workflow conductor sandbox getting started...

WORKFLOW CONDUCTOR

SANDBOX GETTING

STARTED GUIDE

Thank you for evaluating Workflow Conductor. This guide will step you through

configuring your Conductor site. Please note that your sandbox will expire 30 days from

the date you signed up. If you require more time for evaluation, or would like to request

a fully functional trial for installation, please Contact Us.

http://store.bamboosolutions.com/sharepoint-workflow-conductor.aspx

mailto:[email protected]

WORKFLOW CONDUCTOR SANDBOX GETTING STARTED GUIDE

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Table of Contents

Create a workflow that sends an email notification……………………………………………3

Creating a “Request Approval” Workflow………………………………………………………..6

Creating an “Expense Approval” with Conditional Branching Workflow…………………13

Workflow Conductor Web Parts ..…………………………………………………………………24

Workflow Conductor Control Panel………………………………………………………………26

Additional links and resources for Workflow Conductor ……………………………………..28

************MUST ACTIVATE FEATURES PRIOR TO USE OF SOLUTION*************

Navigate to Site Actions, Site Settings, under Site Collection Administration click Site

Collection Features

Activate these four features

Please read before utilizing the Workflow Conductor Sandbox.

Workflow Conductor Sandbox Limitations

Group E-mail notifications will not be sent

a. This is due to the requirement to configure an SMTP server. To fully

evaluate Workflow Conductor capabilities, please install and trial

Workflow Conductor in a local environment.

Only 1 user account will be created for each Workflow Conductor Sandbox

Due to the sandbox environment not all features and functionalities are available.


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The Workflow Conductor Control Panel will provide users with the ability to view settings

captured for Workflow Conductor. These settings are not editable and are designed for

viewing status only. Further details can be found at the end of this guide.

Use the account credentials provided in your confirmation email to access your SP2010

Workflow Conductor sandbox Site. At this time, you can create workflows in Bamboo

Solutions Workflow Conductor Sandbox.

This guide will help you get familiar with Workflow Conductor solution. We have

provided instructions to build and deploy 3 workflows in the sandbox. These next steps

will walk you through these exercises.

Create a workflow that sends an email notification

The first workflow we will build is a simple “Send Email” to get you familiar with the

solution. The Send Email widget sends a custom e-mail to a user or group of users, for

more information about this widget please click here.

1. From the main sandbox page please click on Business Contacts on the left from

the Quick Launch bar.

2. Once in the Business Contacts list please select List Tab from the ribbon bar. Then

navigate down the ribbon bar to find “Create or Edit Workflows” icon.

https://hosting.bamboosolutions.com/hosting/WorkflowConductor/SitePages/Conductor%20Control%20Panel.aspx

http://store.bamboosolutions.com/onlinedoc/default.aspx#AppID=1703


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3. Now that you are in the Workflow Solution we will create a workflow that sends

an email to yourself. This email will be sent when we modify an existing item in

our SharePoint List. From the “Frequently Used” group on the left you will find a

widget identified as “Send Email”. Please drag and drop this over to the

designer screen.

4. Once we have the Send Email widget on the designer screen the next step is to

enter the Widget Properties. You may have to click on the Send Email Widget for

the Widget Properties tab to become available. Please fill in the fields as shown

below, for the To: field please use your own personal email address. Most

importantly click “Apply” when finished to save your settings.


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5. Once complete click the “Workflow Settings” to the right of the “Workflow

Properties” tab to provide a title and description for your workflow. If you have

multiple users testing the sandbox you may want to add your initials in the

workflow title. Then be sure to check the two start options as shown below in the

image. Choosing these will allow the workflow to start based on new items or

changes to existing items. Lastly click Apply to save your changes.

6. Now we are almost complete, the last steps are to save the workflow and finally

use the Publish tool to allow SharePoint to utilize the workflow.


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7. To save the workflow, choose the “Save As” command under the Workflow Tab

and fill out the Name and Description as shown below. You may not need to as

it copies the Title and Description you provided earlier.

8. The last step is to “Publish” the workflow to SharePoint. Click the “Publish” tab

from the top menu bar and then click “Publish to Site Collection”.

9. During the process of publishing the Workflow it will ask for a Content Type. This

does not need to be changed you can continue and click the Publish button.

