How to create a 3 step workflow in SharePoint Designer

how to create a three-step workflow in SharePoint designer this tutorial is brought to you by two senior computer information systems students from James Madison University the students worked with the CIS faculty to create a project to implement SharePoint in programming logic into lower-level College of Business and computer information system classes SharePoint workflows can teach the logics of loops ifs if else's and and conditional statements for this example we used if if else's and conditional statements for this video we created a workflow for an MBA admissions business case the workflow you see replicates the logic that will be created during the workflow the system represents the actions carried out by SharePoint now Lauren will take you through a step-by-step tutorial and how to create this three-step workflow in SharePoint I'm going to begin by showing you how to develop a workflow and designer and then we'll go over the logic of the workflow and its implementation and SharePoint so to begin you're going to download SharePoint designer after this has been completed go to your Start menu and click on the SharePoint designer button the first thing you need to do is sync SharePoint designer with the SharePoint site that you want to make a workflow for we're going to be using the workflow demo site so you're going to click open site and then go to your sites page and copy the site address you're going to paste this into the site name and delete everything up into the name of the site then click open you'll be prompted to enter your user name and password so do that and then click OK after this has been completed we'll be synced with our SharePoint site and now any updates we publish on here will appear on our site so what we want to do today is develop a workflow but there's a lot of other functionality with SharePoint designer to access the workflows go to the left-hand navigation pane and click workflow we're going to make a list workflow this means that our workflow is going to be synced with a specific list in SharePoint it can be a library a task list or whatever else you choose but we're going to be using the shared documents of our team site so we're going to go to list workflow and select shared documents and we're going to call this application workflow so after you've named your workflow click OK and we're prompted to begin putting the logic in for our workflow the logic begins with a condition this is something that must be met for the workflow to be triggered since this is synced with shared documents whatever we decide has to relate to the shared documents library because this is an application for an MBA admissions process business case we want to make sure that all applicants submit their application and their GMAT score therefore our first condition is going to require that the name of a document in shared documents library has both the words application and GMAT in its name before this workflow can be triggered all the conditions available in SharePoint designer are accessible through this conditions button after each condition there's a subsequent action this is something that's going to occur in SharePoint once the condition has been met these can all be accessed from this action button in addition we will provide you with documentation including all of the conditions all the actions and descriptions echh so to begin we're going to select the condition if any value equals value because we're using an and statement we want the name to contain GMAT and application we want to do that right now so we're going to highlight the if statement or the condition that you've just created go back to the condition button and select the next one as you can see it says and which will require that both of these conditions are met now we're going to click on value and enter the in the value for our first condition this is going to look at our document library and make sure that the current net current item name is equal to application so the data source is current item and we want to look for the field of name you want to choose this version and click OK and we don't want it to equal application we want to contain application since there's more than one word that we want to use so we're going to use contains ignoring case and the value we want is of course the word application now for our enzyme we're going to do the same thing we want the current item name to contain an or encase the word Jima okay so now every time you upload a document in the shared documents library and you initiate the workflow it's going to tech to see if it contains these two words if it does then we want an action to occur we're linked we're going to use a few other libraries with this workflow just because this workflow is synced with the shared documents library it doesn't mean you can't access and use other libraries with this workflow all it means is that you must upload a document into the shared documents library to initiate the workflow so we're going to use a working applications library and we're going to move a document here if it contains both of these words so we're going to start typing in our condition and you're going to select the list that we want it from which is current item and the list that we want it to go to which is working applications after this is done we want to assign a task a task as another type of list so again we can reference multiple lists from here assign it to do item and we're going to give this to the JMU clerk to notify them that an application is now in the working applications library so click on to-do item and this is wizard is going to prompt you to create the task so this task is going to be called verify completeness of application and what we're going to ask the clerk to do is to check the document in the working applications library and confirm that it contains the application and GMAT scores since we already have this workflow created this task name already exists so we're just going to call it - ok now we want to assign this to the J mu clerk so we're going to you can either start typing in their name or you can search for them through this list so let's the person that you want and click Add you can add multiple people but you have to have at least one that you're assigning this task to and click OK now the next step that we're going to create will not be initiated until the J mu clerk has gone in and clicked complete task that will initiate the next step in this workflow to try and speed up the process we've already completed this workflow and we want to show you how or late to the actions that occur in SharePoint so we're going to open up