InfoPath Dev

Hello all,

So I've been working on a leave management system for some time now and the form is looking great.  My question comes with the workflow.  Can anyone direct me to some basic step-by-step tutorials on how to create and attach them? The workflow has to be "user submits", submission goes to Direct Manager for Approval". Once Manager Approves, then form goes to SharePoint Library and as a phase 3, eventually to a Calendar.  Any guidance would be appreciated, I am also researching in parallel.  I'm trying! Thanks, Ramy

Hi Ramy,

Microsoft should have some free tutorials on how to use ShP Designer to set up workflows. Your workflow may be simple enough that you can just use the out-of-box Approval workflow. Once the form is approved, you can copy values from your form library to a ShP calendar list and then use Outlook to show your SharePoint calendar items.

 Hey Patrick,

Thanks for the reply.  Yeah I've looked through the tutorials, and hate to admit it but this is completely out of my realm so I'm having a hard time getting it figured out.  For example I had the workflow working and then it stopped.  Everything looks the same, and yet for some reason it doesn't do what it's supposed to do.  It was a standard form, then switched it to content since it needed a little more featuresets and after that now when I look it says the form is not workflow enabled.   It's crazy, all the features are there, and I scoured looking for them.  It's able to find users via AD, I've set the stage and configured hierarchy via AD, yet the "language" of the workflow is what's getting me.  Plus now that the form is not workflow ready, how do I re-attach the workflow? I'm still working at it but if you've got a straightforward answer that my Infrastructure/Operations mind can absorb I'd appreciate it.

Are you using 2007 or 2010?

 2007

Well, it can be done but 2007 was SharePoint Workflow V1 and has a lot of issues. The workflow is quite limited. V2 was 2010 and things are much improved, but it's stil lan area where everyone is having issues. Personally, we do most workflow in the InfoPath form using rules, conditional logic and view switching. The nice thing about doing workflow in the form is that the user sees the status right in the form without any hookup. This probably handles 90% of all workflow needs. Of course, Microsoft doesn't push Forms-based workflow because it doesn't sell more copies of MOSS and that's fair. Forms-based workflow is easy to do, more integrated into the form, but you can't easily copy them and since the workflow metadata is in the form you have to take extra steps to hide it if it is sensitive (but that can be done).

Sorry I didn't answer your question. To debug SharePoint workflow I'd start by looking at hte SharePoint logs. Then, recreate it and see if it works the second time.