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K2 Blackpearl and
Microsoft SharePoint
K2 blackpearl extends built-in SharePoint workflow features by providing a
rich, graphical user interface for designing workflows and more powerful
business process applications. K2 blackpearl templates and wizards can manage
SharePoint documents and list items, sites and users, and the metadata
associated with these entities. Process data about blackpearl workflows
deployed on SharePoint can be exposed through the SharePoint Business Data
Catalog.
MICROSOFT OFFICE SHAREPOINT SERVER 2007
K2 [BLACKPEARL] ENTERPRISE WORKFLOW FEATURES
DESIGNING WORKFLOWS WITH K2 [BLACKPEARL]
THE K2 WEB DESIGNER FOR SHAREPOINT
SHAREPOINT AND THE K2 DESIGNER FOR VISUAL STUDIO
CREATING AND USING SMARTOBJECTS TO ENCAPSULATE DATA
MANAGING SHAREPOINT CONTENT WITH [BLACKPEARL]
USING SEARCH RESULTS IN A PROCESS
PUBLISHING CONTENT WITH [BLACKPEARL]
MICROSOFT OFFICE SHAREPOINT SERVER 2007
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) is an enterprise collaboration
platform. MOSS is the first Microsoft platform to implement Windows Workflow
Foundation (WF) to facilitate basic content and document approval in the MOSS
environment. MOSS provides the host application required to execute the
workflows based on WF.
WINDOWS WORKFLOW FOUNDATION (WF)
Like Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Presentation Foundation,
Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) is a core piece of the .NET Framework 3.0, and
is the platform for building workflow into applications. WF is not a server or
an application. It is a hosted, in-process engine that provides the framework
used to build a client or server application with process capabilities.
K2 [BLACKPEARL] ENTERPRISE WORKFLOW
FEATURES
While the MOSS workflow features built on the WF platform are useful for
gathering document feedback and simple document approval, it does not include
options enterprises need for typical end-to-end and complex workflow scenarios.
K2 blackpearl brings features to MOSS that address enterprise workflow solution
requirements such as:
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A graphical workflow-design experience that is intuitive and easy to use for
business users
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The ability for multi-site actions, such as moving documents between MOSS sites
or publishing list items to a different site
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Escalation potential based on working hours, custom actions, calendars,
out-of-office and presence*
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Capacity for transactional communication with systems outside the MOSS
environment
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Dynamic task assignment, reassignment, and deletion capabilities
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Presence-based, round robin, skill or role-based task allocation options*
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A unified view of all tasks assigned to an individual across multiple sites and
portals in the MOSS environment
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Detailed auditing and dynamic, user-designed reporting capabilities
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The ability to version process definitions at development and deployment
including process instances
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A wizard-driven, integrated, graphical workflow design experience in Visual
Studio where developers can write code to extend a workflow or incorporate
advanced requirements
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Scalable workflow execution that won't affect the performance of the MOSS
environment
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Different InfoPath views based on the workflow state or the ability to attach
multiple InfoPath forms to the same workflow for granular security
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Tools that enable the creation, configuration and population of sites, lists,
libraries, records, and publishing pages in MOSS as a result of a business
process
DESIGNING WORKFLOWS WITH K2 [BLACKPEARL]
Designing workflows that integrate and extend the SharePoint workflow
capability is accomplished through a blackpearl workflow designer. The
following workflow designers are currently available or will be made available
in the future.
K2 Web Designer for SharePoint: offers a graphical workflow
design experience for business users who do not desire or have the skills to
write custom code. Business users can design workflows inside MOSS using a set
of common, pre-defined workflow templates. An administrator is required to
deploy this service to a MOSS server farm. The K2 Web Designer includes a
subset of the K2 blackpearl features listed above
K2 Designer for Visio: an add-in to
Microsoft Office Visio 2007 allows any stencil-set to be used for modeling a
workflow. This enables existing drawings to be used to design and deploy a
workflow to SharePoint and workflows that are not associated with SharePoint.
Business Analyst Designer: a Microsoft
Office 2007-style designer for the business user, with a Ribbon UI and many of
the advanced features found in K2 Designer for Visual Studio.
K2 Designer for Visual Studio: offers a
graphical workflow design experience for developers that can be used to design
custom workflows and extend them with code. Developers design workflows inside
the Visual Studio 2005 development environment and have access to a range of
custom toolbox items and integrated wizards that enable even complex business
applications to be designed without writing new code.
All designers are available in the K2 blackpearl release
except the Business Analyst Designer. Details of the K2 Designer for Visual
Studio are covered in this article and the K2 Designer for Visio is covered in
the whitepaper K2 [blackpearl] and the 2007 Microsoft Office System.
THE K2 WEB DESIGNER FOR SHAREPOINT
The K2 Web Designer for SharePoint offers a set of built-in options to design
workflows for libraries and lists in a SharePoint site collection. These
non-modifiable templates enable business users to utilize a graphical design
surface inside SharePoint to assemble the types of workflows typical of
business environments. The main built-in options in the K2 Web Designer Sidebar
are Outcome Templates and Document Wizards. Outcome Templates describe one or
more actions a user can take, while Wizards define what happens as a result of
each action.
The following Outcomes Templates and Wizards are available in the K2 Web
Designer.
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Dragging and dropping templates and wizards from the sidebar in SharePoint
allows users the ability to graphically create workflows within the SharePoint
environment. Templates allow a quick way to configure common workflow actions
while wizards allow users to configure events based on those actions by
stepping through a series of wizard pages. Figure 3 shows a page from the Send
Mail wizard which captures information about the email message to be sent.
