Few questions on approval workflow

Question

Hi,

I am designing a custom approval workflow in Sharepoint Designer 2010 (copying and pasting the original workflow to make a copy!).

A few questions I have:

If I go to [Workflow name > Editor]

Are these steps the workflow takes?

If I now click under editor (Approval Workflow Task etc....) , it says its the page to modify the overall task process.

What is the difference between task/task process, etc?





Answer 1

1. When you Edit Workflow this define steps of workflow actions and condition.
2. Workflow steps (conditions and actions) are called Tasks process, But Task is workflow instance with its status.

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Tarek Yehia

http://sharepointserver-2007.blogspot.com/

Answer 2

I see.

One last question (it may be repetition):

If I am adding custom actions (E.g. delete an AD user as part of the workflow or whatever), there are 2 screens, one which lists one action in the workflow, and the other with the various sections such as for events like approval workflow started, completed, cancelled, etc. For this action (my custom business-logic actions), where should they be placed?

Answer 3

Hi ,

I understand that you are editing the approval workflow .The task process exists in the approval process action  .It is called process because there may be multiple approvers .Task process contains all the task creation ,completion .The tasks can be created ‘all at once’ or ‘in  parallel ’ .You can either edit the behavior of a single behavior or edit the overall task process .

Since you are adding custom actions ,you can add it under the ‘Start Approval Process’ action ,or you can add it inside the approval process .It is based on your purpose .If you want to execute the custom action after the approval process ,you can add the action under the ‘Start Approval Process ’ .If you want to execute the action while the task process is running ,you can add the action by ‘Change the behavior of the overall task process’ .

Thanks

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Entan Ming

TechNet Community Support

Answer 4

Hi

Thanks for the reply.

Where is "start approval process" action?

Answer 5

Hi ,

You can add the custom action below the Start Approval Process like the picture shows:

If you want to execute  the custom action during the task process ,you can click on the ‘Approval Workflow Task(en-US) Copy3 ‘ to edit the task process and add the custom action by ‘change the behavior of a single task ’ or by ‘change the behavior of overall task process ’.

Thanks

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Entan Ming

TechNet Community Support

Answer 6

Thanks, that makes sense. I did indeed find the start approval workflow task bit after your last post.

So to sum up - tasks process is the workflow with its conditions and steps, and tasks is the workflow instance with its status.