Post on 12-Nov-2014
description
SHAREPOINT AND PROJECT CONFERENCE ADRIATICS 2013
ZAGREB, NOVEMBER 27-28 2013
Five Best Practices for Approaching Workflow Solutions
MIKE FITZMAURICE, NINTEX
sponsors
About me
• Mike Fitzmaurice
• Vice President of Product Technology, Nintex
• 11 years at Microsoft
• SharePoint’s original technical evangelist
Introduction
• There are more than five
• These are extra top-of-mind
• Based on real-world projects
• Advice applies to any workflow product
• No demos
Don’t Always Use SharePoint Workflow
Good Uses of SharePoint Workflow
• Managing how people work
• Document approval & feedback
• Collaborative reviews & discussions
• Gathering signatures
Good Uses of SharePoint Workflow
• Automating some of SharePoint’s behavior
• Approve site creation requests
• Parse incoming email in a list and act on it
• Publishing items to target
• Moving project proposals through lifecycles
Possible Uses of SharePoint Workflow
• Manipulating other applications, data sources
• Employee onboarding
• Resource scheduling
• SharePoint lists become work queues
Bad Uses of SharePoint Workflow
• Transaction-oriented processes
• Blocking or modifying activity
• Application-to-application service activity
• Aggressive data transformations
• Work that doesn’t involve SharePoint at all
Plan to Fail
Consensus May Not Exist
• Get 3 employees and 1 manager together
• Talk about a process
• Little agreement
• Documentation disagreement, too
The Process Will Change
Exceptions are Initially Ignored
• Rarely is this considered in advance
• Rarely does everyone agree
• Ignored exceptions lead to bypass
Initial Failure as a Winning Strategy
• People do not want to hear these hard truths.
• You may have to create an initial workflow just to show
how awful a process is.
• Only then can you change it.
Process
Step
Step
Step
Start Simple
Automatethisfirst
Automatetheselater
Focus on Everyday Process
“Policy is the abdication of thought.”-Nathan Myrvold
Everyday Processes
• Steal time
• Get in the way
• Annoy users
Everyday Processes
• Have few stakeholders (even if many participants)
• Are easier to automate
• Free up time to focus on more critical stuff
“Process is the preservation and reuse of thought.”-Mike Fitzmaurice
Everyday Processes
• Automating them trains users how to think
Put Forms in Their Proper Place
The Form is the User Interface
• Not the workflow
• Not the data
If (x and y) then do this do thatEnd if
If (user is Bob) then do this and that and the other thing undo thatEnd if
If (x and y) then do this do thatEnd if
If (x and y) then do this do thatEnd if
If (user is Bob) then do this and that and the other thing undo thatEnd if
If (x and y) then do this do thatEnd if
Form-Only App Problems
• Hidden logic
• Disconnected logic
• Security
• Complexity without code
User Interface
Process Logic Data Access
Begin Step 1
Step 2Step 3
End
Think About the Whole App
Make the Workflow Do the Work
• Documented
• Auditable
• Easier to change
• Easier to manage
One Form Per Step
• Submit
• Start
• Task
Task Forms
• Workflow can route new data
• New data can be written to original form
• All info can be sent to other places
It’s Not All About Spreadsheets, Either• Same problem, different file type
• Example: HUGE Excel file with macros
• Workflow: route, track, remind
Self-Reporting Workflows
Least-Loved Techniques
• Browsing individual history entries
• Building custom reports
You’re Already Using SharePoint
• The list itself can be the report
• Users can sort, group, filter on metadata
• Write progress information to item properties
• Stage Workflows already do this
Summary
• Don’t always use SharePoint Workflow
• Plan to fail
• Focus on everyday processes
• It’s not about forms
• Self-reporting workflows
questions?
MIKEFITZMAURICE.WORDPRESS.COM
@MIKEFITZ
thank you.
SHAREPOINT AND PROJECT CONFERENCE ADRIATICS 2013
ZAGREB, NOVEMBER 27-28 2013
Make Metadata do the Work
Avoid Hard-Coding
• Task assignees
• Site URLs
• Document names
Reference What You Need
• List queries
• Database queries
• Web service calls
• Workflow context