The definition of a workflow is a series of tasks undertaken by a person or group of people to accomplish a business goal. These tasks are repeated as necessary.
SharePoint 2010 can automate tasks for the routing, review, editing, and approval of electronic documents. As the workflow progesses, tasks can be assigned to the correct people at each stage with automatic e-mail reminders sent. A workflow can be started manually or when an event occurs, such as when a new document is created or when a specific date has been passed. A workflow can assist in assuring that tasks get done in the correct sequence by the correct people. Because of the automatic reminders, it can also reduce the possibility of a task being forgotten.
SharePoint contains the following workflows by default.
- Disposition approval: Creates a task in the Tasks list to review a document and choose whether to delete or retain it. People with the proper permissons can review the tasks.
- Three-state: Tracks the status of an item through three states (e.g. Active, Ready for Review, Complete). Creates a task when the workflow is started; when the task is completed, the status is updated to Ready for Review and a new task is created. When the second task is completed, the status is updated to Complete and the workflow is finished.
- Approval: Routes a document to a specified list of people for approval. Can route to all people on the list at once, or to each person in turn.
- Collect Signatures: Routes a document to a specified list of people for digital signature. Collects the signature in the document and the workflow history (only works on Word and Excel documents that include a digital signature line).
- Collect Feedback: Routes a document to a specified list of people for feedback. Can route to all people on the list at once, or to each person in turn. Collects the feedback and sends it to the originator.
If the above workflows do not meet an organization's needs, it is possible to use SharePoint Designer 2010 or .NET to create custom workflows.
