Workflow projects present special challenges. They involve many parts of solution architecture (user interfaces, process designs, data) and even more parts of organizations (users, managers, auditors, IT). This session covers five commonly-observed problems the speaker sees with great frequency, and offers advice as to how to address them; the focus is more about designing overall solutions and managing success than it is about coding and tool usage.
Mike Fitzmaurice
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Five Best Practices for Approaching Workflow Solutions
1. Five Best Practices for
Approaching Workflow Solutions
MIKE FITZMAURICE, NINTEX
SHAREPOINT AND PROJECT CONFERENCE ADRIATICS 2013
ZAGREB, NOVEMBER 27-28 2013
3. About me
• Mike Fitzmaurice
• Vice President of Product Technology, Nintex
• 11 years at Microsoft
• SharePoint’s original technical evangelist
4. Introduction
• There are more than five
• These are extra top-of-mind
• Based on real-world projects
• Advice applies to any workflow product
• No demos
7. Good Uses of SharePoint Workflow
• Managing how people work
• Document approval & feedback
• Collaborative reviews & discussions
• Gathering signatures
8. Good Uses of SharePoint Workflow
• Automating some of SharePoint’s behavior
• Approve site creation requests
• Parse incoming email in a list and act on it
• Publishing items to target
• Moving project proposals through lifecycles
9. Possible Uses of SharePoint Workflow
• Manipulating other applications, data sources
• Employee onboarding
• Resource scheduling
• SharePoint lists become work queues
10. Bad Uses of SharePoint Workflow
• Transaction-oriented processes
• Blocking or modifying activity
• Application-to-application service activity
• Aggressive data transformations
• Work that doesn’t involve SharePoint at all
15. Exceptions are Initially Ignored
• Rarely is this considered in advance
• Rarely does everyone agree
• Ignored exceptions lead to bypass
16. Initial Failure as a Winning Strategy
• People do not want to hear these hard truths.
• You may have to create an initial workflow just to show how awful
a process is.
• Only then can you change it.
27. The Form is the User Interface
• Not the workflow
• Not the data
28. If (x and y) then
do this
do that
End if
If (user is Bob) then
do this and that and the other thing
undo that
End if
If (x and y) then
do this
do that
End if
If (x and y) then
do this
do that
End if
If (user is Bob) then
do this and that and the other thing
undo that
End if
If (x and y) then
do this
do that
End if
35. Task Forms
• Workflow can route new data
• New data can be written to original form
• All info can be sent to other places
36. It’s Not All About Spreadsheets, Either
• Same problem, different file type
• Example: HUGE Excel file with macros
• Workflow: route, track, remind
40. You’re Already Using SharePoint
• The list itself can be the report
• Users can sort, group, filter on metadata
• Write progress information to item properties
• Stage Workflows already do this
41.
42. Summary
• Don’t always use SharePoint Workflow
• Plan to fail
• Focus on everyday processes
• It’s not about forms
• Self-reporting workflows