our completed workflow by going to workflows selecting demo workflow and once we click on the edit workflow link you will be able to see all the logic behind this workflow but something else we want to show you how to do is select one you want to work click to be triggered or initiated this is done through the start options of workflows as you can see the demo workflow starts automatically every time a new item is created in the shared documents library we also have it initiated when a document is changed this is done to make sure that if a document has only the words application or only the word GMAT and is modified to contain both the workflow will be triggering if you don't have it start automatically you will have to manual they start a workflow whenever you need to use it that's done in SharePoint so now we're going to show you the logic of the remainder of the workflow as you can see the first step is the same and each subsequent step continues to process until an email of either approval or denial is sent to the applicant so we want to show you how to do this in SharePoint we're currently logged in as a JM new applicant this is the person who's going to be uploading a document that contains in the shared documents library so to do this click add document and browse and we saved a document on the desktop that contains some a sewer conditions of this workflow now that this document has been uploaded our work clothes been automatically triggered so this document should appear in our working applications as you can see it has been moved here and if you remember that was the first step in this workflow we should also see that a task has been assigned to the J mu clerk if you go to tasks you can see verify completeness of application is in fact there so now the clerk will click on their task we'll click Edit item and complete this will initiate step to the next step in the workflow is assigning a review application in G match the J mu advisor so this should be done automatically but sometimes it takes a few minutes for task list update here it is all of these will also be sent all of the tasks will also be sent via email to each of these users and they'll be able to complete the tasks through their email we're still signed in as a J mu applicant but when you're going through the workflow you want to make sure to sign in as each different user and complete the task and this will replicate a real-life situation we're just staying signed them the same thing to help save time so the JMU advisors job is to review the application and the GMAT and then after they've reviewed reviewed it they need to assign an approval task to the faculty panel so if we were to be the JMU advisor we would go into working applications and review the document but and you would sign in and review it but save time we're going to skip that step so now we'll say that this task is complete so I hit complete task this will initiate step 3 after the task list has refreshed you can see that there's a task signed to JMU faculty panel this is an approved application task which means that they're expected to go into the working applications and determine whether this applicant is going to be accepted into the MBA program or not this is one of the columns available in the working applications library so they're going to be required to go in and after reviewing it edit the properties and change the applicant approval column to either yes or no or approved or not approved from we're going to decide that this applicant has been approved so we're going to select approve and hit save this does not trigger the next step in the workflow however you need to first go into tasks go to the approve application task and select complete and this will start the next action so as you can see we have now completed steps one and two and the first action in step three here is where some more of the conditions apply since the working application applicant approval column which we just changed equals approve this document is going to be moved to the approved applications library and then will be up to the Dean to give their final approval of whether this applicant will be accepted if we had selected not approved this condition would have been met and therefore an email to the JMU clerk would be sent and also to the applicant saying that they have not been accepted into the MBA program when you want to use if and else if it's easiest to select the elsif condition' you can choose to create an else--if branch right here so that's how we were able to do this okay so now we're going to look and verify that our document is in the approved applications library so go back to your SharePoint site check the approved applications library and as you can see application of the document is now there so we're going to now look at the deans task verify approval so in the approved applications library there's a column called Dean approval so after the Dean has reviewed this application and made their decision they would go to edit properties and change the Dean approval column to either yes or no we're going to say that this applicant has been accepted into the MBA program so we will send say yes once again the email is not going to be sent until the Dean marks that they have completed their tasks so we're going to return to the task list we're going to click on the verify approval edit item complete task this will trigger the final step in the workflow or the final action where after Dean approval equals yes we're going to email the clerk and the applicant saying that they've been accepted into the MBA program so if we're to open the applicants email you should be able to see the message from sharepoint sometimes the messages take a few minutes to generate but if we were to come back we will see an email from sharepoint saying that the dean has accepted them into the MBA program as you can see the applicant is now received an email from workflow demo the name of our workflow excelling them that they have been accepted into the MBA program this is means the workflow is complete it was the last step in the workflow and since that's been met the workflow is terminated so if you were to go back up to SharePoint you would see that the workflow is complete completed I hope you found this tutorial helpful for more information on this assignment please check out our blog for more information on the JMU CIS program please visit our website thank you

Channel: Kristen Podwika

Views: 314,104

Rating: 4.661972 out of 5

Keywords: SharePoint, Workflows, JMU, CIS, SharePoint Designer, Workflow (Literature Subject)

Id: 1FC7I9rWwFA

Length: 18min 22sec (1102 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 11 2012