One of the great new features introduced by SharePoint Designer is the ability to create and customize Workflows using predefined conditions and actions. Most Workflows created by SPD reference a list or library so before we get started, we'll create one of each:
Next, we'll open SharePoint Designer and create a new Workflow:
When the new Workflow wizard is launched, you're asked to provide a name for the Workflow. You're also asked which list/library to attach the Workflow to:
You are also asked when the Workflow should initiate. There are three options:
- Allow the Workflow to be started manually
- Start when a new item is created
- Start when an item is changed
In our example, we want a new task to be created when a new Expense Report is completed. The next step in the wizard is to define the steps of the Workflow. Here you can add custom conditions and actions:
Conditions allow you to specify when the Workflow should start. Some examples of using conditions include only requiring approval when expense reports are valued at over $200... or there could be different steps depending on the category of expenses, etc.
Actions are what you want to have happen. There are a number of actions available out of the box broken up into categories (Core Actions, List Actions, Task Actions) and you can even create your own Actions using Visual Studio. For this example we're going to Assign a To-do Item:
Now, when I upload a new expense report (or, even better, fill out an InfoPath form) the Expense Report Approval Workflow fires automatically:
You can see that a column also gets added with the name of the Workflow showing the current status. If we look at our tasks list you can see that a new task has been created and assigned to the "WSSDEMO Owners" site group. The task also has a link that links back to the source item:
This is just a basic example of how to use the out of the box Workflows available in SharePoint Designer. We'll explore some more interesting examples in future posts!