datapolis guest expert presentation: limitations of sharepoint designer by bjoern h. rapp
DESCRIPTION
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.comTRANSCRIPT
Limitations of SharePoint Designer
Bjoern H 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