Microsoft has published an awesome information about workflows which are present in SharePoint Server 2010
- Contract approval Guiding a proposed contract among members of an organization who must approve or reject it.
- Expense reporting Managing the submission of an expense report and associated receipts, reviewing the report, approving it, and reimbursing the submitter.
- Technical support Guiding the progress of a technical support incident as it is opened by a customer, investigated by a support engineer, routed to technical experts, resolved, and added to a knowledge base.
- Interviewing Managing the process of interviewing a job candidate. This includes scheduling and tracking interview appointments, collecting interview feedback as it accumulates, making that feedback available to subsequent interviewers, and facilitating the hire/no-hire decision.
- Content publishing Managing the approval of the publication of content on the Internet presence site of an enterprise.
Automating business processes
Businesses depend on business processes. Although those processes often involve software, the most important processes in many organizations depend on people. Workflows can automate interactions among the people who participate in a process to improve how that process functions, increase its efficiency, and lower its error rate.
Many processes can benefit from automated support for human interactions. Examples include the following:
- Approval A common aspect of human-oriented business processes is the requirement to get approval from multiple participants. What is being approved can vary widely, ranging from a Microsoft Word document that contains next year’s marketing plan to an expense report from a trip to a conference. In every case, some number of people must review the information, perhaps appending comments, and then indicate approval or rejection.
- Coordinating group efforts Whether it is preparing a response to a request for proposal (RFP), managing the translation of a document into one or more languages, or something else, many processes require people to work together in an organized way. By defining the steps of the process through an automated workflow, the group’s work can be made more efficient and the process itself more predictable.
- Issue tracking Many business processes generate a list of outstanding issues. An automated workflow can be used to maintain that list, assign issues to the people who can resolve them, and track the status of that resolution.
Predefined workflows
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 includes the following predefined workflow templates that address common business scenarios:
- Collect Feedback Routes a document or item to a group of people for feedback. Reviewers can provide feedback, which is then compiled and sent to the person who initiated the workflow. By default, the Collect Feedback workflow is associated with the Document content type, and therefore it is automatically available in document libraries.
- Approval Routes a document or item to a group of people for approval. By default, the Approval workflow is associated with the Document content type, and therefore it is automatically available in document libraries. A version of the Approval workflow is also associated by default with the Pages library on a publishing site, and can be used to manage the approval process for the publication of Web pages.
The Approval workflow is a staged approval model (that is, the first set of approvers can undergo the review and approval process, then the next set of approvers, and so on). Each stage or approval set can also have its own behavior. For example, members of the first group of approvers can do their review in serial approval order (one after the other), members of the second group can do their review in parallel (reviewers can provide feedback in any order), and so on. - Disposition Approval Manages document expiration and retention by letting participants to decide whether to keep or delete expired documents. The Disposition Approval workflow supports record management processes and is intended for use primarily in a Records Center site.
- Collect Signatures Routes a document that was created in a Microsoft application to a group of people to collect their digital signatures. This workflow must be started in applications in the 2007 Microsoft Office system and the Microsoft Office 2010 suites such as Microsoft Word. Participants must complete their signature tasks by adding their digital signatures to the documents in the relevant client program. By default, the Collect Signatures workflow is associated with the Document content type, and therefore is automatically available in document libraries. However, the Collect Signatures workflow appears for a document in the document library only if that document contains one or more Microsoft Office Signature Lines.
- Three-state Designed to track the status of a list item through three states (phases). It can be used to manage business processes that require organizations to track a high volume of issues or items, such as customer support issues, sales leads, or project tasks.
The Three-state workflow is so named because it tracks the status of an issue or item through three different states, and through two transitions between the states. For example, when a workflow is initiated on an issue in an Issues list, SharePoint Server 2010 creates a task for the assigned user. When the user completes the task, the workflow changes from its initial state (Active) to its middle state (Resolved) and creates a task for the assigned user. When the user completes the task, the workflow changes from its middle state (Resolved) to its final state (Closed), and creates another task for the user to whom the workflow is assigned at that time. Note that this workflow is only supported on lists, not libraries. - Translation Management Manages manual document translation by creating copies of the document to be translated and by assigning translation tasks to translators. This workflow is available only for Translation Management libraries.
- Issue Tracking Routes an issue to team members for resolution. It presents a Web page to the user who makes possible the entry of new issues; for example, customer complaints. As an issue progresses though different workflow states, the Web page of the user changes to reflect appropriate events; for example, a Web page that was closed when an issue is resolved.
Workflow associations
| Associate workflow with | Minimum permissions required |
|---|---|
List or library
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Full Control permission level on the list or library
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List or library content type
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Member of the Site Owners group on the SharePoint site
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Site content type
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Member of the Site Owners group on the SharePoint site
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Site
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Member of the Site Owners group on the SharePoint site
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