Workflow

Re: Quoting Work Flow

tgfo62 — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:43:18 GMT

Thank you. As you say, I know my environment better than you. I think using Views is a personal choice and works well for me and my users in the situation of this particular process. You may have your opinions on this, but so do I. It's easy enough for me to add the conditional formatting to the fields on the one form since this a one time add and will accomplish what I need since the workflow cannot.

Re: Quoting Work Flow

warrtalon — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:07:22 GMT

"The process and workflow continue past the point I'm describing here, but I didn't want to go further because I just need view 1 to be read only once the first approval has gone thru. "

You know your situation better than I, of course, but I see no reason why you can't do that with an Open/Save rule. This is easy as pie using a duplicate view with conditional formatting to switch views on form load...

"What I don't think we are "jiving" on is the Views. I am using the Views from the toolbar and my users are used to going back and forth using them."

This would be your main problem then. This is not a good way to do it, and are you going to let this get in the way of building this and later forms properly? I do the way I've described in every form, and you really would want to get people away from using the View selector to switch views, because you'll then NEVER be able to use your views to their fullest abilities. You should give them options (links/buttons) in the form for switching views, not the view selector, because there is no way to manage that view selector nor put conditional formatting on it. The only thing you can do is not put a view on there, but that is definitely not flexible.

Why would using open/save rules with proper conditional formatting invalidate other things in the form? That's the point of conditional formatting - to only occur under certain conditions, so you need to create conditional logic that is mutually exclusive. You can have tons of rules with tons of actions all with their own conditions.

"I was hoping to be able to say in the workflow that if the Created by is opening the form and the Approval = Yes then open the specific read only view."

A workflow can't do this - it has nothing to do with the opening of the form - but you can easily do it with the stuff I've been talking about and using open/save rules. You should be able to do this...

Re: Quoting Work Flow

tgfo62 — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:59:42 GMT

You are right, one form, actually 5 different views. The process and workflow continue past the point I'm describing here, but I didn't want to go further because I just need view 1 to be read only once the first approval has gone thru.

What I don't think we are "jiving" on is the Views. I am using the Views from the toolbar and my users are used to going back and forth using them.

What I need is from the document library actually, not a link or button in the forms. If the initiator wants to open the form once it is approved, I need the view to be the read only one. I do not want him/her editing the document once the first approval is in place. They can go to the document library and open the form if needed. I was hoping to be able to say in the workflow that if the Created by is opening the form and the Approval = Yes then open the specific read only view.

I unfortunately, cannot do that in a open/save rule, as I have other rules that will be invalidated by this parameter.

It looks like I cannot do what I need, so I will leave it alone. Thanks

Re: Quoting Work Flow

warrtalon — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:48:51 GMT

I'm still confused, sorry. You keep switching between two forms and two views. Do you have two forms or one form? I ask, because here are a few statements you made:

"I've eliminated the issue of the 2nd form needed to be read only..."

and

"So the only thing I'm still struggling with is the 1st form..."

and

"The person that fills out the second form will submit for approval..."

and

"This where I need to make the form 1 be read only if it is opened again...."

and

"And to top it all off I ran into a snag making the read only version of form 1..."

This makes me think there are 2 forms, but isn't there only 1 form with multiple views? Please verify.

So, assuming this is _1_ form with _3_ users (submitter, editor, approver), then didn't I just about describe your scenario completely when I gave my example above? I still don't understand why you can't have duplicate copies of your editable views that are set to read-only.

The "link" for User2 to see the data from User1 would send User2 to View 4 from my example instead of View1
The approver would get View 3, 4 or, 5 depending on what data needs to be displayed and would only have an approve/reject button set available (buttons show up as active on views set to read-only, but you can use conditional formatting on the buttons themselves to hide or disable)
User2, User1, and Approver would be sent to View7 after approval. View 7 would be the final, approved view with all the relevant data, or you would just send each user to a pre-existing read-only view from Views 3-5 depending on what you want them to see

What part of what I've described doesn't jive? Browser forms don't affect this solution. In fact, I like the control over the toolbar better in browser forms, because I don't like users to use Save, Save As, Submit, or Views. I make my own buttons for such things and only leave Close + Print View.

Re: Quoting Work Flow

tgfo62 — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:24:52 GMT

I got around the repeating file attachment by deleting it on the read only view. Then putting the formatting on it.

Now, how do i go about telling the workflow that if approval is yes (or no) only open the read only form?

Re: Quoting Work Flow

tgfo62 — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:20:37 GMT

Ok - let me see if I can make this clearer from my end. First off, I've eliminated the issue of the 2nd form needed to be read only because the approval signature is on that page. I just set everything up under a section and added the digital signature to the section. The person that fills out the second form will submit for approval and once signed off (digital signature, all the controls will be read only). Secondly, I'm using browser forms here, not sure if i made that clear.

So the only thing I'm still struggling with is the 1st form - here's the scenario:

User 1 open the form and fills it out, hits submit and it goes to doc library where it starts workflow.

