off the next sequential task on the item... It works... it isn't pretty but it works.
I never found much documentation on workflow. It appears that the VS SDK kit was taken down after Beta1TR and the Beta2 version isn't out yet. I think perhaps the documentation and template for Beta1TR has something out of whack for Beta2. I bet that the VS development gets a lot easier after that.
I've also spent the recent past creating my first DotNetNuke site. My webhost for my personal hobby went bust.. pulled the plug and bailed on all their customers, no word nothing..locking down domains and everything... so in my geekdom, I ported the site to another windows provider and redid the whole thing using DotNetNuke. It was pretty fun well aside from the NIGHTMARE of getting control of my domain name again!