10. Once the workflow has been published it will put you back on the “Business

Contacts” list. We will leave it up to you if you wish to enter a new contact or


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modify an existing one. Either option you choose to perform will send you or the

email address entered a notification. See below for email.

Creating a “Request Approval” Workflow

The Request Approval widget assigns one or more users or groups a task to review and

approves an item in a list or library, and then branches the workflow based on whether

the item is approved or rejected. You will create a simple request approval workflow for

our HR team to approve documents uploaded to this library. For more information

about this widget please see here.

1. Click the “Human Resources” link from the quick launch bar on the left.



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2. In this SharePoint Library will find various documents typically associated with an

approval process for a HR Department. Click on Library from the ribbon bar and

then click “Create or Edit Workflows”.

3. From the “Frequently Used” group on the left you will find a widget identified as

“Request Approval”. Please drag and drop this over to the designer screen.

4. Next we need to fill out the Workflow Properties of the Request Approval. For the

Approvers entry use your sandbox account “online\user” for example. The other


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properties can be filled in as the screen shot (next page) shows. Be sure to click

the after you type in your sandbox account to resolve the name.

5. Before moving to the next step click “Apply” to save your settings.

6. Click to the right of the “Widget Properties” and choose the “Workflow Settings”

Tab. Provide a Workflow Title, Workflow Description and choose your start

options as shown below. Click “Apply” when finished.


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7. Now it is time to save the workflow, click “Save As” from the Workflow Tab on the

menu bar. Provide a Workflow Name and Description, it will pull from the

Workflow Settings tab and populate for you.

8. Please go to the Menu Bar and Choose Publish, then choose the option to

“Publish to List”.


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9. During the process of publishing the Workflow it will ask for a Content Type. This does

not need to be changed you can continue and click the Publish button.

10. When complete it will drop you back in your Human Resources library. From here

upload a new document, this will kick off the workflow we put together just a

moment ago.

11. At this stage if your sandbox account was tied to your personal email you would

receive an email for the request approval to take action on. Unfortunately due to the

sandbox environment this is not feasible, therefore to approve/reject the task must be

driven from within SharePoint. From the Human Resources list click on the “In Progress”

link.


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12. Next on the Workflow Status screen of the “Bamboo Workflow Approval 1” you will need

to click on the title as shown below. This will take you into the Workflow Task – Request

Approval.

13. If your email was in sync with the sandbox the email hyperlink you receive would take

you to the Workflow Task as shown below.


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14. This is where you will click approve/reject the document that was uploaded to

the HR library in SharePoint. If you wish to add comments you can do so,

currently the comments are not set to be recorded. You can also notice the

“Reassign Task” and “Request Change” buttons are now available as options.

Please click Approve.


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15. Once approved it will revert you back to the Workflow Status screen. From here

you can see the Workflow History of when the workflow started and stopped. As

well the outcome and who it was approved by.

16. When you navigate back to the “Human Resources” link from the quick launch

bar you will see that the Workflow status has now been “completed”. The

Approval Request workflow is complete.


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Creating a “Expense Approval” with Conditional Branching Workflow

You will create a workflow that will approve or reject an expense report. The workflow

will have a threshold limit; if the value of the amount is less than the threshold then the

expense report will get automatically be approved. The workflow will notify the

manager if the expense report falls below the threshold limit. If the expense report is

over a certain amount then the expense report will go through a request approval

process for review.

Widgets being used in this workflow contain:

Conditional Branch

Request Approval

Send email

Set Approval Status

1. Navigate to the Expense Report library from the Quick Launch bar on the left.


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2. Once in the Expense Reports Library click on Library from the Ribbon bar and

then choose “Create or Edit Workflows” as show in the image below.

3. Once in Conductor drag over the “Conditional Branch” widget.


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4. Next drag over the “Request Approval” widget in the “True” condition, as shown

below.

5. Next drag over three “Set Approval Status” widgets this widget is located under

the “Lists and Items” group as shown below. These widgets will be placed in the

Request Approval Widget and one in the Conditional Branch widget.


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6. For the last widget drag over the “Send Email” out of the “User Interaction”

group.

7. Now that the Workflow has been designed we need to go in and configure the

“Widget Properties” for the workflow. Click on the “Conditional Branch” widget

to configure the properties as shown below; $3,000 is the threshold limit.


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17. Once you have completed the Conditional Branch widget we will move onto

the Request Approval widget properties. Click the Request Approval Widget to

highlight the properties. Fill in the description as “Expense Report Approval”.

