Workflows

Question

Hello SharePoint experts,

This is my first post to the forum.  Though an experienced coder, I’m new to SharePoint.  I’d like to create a few different workflows in order to better track certain business processes.  I have the below details of a certain process.  I have employee roles in CAPs, actions in <>, and objects/files in [].  

Is there a way to use this detail to create workflows (maybe in SP Designer/ Visual Studio?) or do I have to use the dropdown menus for each step?

1. EXECUTIVE <requests> [report] from TEAM LEAD
2. TEAM LEAD <forwards> [request] for [report] to proper EMPLOYEE
3. EMPLOYEE <replies> to [request] with the requested [report], which gets sent to to TEAM LEAD
4. If TEAM LEAD <approves> [report], jump to #5.  If TEAM LEAD <rejects> [report], jump to #2.
5. TEAM LEAD <forwards> [report] to EXECUTIVE
6. If EXECUTIVE <approves> [report], mark request as 'APPROVED'.  If EXECUTIVE <rejects> [report], jump to #1.

Please let me know if I can provide any further detail and thank you in advance for any helpful advice.  I look forward to becoming more involved in the community.

Regards,

Peter

Answer 1

You can maintain this matrix in a SharePoint list and in a SharePoint Designer Workflow, you can do routing using a lookup.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-designer-help/define-a-workflow-lookup-HA010237830.aspx#BM7

Thanks

Guru

Answer 2

If you are asking if you can take the pseudo code you listed and have SPD somehow create a workflow from it, then the answer is no. You will need to use the Actions and Conditons dropdowns from the SPD ribbons to create the workflows. In theory, you could hand craft the XML of a SPD workflow, but I can't imagine it would be worth the effort.

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Mike Smith TechTrainingNotes.blogspot.com

Answer 3

Thank you, Guru.  I did check out the URL - however, I was more asking if I could take the language from my process flow above and create a workflow from it, avoiding the GUI of dropdown menus that are used.

It sounds like, from Mike's reply below, that this isn't currently possible (at least, easily).

Thank you for your reply,

Peter

Answer 4

Mike -

Thank you for your reply.  

That's what I feared.  I was trying to avoid the dropdown menus as well as having to go into the backend code, but it sounds like I can't have my pie and eat it, too.

I'll proceed by seeing what I can do in handcrafting the XML of a workflow.  Any helpful resources?  Otherwise, from first thought, I think I'll just have to map each of the steps in my process flow above to corresponding SP workflow XML code.

Thanks again,

Peter