To
attach different workflows to a list or library, you need the Manage
list or Manage library permission on that list or library. If you have
those permissions, switch to the Library ribbon or List ribbon and click
on the Workflows button (see Figure 1).
Clicking the Workflows button
opens the Workflow Settings page for the list or library. This page
enables you to associate a workflow with the list or library (see Figure 2).
The list of workflows that were
already added to the list or library appears at the top of the page
(under the Workflows title). The option to add a workflow is shown as a
link at the bottom of the page. Click this link to open the Add a
Workflow page, shown in Figure 3.
In
the Add a Workflow page, you can define what workflow you want to
create on the list or library by selecting from the workflow box that
lists the available workflows. By default, the only workflows available
in SharePoint Server are the five built-in workflows:
Disposition Approval—
Allows starting a workflow to manage document expiration and retention.
As part of the workflow, people involved with the file or list item are
required to decide whether to retain or delete expired documents.
Three-State— Tracks the progress of approval of a document or a list item through three states: Active, Ready for Review, and Complete.
Collect Feedback—
Allows starting a review workflow for a document or list item in the
list or library. Reviewers can provide feedback, which is compiled and
sent to the owner of the file or list item when the workflow has
completed.
Approval—
Allows starting an approval workflow on the list’s or library’s items,
where approvers can approve or reject the document or list item,
reassign the approval task, or request changes to the document.
Collect Signatures—
Allows starting a workflow for collecting signatures that are required
to complete a business process on a document. Note that this workflow
can be started only from within a Microsoft Word 2007 or Microsoft Excel
2007 client, and then only from certain versions of Microsoft Office
2007 (Ultimate, Professional Plus, and Enterprise). If you cannot start
this workflow from your Microsoft Office client, you should check the
version of your Microsoft Office and upgrade if necessary.
In SPF, only the Three-State workflow is available by default.
After you choose a workflow,
choose a name for it. Because more than one workflow of any type can be
attached to the document library or list, each must have a unique name
so that the users can recognize it in the list of workflows. For
example, a document library might require two approval workflows: one
for expense claims and one for travel expenses. To create those two, you
need to add them both as approval workflows—but each one with a
different name.
The next choice is what task
list the workflow should use to create tasks associated with it. As you
saw earlier in this chapter, the Approval workflow creates tasks for
approvers to approve the file or list item when the workflow starts. You
can point each workflow to a specific task list or tell the workflow to
create a new task list for itself.
The History List section
enables you to define where the workflow reports its progress, for the
purpose of storing the history. As you saw earlier in this chapter, when
viewing a workflow’s progress, you can see the history of steps taken
in the workflow. Here, you can define in which list that history is
kept. By default, the history is kept in a hidden list called Workflow
History that the users do not ordinarily see. If you want to store the
information in another list, you can define that here.
Finally, the last section of the page, Start Options, enables you to specify when the workflow starts (see Figure 4).
With the first option,
Allow This Workflow to Be Manually Started, users can start the workflow
manually. The third option, Start This Workflow When a New Item Is
Created, causes the list or library to start the workflow automatically
when a new item or file is added to the list or library. As you can see
in Figure 11.11,
if you choose to let the users start the workflow manually, the users
must have the Edit Items permission on the list or library; otherwise,
they can’t start the workflow on any item. Select the Require Manage
Lists Permissions to Start the Workflow check box to allow only managers
of the list to be able to start the workflow.
You can use the second option,
Start This Workflow to Approve Publishing a Major Version of an Item,
only if the list or library has versioning set to allow major and minor
versions. If this option is selected, this workflow starts when a user
submits a file or list item for approval to get published as a major
version. The last option causes the workflow to start when an item or a
file is changed in the list or library.
When you are
finished configuring the workflow, click Next to open the workflow’s
association form (if the workflow has one). A workflow association form
is different for each workflow type and is used to configure settings
that are specific for that workflow type (see Figure 5).
For example, the Approval workflow’s association form enables you to
set whether the approval is done in parallel or in a serial manner.
Parallel approval means that all the approvers get an e-mail message at
the same time, whereas serial approval means the first approver on the
list must approve before the second one gets the request to approve, and
so on.
When you are done setting
the configuration for the workflow, or if there are no additional
configuration settings, click OK. If you selected that users can start
the workflow automatically, your new workflow is added to the list of
workflows the user can start.