Please use your Sandbox account user id for the Approvers. Be sure to click the

after you type in your sandbox account to resolve the name. Please fill in the

“Task Name”, “Task Description” and “Days Until Due” as show on the screen

below. When finished remember to click “Apply” at the bottom.

18. The next step is to fill out the properties for the three “Set Approval Status”

widgets in the Workflow. We will work on the two located in the “Request

Approval” widget first.


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19. In the approved side, set the Status to Approved and provide a brief description

as shown below. When finished click Apply

20. In the Rejected side, set the Status to Rejected and provide a brief description as

shown below. When finished click Apply


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21. Now let’s move over and set the widget properties on the “False” side of the

“Conditional Branch”. Click on the Approval Status widget and fill out the

properties as shown below. Since this branch is “below the threshold” of the

expense report it will automatically be approved. Click Apply when finished.

22. Next we will finish entering the last widget properties for the Send Email widget. Please

enter your email address for where you would like to receive this message. The

remainder of the information can be entered as follows in the image below. For the

Body of the email move to the next step to see how this lookup is added.


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23. For the Body of the email we will incorporate a lookup so we can reference the item url

in the email. This is done by clicking on the advanced properties button and then

choosing “Add Lookup” at the top. From there you will need to switch to Easy

Reference category and scroll down until you for “Item URL” you can add other fields

from here if you wish to see how they would show up in your email. See screen shot

below.

24. When you are done editing the properties of the Send Email be sure to click Apply

when finished.

25. We are just about done and the last remaining steps are to give the workflow a name,

description and some start settings. On the Workflow Settings Tab, provide a name for

your Expense Report Approval Workflow and a brief description. When complete

check the two start options at the bottom. Here from the screen shot below you can

see my configuration options. Click Apply when complete.


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26. The last remaining step for this workflow is to Save it and Publish it to SharePoint.

27. From the menu bar click on the Save As, your workflow title and description

should pre-populate for you. Finally click Save.

28. To publish the workflow click on the “Publish” tab at the top of the menu bar,

then click “Publish to Site Collection”. The window to associate “Content Types”

appears, please click “Publish” at the bottom.


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29. When the workflow is done Publishing it will bring you back to the Expense Report

library. From here you can upload a new Expense Report and test out the

workflow. Remember 3,000 is the threshold limit so an item with below or above

this value will have different actions taken.

30. If you choose to upload an expensed item that is “below” the threshold you will

receive an email.

31. If you choose to upload an expensed item that is above the threshold you will

receive a notice in SharePoint and must approve/reject the item manually in the

sandbox.

32. Since we have a Pending status on our Approval Status we will click on the “In

Progress” link under the “Expense Report 1” workflow column.


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33. Once in the Workflow Status screen you will need to click on “Request to

Approve Expense Report”

34. This will bring up the Workflow Task where you can “Approve” or “Reject” the

Expense Report and when complete it will end the workflow and provide a status

of “Approved” or “Rejected” in the status column in the Expense Report library.


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This concludes the Getting Started Guide exercises.

Workflow Conductor additional Web Parts

We have also added the 4 web parts that are bundled with Workflow Conductor.

These can be viewed by clicking on “Site Pages” from the Quick Launch” bar on the

left.

Then navigate to the Web Parts Page as shown below.


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The four web parts provided with Workflow Conductor are as follows:

My Workflows - The My Workflows Web Part displays all the workflows initiated by

the current user in the site, the Web application, or the entire farm. My Workflows

displays the status, workflow name, a link to the item the workflow was started

on, and additional information that might be relevant depending on the type of

workflow. From this Web Part, the workflow initiator can also Cancel a workflow

that is Running, or Restart a workflow that Errored.

My Workflow Tasks - The My Workflow Tasks Web Part displays tasks assigned by

the Request Approval and Request Feedback widgets. My Workflow Tasks can

display tasks for the current user or for all users, and can display tasks for the site,

the Web application, or the entire farm.

Workflow Reports - The Workflow Reports Web Part allows you to create reports

about workflows run in the current site or site collection. The report is displayed

graphically, with a summary list below the chart. You can define reporting

periods, filter by workflow status, and print report results using the controls at the

top of the Web Part (see below for more information).

