Workflow Design and User Experience

Workflow Design Experience

Unlike generic SharePoint Workflow using Visual Studio, our SharePoint Workflow Designer does not require the business analyst to be a software engineer. The workflow designer is graphical in nature and based on a UML Activity Diagram with swim lanes denoting roles (or actors) for each assignment or action in the process. Furthermore, all of the sophisticated constructs needed to perform advanced business processes such as loops, sub-processes, notifications, approval by vote, etc., are all contained within the designer. This makes the job of defining the business process in its entirety a simple and straightforward task.

When the workflow is properly described, it takes only the click of a mouse to publish the workflow to SharePoint, at which point it becomes immediately operations.

Workflow User Experience

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Key to reaping the rewards of being a process oriented enterprise is the ease with which end users adopt and participate in workflows. The good news here is that our workflow system requires little to no learning on the part of end users because it is simply an extension of the SharePoint use model. There are two (2) key webparts used by knowledge workers: the process list and the task list.

Process List

The Process List keeps track of any work items you initiate. This allows you to keep track of them, know when they are overdue or being delayed by someone whose been assigned a task for the work item, and see each and every disposition and comment made about the item. The list is highly configurable by both system administrators and end users, so they are able to configure what they need to see to keep track of their submitted items. Documents, forms or list items can all be run through a workflow and tracked in the process list, by site or all sites on SharePoint installation.

Task List

The task list keeps track of the work assignment each user has. Task lists can be per site or rolled-up into a single list with all work assignments from all SharePoint sites. Simply clicking on the work item brings up the associated form that controls the item (either a form or document metadata).