Human Workflow with Windows SharePoint Services and Office SharePoint Server 2007

The latest release of Windows SharePoint Services, Microsoft’s flagship collaboration software, includes built-in support for executing human workflows. Developers can create workflows for this environment using Visual Studio, while information workers can use a new tool called SharePoint Designer 2007. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, part of the 2007 Microsoft Office system, builds on the basic capabilities of Windows SharePoint Services, adding pre-defined workflows and more. This section provides an overview of these technologies.
The easiest way to understand how Windows SharePoint Services supports human workflow is to walk through a scenario. The figure below shows a slightly simplified illustration of document approval using a SharePoint workflow.





True to its role as collaboration software, Windows SharePoint Services lets users create sites, each of which can contain document libraries and lists. A document library might contain a collection of Word documents, PDF files, or other things, while a list is just a collection of items. Rather than reinvent new concepts, the human workflow capabilities in Windows SharePoint Services build on these basics.
In this example, the workflow allows a number of participants to approve or reject a document stored in a document library. To start this workflow, the initiator uses Internet Explorer or another Web browser to select the document, then chooses an existing workflow definition to execute (step 1). Workflows can also be started automatically, such as by adding a new document to a document library. However it’s done, Windows SharePoint Services now begins executing the workflow.
To let workflow participants know that they have something to do, the workflow adds a task to each participant’s task list (step 2). This task list is just an ordinary SharePoint list—there’s nothing special about it—that’s used to let a running workflow inform participants of waiting tasks. Each participant then checks his or her task list using a Web browser or Microsoft Outlook 2007 (step 3), and finds a request to review this document. Each participant can review the document (step 4), then interact directly with the running workflow through a custom form to indicate approval or rejection (step 5), perhaps adding comments. Once all of the workflow’s participants have done this, the workflow informs the initiator that it’s done.
This example omits several possibilities. The workflow’s initiator might be able to customize the workflow’s behavior, for example, such as by controlling whether the participants are assigned tasks sequentially or all at once. It might also be possible to change a particular workflow instance while it’s running, such as by adding another person to the list of approvers. Still, this simple illustration shows the basics of human workflow support in Windows SharePoint Services today.
Office SharePoint Server builds on these services to provide more workflow options. Unlike Windows SharePoint Services, which is a standard component of Windows Server 2003, Office SharePoint Server is a separately licensed product. Organizations that choose to use it have more workflow capabilities, including the following:

• The ability to interact with workflows directly from Office 2007 applications. As described earlier, Windows SharePoint Services alone mostly supports interacting with workflows through a browser.
• The ability to define the forms a workflow displays using InfoPath. Workflows built solely on Windows SharePoint Services rely on forms created with ASP.NET.
• A group of customizable pre-defined workflows for document approval and other purposes.

Along with these human workflow additions, Office SharePoint Server also provides a range of other functions, including document management, broad search capabilities, support for blogs and wikis, and more.