User 2 opens form (different view) but can use the view link to go back to the first form for information needed to complete form 2 (no it is not data that can transfer, just reference)

User 1 realizes they forgot something and goes back to form (original) and adds it

I have a workflow that then alerts user 2 of the change

Once user 2 is complete it passes to the approver - again if user 1 changes original form and user 2 has already completed their process an alert goes to the approver about the change on the form

Then the approver either rejects or approves the document. This is where I need to make the form 1 be read only if it is opened again.

And to top it all off I ran into a snag making the read only version of form 1 - I have a repeating file attachment option which doesn't like the conditional formatting. If there is no way around this, then i'm stuck with the individual controls option - yuck.

Re: Quoting Work Flow

warrtalon — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:00:12 GMT

Maybe I wasn't clear, or maybe I don't understand the full scenario.

You said you can't disable the ability to use views, because later users have to refer to the original form, but I thought you were trying to make it read-only. Why can't you send them to a copy of the original view but have the copy set to read-only as a whole? Are you saying they have to go back to it for editing? if so, you can have both, and you need to set up your logic to send people to the right place conditionally. That's what I mean when I talk about metadata, user identities, and workflow status. Here's an example:

View 1 - Initial data submit form view for User1 that is available pre-approval for editing

View 2 - Edit data form view for User2 only after submission and only before approval

View 3 - Read-only view for everyone with limited subset of data at all times

View 4 - Read-only view duplicate of View 1 and only visible to User1 after approval

View 5 - Read-only view duplicate of View 2 and only visible to User2 after approval

View 6 (optional) - This could be an entry view with buttons that let the person decide what they want to see, and you have logic that sends them to the editable or read-only version of the proper view based on the workflow _and_ based off their identity. To avoid an entry view, you put this same logic into the Form Options > Open & Save > Rules area. These rules act upon form load and are transparent to the user.

This is just one example, because I don't your scenario. In this case, user 1 can always see the first view, but depending on the status of the approval workflow, he either sees the editable version (view1) or the read-only version (view4). Same goes for user 2. Does this make sense?

As an aside, you always have the option of putting conditional formatting on every control in each view that sets it to read-only after approval. That's terribly tedious, which is why I've suggested the duplicate view method.

Re: Quoting Work Flow

tgfo62 — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:37:53 GMT

Thanks. I can't disable the ability to use the views though because the second, third, fourth user down the line has to refer back to the original form.

Is there a way to disable the view if there is an approval. Perhaps a rule?

Then I could just have it come up to the read only version. I think I'm stretching here....

Re: Quoting Work Flow

warrtalon — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:32:25 GMT

Instead of making those views read-only, make duplicate views that ARE read-only and don't let views be selectable. This is dependent on your requirements, but I always turn off the View selector in the Form Options, then I switch views based on user, workflow status, button clicks, whatever. You would basically copy your 2 views into new views and set them as read-only in the View Properties. Then, you only ever send your users to the read-only views at a point in time as defined by form metadata and by their identities. If it were possible to dynamically set the read-only view property, then I'd do that, but I don't know of a way to do that and am not sure if it can be done with code even.

Duplicating views doesn't add too much to the overhead of the form, because the data structure remains the same - you're just copying the controls basically.

Re: Quoting Work Flow

tgfo62 — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:28:33 GMT

I'm trying to do this exact thing on one of my forms (with 3 different view). Once approved, I'd like the first 2 views to be read only but can't quite figure out how to do that. Can you explain further?

Thanks

Re: Quoting Work Flow

warrtalon — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:51:47 GMT

Do you really require two forms? Could you not just use one form for the request and for the quote itself but with different views? You could set the initial view for the technician to only show request fields. Then, the workflow notifies the inside sales team who has a direct link in the email to the form. They open it and are shown a different view (using conditional formatting rules in Form Load), but it already has the requested data populated so that they only do minimal adjustments to complete the actual quote. They submit, and the workflow kicks off again but sends emails to a different set of people based on conditional logic that states the status of the workflow. Next, have a view for approvals only, and if it's not approved, the workflow notifies the inside sales team to make fixes. They open it, are presented the proper view for edits, and they resubmit. This re-runs the previous step that notifies the approvers. Upon approval, you set the form to only open in read-only view and do a final email notification to the interested parties.

You can do all of this with some extra fields in the form to store hidden metadata that gets used by the workflow, and the workflow can be built in SharePoint Designer without code.

Quoting Work Flow

cweaver77 — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:07:37 GMT

I need some opinions/help on how to create this workflow.

1. A technican fills out a form to request a quote.

2. The form is saved in a folder in sharepoint, and an email is sent to inside sales notifying them of the quote request.

3. Inside sales creates the quote from another form in sharepoint.

4. The form is submitted and gets saved to another folder, and an email is sent to the president, vice president and the technician that requested the qoute, for approval.

5. All must approve the quote. If one person needs changes, the quote is sent back to inside sales for changes to be made, and then sent back out for approval.

6. Once it is approved, it is send to the president and the corresponding salesperson, to be taken to the client.

And help would be greatly appreciated.