Contextual information fields, which display in green, contain information
about the SharePoint item, whether that is a list item or a document. Making
this information available in the wizard not only allows mails to contain
information related to the workflow process instance, but also allows potential
outcomes to be evaluated based on information within the SharePoint list or
library.
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Figure above shows a completed Approve - Decline workflow that has two events
resulting from the Approval action. An outcome was added to the Send Approval
Mail activity that allows the document to be copied to another document library
once it is approved.
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FORMS FOR ASSOCIATION, INSTANTIATION AND
TASKS
Forms are used in human-human and human-system workflows. In system-system
workflows, input is not needed from a person and a form is not required.
There are four forms used during a SharePoint workflow. These include the
association and instantiation forms used for attaching a workflow to a library
and starting a workflow on an item in the library. Task forms are used during
the workflow for users to act upon the workflow at a particular stage, for
example when a task is assigned to them. The last type of workflow form is used
to modify a workflow, such as assigning a task to another person. For more
information about these types of forms, see
Workflow Forms Overview (ASP.NET forms) and
InfoPath Forms for Workflows
on MSDN.
When designing a workflow with K2 Web Designer, ASP.NET forms are used
throughout the process. This includes a basic built-in association form for
assigning a workflow to a library or list, a basic instantiation form for
starting an instance of the workflow associated with a library or list, and a
basic task form. The task form is a system-generated form that is displayed
when a user needs to take action on a workflow instance. A task form is based
on the type of workflow and process data at that stage of the workflow.
Typically this form is displayed when a user clicks on an active task in the
worklist. With K2 Web Designer, it is not possible to modify or customize the
task form. Although beyond the scope of this whitepaper, the K2 Designer for
Visual Studio can be used to associate custom ASP.NET or InfoPath 2007 task
forms with the workflow. The InfoPath 2007 forms can be rendered in the browser
using InfoPath Forms Services, as either part of Microsoft Office SharePoint
Server 2007 Enterprise or Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007.
SHAREPOINT AND THE K2 DESIGNER FOR VISUAL
STUDIO
The K2 Designer for Visual Studio is an integrated business process design
environment hosted inside Visual Studio. Integrated debugging and hosting of
the Windows Workflow Foundation runtime allows processes to be started from a
blackpearl wizard or from a custom WF schedule. Support for full bi-directional
context between blackpearl and WF means that data can be passed between a K2
blackpearl application and activity objects, and objects associated with a WF
schedule. Breakpoints can be set in the process, the WF schedule, the WF XAML
(.xoml) file, or the code.
There are four main components of K2 Designer for Visual Studio, illustrated in
the following figures.
CREATING AND USING SMARTOBJECTS TO
ENCAPSULATE DATA
SmartObjects play a central role in blackpearl process design and management.
With a SmartObject it is possible to create a single entity to encapsulate data
from multiple sources. For example, data about a company employee is typically
stored in multiple backend databases whether they are proprietary systems,
Active Directory, custom databases, or SharePoint.
MANAGING SHAREPOINT CONTENT WITH
[BLACKPEARL]
K2 blackpearl allows the design of processes to manage content located in
SharePoint sites and site collections. Items such as documents in libraries,
list data in standard or custom lists, and all metadata associated with
documents and lists can be managed with blackpearl processes. Different types
of SharePoint sites, such as Records Centers and Publishing sites, have
different content management needs, and blackpearl allows management of
specific types of content based on the type of site.
When SharePoint sites and URLs need to be reorganized, blackpearl enables
applications and policies to be built to manage and control how sites, existing
content within the sites, and the URLs associated with those sites are
reorganized. Because blackpearl supports standard and custom SharePoint site
templates, new sites can be created in a uniform way through the use of these
templates, either as part of site reorganization or the provisioning of new
SharePoint sites.
There are several event wizards that can be added to a
SharePoint process using the event wizards available on the Studio Toolbox.
These events allow a user to create and modify sites and workspaces, list
items, documents, records, publishing pages, and users.
Using the SharePoint Events Process component from the Toolbox, a user can
monitor events such as list item additions, changes, and deletions, or similar
events that occur in a library or list. Once a SharePoint event process is
added and configured, any number of event components can be added as shown in
Figure above.
For example, dragging the SharePoint Workflow Integration process onto the
design canvas displays a wizard to create a new SharePoint process and
associate it with a SharePoint library or content type.
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Once the process is associated with a document library, adding a SharePoint the
SharePoint Document event wizard allows a user to pick from a list of actions
to take on a document as shown in Figure above.
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USING SEARCH RESULTS IN A PROCESS
With the increased searching capabilities of the 2007 SharePoint products and
technologies, reliable search results are a powerful tool for determining what
kind of content is present on the site. Search results can show a complete view
of particular content from multiple sites in a site collection, which is also
useful in business applications. K2 blackpearl includes the ability to use
search results from SharePoint in a business application.
Using the SharePoint Search event wizard, a user can configure a search query
on a type of list or a specific list on a specific site. When searching on a
type of list, a user can limit the search to a specific site or broaden the
scope to the entire site collection.
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As shown in Figure above, parameters based on specific fields can be added to
the search query to return results based on certain criteria, which can be
entered or retrieved from the process data. Boolean comparisons of the
parameters can be configured to further control the final search results.
PUBLISHING CONTENT WITH [BLACKPEARL]
In a Publishing site, blackpearl includes options for publishing pages and controlling the content located on these pages, as shown in Figure 18. Publishing pages typically require two steps: Approval and Publish. With blackpearl, these steps can be handled in the same workflow, encapsulating this two-step process within a single process for easier page creation and updating. If two or more approvals are required for a page to be created or updated, the process can be extended to accommodate that business need and automate the publishing of the content once both approvals are gathered.
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