SharePoint Workflows

Workflow is the technology introduced by Microsoft for both .net and SharePoint, Workflow involves automation of a business process, in entire or part, during which documents, information or tasks are passed from one person to another person to perform for action(Approve/Reject/Initiate) according to a set of procedural rules.

Workflow is a system that manages the execution of a business process.  Many organizations implement workflows for many different reasons such as:

Better efficiency

Auditing and tracking

Easy tracking

Gives efficient reports

Consistency

Better customer support

Easy to implement out of the box workflow

Workflow actually breaks into smaller parts called activity, there is provision to create the workflow in two different ways

1. 1     Sequential by Sequential Workflow where the task and process execution is done in predefined sequence and assigned to next level based on the outcome of each step
2. 2 State Machine workflow involves the undefined steps and it depends on the behavior of each state of the activity.

Activity:  activity is the workflow’s smallest piece or item that execute

There are three types of activities:

 Standard activities.

Control flow activities.

Container activities.

Standard Activities

Standard activities are those that perform some tasks like log history or sending an e-mail or executing

a .NET code or creating a task ect.

Control flow activities

Control flow activities are those that are used as decision points. Examples of control flow activities are if-else, while loop ect.

Container activities

Container activities are those that can host or execute other activities and create a composite activity.

Composite activities are those which involves one or more tasks or activities

Sequence activity, conditioned activities groups are some of the container activities.

Association Form

It is a form so that users associating the workflow can input the information.

Initiation Form

Initiation forms are used to get the input from users. This can also be used for overriding associated data for specific instances of the workflow

Task Forms

Tasks Forms are those that are presented to the users when the user is assigned a task, it asks the user to perform action on the item in SharePoint.