In an effort to learn all about SharePoint workflows I'm going to start a series of articles beginning with out-of-the-box workflows and ending with a complete tutorial about how to program workflows using the Windows WF object model.

 

So what are workflows in SharePoint? Workflows are nothing more than an automated sequence of events that are triggered by some other event on a SharePoint List or Document Library.

 

MSDN describes a workflow as "...a natural way to organize and run a set of work units, or activities, to form an executable file representation of a work process. "

 

The triggering event can either be the creating of a new item, change of an item, or a manual workflow initiation by the user.

 

Here's an example of a common workflow in many office environments. John wants to go on vacation. He submits a paid time off request to his manager (Sally) for approval by filling out a form and walking it over to Sally's office.

 

Sally then reviews the request and marks it approved or rejected.

 

If it's appoved Sally has her secretary update the company calendar to show that John will be off those days that he requested.

 

And finally she returns a copy of the request to John stamped approved or rejected.

 

In SharePoint you can take the above scenario and create a workflow which will save much of the leg work and time for the employees involved.

 

In my next installment I'll talk about the lone WSS workflow called the three-state workflow.