To begin with, the CEBs belong in a document library. Email is a bad mechanism for delivering mission-critical content. You connect to the Global Marketing site on the KCD intranet and create a document library to store the CEBs.
■Note
In a real production system, the CEBs would likely be a candidate for a content type. There are numerous other settings, such as versioning, permissions, and so forth, that would need to be taken into consideration. For this simple scenario, let’s skip all this and put the workflow directly on the document library.After creating the new document library, you need to configure the workflow settings. The process to do this varies depending on whether this is your first workflow for the document library or whether you have previously configured workflows to be available in the document library. In either case, the process begins the same: From the toolbar inside the document library you select Settings ➤ Document Library Settings and in the resulting screen, select Workflow Settings in the Permissions and Management section.
Now the process changes slightly. If this is not the first workflow instance on the document library, you’ll see a screen similar to the one in Figure 3-2. It allows you to either change (or remove) an existing workflow instance, add a new one, or view workflow reports (we’ll cover workflow reports in Chapter 9). If this is the first workflow instance on the document library, you will be taken directly to the Add a Workflowscreen, shown in Figure 3-3. For the CEB process, if you are shown the screen in Figure 3-2, just click the Add a workflow link to proceed to the next screen.
Figure 3-2. If you already have workflows in a document library, this screen allows you to change them or add a new workflow.
Figure 3-3. Configuring one of the out-of-the-box workflows is a simple matter of filling in a form in the document library settings.
Regardless of how you arrived at it, the Add a Workflow screen (shown in Figure 3-3) allows you to specify how the workflows that are available on your site will be customized to meet your particular needs. Finishing the setup of the workflow for the CEB process is fairly straight- forward. On the Add a Workflow screen there are six basic settings to configure. Table 3-2 gives details on each of these settings as well as the value to provide for our CEB workflow.
Table 3-2. Configuring the Add a Workflow Screen for the CEB Process Option Setting for CEB
Scenario
Notes
Workflow Approval In this section at the top of the screen, you will see
the default workflows listed. Each custom workflow represents an instance of one of the available templates. Later in the book we will create new workflow templates and deploy them so that they show up as available templates in this list.
Name CEB Approval Each workflow instance must have a distinct name.
While any name is permissible here, it is important to remember that this is the name that will be shown to end users, so it should be short but descriptive.
Because Mary needs to specify the appropriate product manager for the particular CEB, we’ll have her start the workflow manually.
This first screen in the process of configuring a workflow will be exactly the same for all workflows. The information you provide here is used to create the new workflow instance. Click the Next button at the bottom of the screen to continue customizing our new workflow instance. The screen that appears next, shown in Figure 3-4, will be unique to each and every workflow template. While the specific options available on this second screen will be different for each workflow, the general gist of the next screen will be similar. This second screen is used for configuring each instance of the workflow by providing values for the settings the workflow requires in order to execute. In some cases, this will simply be the names of the people to assign tasks to. In other cases, there may be significant additional metadata that must be provided in order for the workflow to process. The ultimate decision for this lies with the builder.
Task List Tasks Presumably, all workflows in Office 2007 are going to
create and assign tasks to participants. To accomplish this, a SharePoint list needs to be designated as the task list for each instance of a workflow, including our CEB Approval instance. Depending on your needs, you can either select an existing list from the drop-down or choose to have a new list created. Having a unique list for each instance keeps things cleaner, but it does create a number of potentially extraneous lists. Having all workflow tasks in one list is not as straightforward, but it keeps down your list count. For our purposes here, select the option to use the existing task list.
History List New History List The history list for a workflow does exactly what the
name implies—it stores a record of the activities and actions taken by the workflow instance and its participants.
Start Options Manual The Start options allow you to specify the conditions and
circumstances that allow your workflow instance to be kicked off. The basic options are
Manual: A user needs to step through the UI and choose to kick off this workflow. You can further fine-tune the setting to indicate which permissions the user must have in order to be able to start the workflow. You can require either Edit Items (the default) or Manage Lists.
New Item Created: The workflow is kicked off whenever a new item is added in the document library.
Item Changed: The workflow is kicked off whenever an item is updated in the document library.
Table 3-2. Configuring the Add a Workflow Screen for the CEB Process Option Setting for CEB
Scenario
Figure 3-4. The second screen in creating a new workflow is used to supply metadata for the specific workflow instance.
Table 3-3 gives the details for each option on this second screen, along with the values to provide for our CEB scenario.
Table 3-3. Configuring the Customize Workflow Screen for the CEB Process
Section Option Setting for
CEB Scenario Notes Workflow Tasks Assign Tasks To One Participant at a Time (serial)
Checked This option allows you to specify
how tasks are assigned. For our purposes, we want to make sure that the director of Global Marketing is assigned the review task before the product manager. In the case of the other option (parallel), all participants would be assigned their tasks simultaneously.
Workflow Tasks
Allow Workflow Participants To Reassign the Task to Another Person
Unchecked Allows participants to delegate
tasks. For the CEB process, the director must review each document. Business rules prohibit this from being delegated. Workflow Tasks Request a Change Before Completing the Task
Checked If the director requires that
changes be made to the document, he can request that Mary make these changes and then resubmit the document for approval.
Default Workflow Start Values
Approvers <two valid
usernames in your environment>
Since we’ve opted for a serial assignment of tasks, it is important that the names entered here be in the proper order—the first person named will receive their task first and the second will receive their task when the first is done. Default Workflow Start Values Assign a Single Task to Each Group Entered
Unchecked With this box unchecked, any
Active Directory, NTLM, or SharePoint groups entered will be expanded and each member will receive a task assignment. If the box is checked, a single task is assigned and any member of the group can complete it.
Default Workflow Start Values
Allow Changes to the Participant List When This Workflow Is Started
Unchecked If this option is checked, the person
manually starting the workflow will be given the opportunity to modify the approvers. For the CEB process, this is disallowed by a business rule.