Creating Visio 2010 Workflows and using them in SharePoint 2010 (Part 1)

 

I’ve recently needed to create a few SharePoint 2010 workflows for my client.

Originally I would’ve created them in SharePoint Designer directly but decided to give the new Visio feature a go, to test the rapid deployment and real world business use of the SharePoint – Visio workflow integration.  The following is the example I use to test the theory.

Thereafter I’ll be deploying it in my following weeks session:

1. Begin by starting up Visio 2010 and selecting Flowchart from the new menu
2. From the Flowchart folder create a new file using Microsoft SharePoint Workflow template
3. Click the create button in the right hand pane
4. In the Quick shapes toolbox on the left hand side and drag and drop a start and terminate control onto your diagram
5. Now that you’ve place them on your page, lets create a simple workflow by dragging on the following components:	Compare Document Field Assign a to do Item 2 x Send an email
6. Connect them by dragging your mouse over the left/bottom of each representation to display the arrow (you’ll also notice smaller greyed icons, however disregard these for now as they are ‘quick steps’ ) You can also alternatively name the step by double clicking on it – note that this will not specify the value – the definitions being provided here are merely action steps for the workflow to be taken
7. Now layout your workflow to look like this, ensuring that you have created two connectors between the start the compare document fields and the first send an email:
8. Now place the Yes/No flag tags on the connectors moving out of the start actions, by right clicking the connector and selecting yes/no – a relevant yes/No will be displayed on the connector
9. Now that we’ve completed this – export the document to an accessible location on your machine – c:\compare_doc_workf
10. It will save the file with a VWI extension

 

Stay tuned for next week’s lesson, where I’ll be explaining the import of this file in to SharePoint Designer 2010 and the following week where I’ll show you how to deploy and use it from within a Document library