datapolis guest expert presentation: limitations of sharepoint designer by bjoern h. rapp

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This is the first presentantion of our Guest Expert series featuring SharePoint MVPs talking about workflows and process design in SharePoint. The presentation explains the limitations of SharePoint Designer in deploying workflow, when this tool is enough to model business processes and when you need to look for other solutions. AGENDA After watching this webinar you will learn how to: ✓ Improve processes with workflow logic ✓ Select the type of workflow which works the best for your process ✓ Use Visual Studio to create custom workflows for large-scale complex processes ✓ Choose SharePoint Designer, Visual Studio or 3rd party solutions depending on your needs SPEAKER Bjoern H. Rapp is Senior Software Engineer at Steria Norge, Microsoft SharePoint MVP, and the author of the book "Beginning SharePoint 2013 Workflows" . In his native Norway he is a leading figure of the local SharePoint community, organizing such events as SharePoint Saturday Oslo. Visit his blog: SharePointViking.com

TRANSCRIPT

Limitations of SharePoint Designer

Bjoern H Rapp

Me

www.sharepointviking.com

@bjoern_rapp

Agenda• Workflow Design in SharePoint

Designer – overview• SharePoint Designer limitations• DataPolis Process System

The big SharePoint workflow picture

SharePoint Designer as a workflow tool

Workflow Types • List Workflows• Reusable Workflows • Site Workflows

Creating a List Workflow

Selecting Actions

Using conditions

Packaging and Publishing

Configuration Settings

Sounds good for some.. maybe not for everyone

SharePoint Designer 2013 Limitations • A general tool for creating non-code

SharePoint solutions• Creating and modifying site assets, site

columns and content types• Creating and modifying sites and lists• LOB Data Integration• Web publishing• Workflow Creation

• Not a 100% clean Workflow authoring application!!

SharePoint Designer 2013 Limitations cont. • No native built-in visual designer

• Text-based designer default, not optimal for many business users

• Visual Designer only available via licensed version of Visio 2013 Professional.

SharePoint Designer 2013 Limitations cont. • Limited extensibility

• Building custom actions requires programming skills and access to Visual Studio

• Insecure future regarding Forms support• InfoPath forms requires Enterprise

version of SharePoint 2013• InfoPath will be deprecated in

future SharePoint versions

SharePoint Designer 2013 Limitations cont. • Limited debugging options

• Only validation and well-formed checks available via «Check for Errors»

• No in-place testing capacity. • Debugging via adding lots of

«Send to History» actions!

SharePoint Designer 2013 Limitations cont. • Maybe most important of them all....

• SharePoint Designer is a potentially «dangerous» tool in the wrong hands..!!!

• Many organizations impose restrictions on the use of SharePoint Designer.

Using Datapolis Process system as an alternative for designing workflows

Workflow Designer (former Datapolis Workbox) • Visual process designer for business users • Visual activities designer for technical users

Datapolis Process System Overview

Workflow as Application and Application in Workflow• Any workflow can be converted into Application • Applications can be built using any external tool • Applications be used inside workflows and by external solutions

Central Administration • Single list to control all workflows across the farm• Workflow and Application maintenance permission structure• Performance monitoring diagnostics

Drag and drop designer to model a process

Powerful activity designer to automate functionality

Workflow as an application

Applications – unique selling points

Process 1

App 1

App 3

App 2

App 1

Process 2

Process 3

Pro

cess

1P

roce

ss 4

Pull common processes into a single repository • Fast changes adoption in the whole workflow system

• Coherent and up-to-date process definition in the whole system

Parallel sub processes • More then one task can be executed at the same time

• The workflow definition remains clear and understable

• One process executed many times at the same moment

Build a workflow for pre-install contact..

…another one for the post-install contact

Apps will appear in the upper right

Use an application inside other workflows…

Dragging and dropping the application on a confirmation state

Defining activities for an action

Order Workflow and Roles

Viewing List Items by Workflow State

Monitoring instance history

Examples of monitorable processes

How many items finish each hour, day, week?

How regular is the flow?

Which item took the longest to complete the process?

How long did that item take?

Which item completed the process fastest?

How long did that item take?

Which sub-process takes the longest?

How long does an item wait in a given state?

Datapolos Solutions Management

Datapolis Solutions Management

Logging

Summary

Questions?

Check the online test site:

http://sharepoint2013.datapolis.com

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