Conductor Log View - The Conductor Log Viewer displays log messages from the

Conductor database. The Log Viewer can display messages generated from

Conductor Studio (Design time log) or from workflows (Run time log), and can

show messages for the current site, for all sites in the Web application, or for the

entire Farm. The level of detail for Conductor Studio design time logs is based on

the Workflow Conductor Studio Logging setting in the Workflow Conductor

Control Panel General Settings page. The level of detail for workflow run time

logs is based on the Logging Level selected for each widget in the workflow.

These four can be seen as a screen shot on the next page if the “Web Parts” link has not

directed you there.





http://store.bamboosolutions.com/onlinedoc/ContentFrame.aspx#AppName=SA08%20Configuration%20Global%20Settings.html&ProductID=151


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Workflow Conductor Control Panel

As the last part of this Getting Started Guide we have provided Workflow Conductors

Control Panel to be viewed to understand the different settings and data capture

points.

These can be viewed here in a “read” only status. A brief description of each of these

settings is provided on the next page.

https://hosting.bamboosolutions.com/hosting/WorkflowConductor/SitePages/Conductor%20Control%20Panel.aspx


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System Settings: Configure the SQL Server for the Conductor database and the e-

mail server Conductor uses to send e-mail. These settings must be configured

before you can use Workflow Conductor.

Account Settings: Configure the Workflow Conductor access accounts used to access

the database and to deploy workflows. These settings must be configured

before you can use Workflow Conductor.

General Settings: Configure global options for Workflow Conductor.

Workflow Designers: Configure who can design workflows in Workflow Conductor

Studio.

E-mail Settings: Set up the default e-mail templates used in some Workflow

Conductor widgets.

Widget Categories: Configure the categories for widgets in Workflow Conductor

Studio.

View Workflow Status: View the status of all workflow instances in your farm.

Workflow Solution Management: View and manage Workflow Conductor workflow

solutions in your farm.

Licensing: Access the Bamboo Web License Manager. A license must be activated for

production use, but is not required for trial installations.

About Workflow Conductor: View the file version information for Workflow Conductor.

Localizing Workflow Conductor: Learn how Workflow Conductor can take advantage

of SharePoint localization capabilities (i.e. language packs).

http://store.bamboosolutions.com/onlinedoc/ContentFrame.aspx#AppName=SA08%20Configuration%20SystemSettings.html&ProductID=151

http://store.bamboosolutions.com/onlinedoc/ContentFrame.aspx#Appname=SA08%20Configuration%20Access%20Account.html&ProductID=151

http://store.bamboosolutions.com/onlinedoc/ContentFrame.aspx#AppName=SA08%20Configuration%20Global%20Settings.html&ProductID=151

http://store.bamboosolutions.com/onlinedoc/ContentFrame.aspx#Appname=SA08%20Workflow%20Designers.html&ProductID=151

http://store.bamboosolutions.com/onlinedoc/ContentFrame.aspx#AppName=SA08%20Configuration%20Email%20Templates.html&ProductID=151

http://store.bamboosolutions.com/onlinedoc/ContentFrame.aspx#Appname=SA08%20Configuration%20Widget%20Category.html&ProductID=151

http://store.bamboosolutions.com/onlinedoc/ContentFrame.aspx#AppName=SA08%20Workflow%20Status.html&ProductID=151

http://store.bamboosolutions.com/onlinedoc/ContentFrame.aspx#AppName=SA08%20Workflow%20Solutions.html&ProductID=151

http://store.bamboosolutions.com/onlinedoc/ContentFrame.aspx#Appname=Common_WebLicensing.htm&ProductID=151

http://store.bamboosolutions.com/KB/article.aspx?id=11999

http://store.bamboosolutions.com/onlinedoc/ContentFrame.aspx#Appname=Common_Localization.html&ProductID=151


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For more information about Workflow Conductor please reference the links below.

Additional Resources

Workflow Conductor Webinars

Workflow Conductor KB Articles

Workflow Conductor online documentation

Workflow Conductor blog posts from Bamboo Nation (including use cases,

customization tips, etc.)

Contact Information

If you have any questions regarding your sandbox experience or would like to

download a fully functional 30 day trail.

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 703.964.2002 or 1.877.226.2662

Web: http://store.bamboosolutions.com/BambooMainWeb/ContactUs.aspx

http://store.bamboosolutions.com/BambooMainWeb/bamboo-sharepoint-workflow-conductor-webinar.aspx

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