SharePoint Workflow – Automate Business Processes in SharePoint

Take control of business processes by empowering users to easily create, manage, and reuse custom workflows in SharePoint.

Save time and money by quickly and easily automating your everyday business functions

Available for both SharePoint 2010 and 2007, Workflow Conductor provides a simple, yet powerful way to automate and manage your business processes. A simple drag-and-drop interface lets designers easily create and deploy complex workflows without the need for custom coding. Centralized configuration, management, and reporting gives administrators the ability to manage workflows across the entire farm. Personalized Web Parts, Microsoft Office integration, and automatic task notification allows end-users to interact with their workflows and tasks.

Product Overview

Drag-and-drop, browser-based workflow creation allows for complex workflows with no coding required.
Over 50 Widgets handle everything from document approval, to accessing external data sources, to provisioning user accounts in Active Directory.
Centralized administration lets administrators view and manage workflows across an entire farm.
Workflows can be reused, and workflow templates allow new workflows to be based on existing ones.
Custom Web Parts let users access their own workflows and tasks, and administrators can create custom reports and view workflow logs.
Global settings let administrators decide what workflows can do, how they behave, and who can create them.
Seamless integration with SharePoint means no need for client applications or extra hardware.
Simple design and deployment lets power users create and publish workflows in minutes.

Key Product Features

Perform workflow actions across different sites or even different site collections.
Use alternative user credentials for different workflow steps.
Get feedback and approval, or request other data from users and then use the results within a workflow.
Read and edit SharePoint lists, libraries, and items.
Create and manage SharePoint and Active Directory users, groups, and profiles.
Access external databases, Web services, and even external SharePoint environments.
Create, manage, and delete SharePoint sites.
Execute custom server-side code using real-time workflow data (2010).
Repeat a series of actions for each item in a list or library.
Perform advanced calculations using dates, numbers, and text.
Test workflows using the Simulation Mode.
Choose from multiple types of workflow deployment methods based on business needs.

Workflow Conductor Benefits

Increase process efficiency
Automatic task notification and hand off means faster turn-around times and less process overhead.
Improve process visibility
Reporting and status features make it easy to see the state of any running process.
Decrease complexity for end-users
Users only need to handle their own tasks, not manage the process itself. Integration with SharePoint and Office make things even simpler.
Increase accountability
Automation means tasks are tracked and visible, and events are logged for auditing.
Decrease failure rates
Automated process hand off means fewer places where processes can stall or fail.
Fast and Simple Process Automation
Writing custom workflow applications in SharePoint can take a lot of time and money, and maintenance can be a nightmare. With Workflow Conductor, your processes can be up and running in hours, not days or weeks.

Workflow Examples

Workflow Design and Deployment

Workflow Conductor uses a web-based workflow creation tool that allows users to simply drag-and-drop modular Widgets into a design window, configure a few simple settings, and deploy a fully-functional workflow to SharePoint in minutes. Over 35 Widgets allow designers to quickly create complex workflows based on existing business process. Workflow Conductor Widgets handle everything from editing SharePoint data to user account provisioning. Workflows created in Workflow Conductor can be easily reused across a farm, and can even be saved and exported for use in a completely different SharePoint environment.

Here are a few examples of Workflow Conductor features:

Create/Read/Update/Delete SharePoint items and lists
Repeat a sequence of steps for each item in a list or library
Start another workflow in any site or site collection in the farm
Perform complex calculations using multiple data sources
Assign a workflow task and branch the workflow based on the outcome
Create a new account in Active Directory or add users to groups
Pause a workflow until the value of a field meets a certain condition
Query an external database and store the result in a SharePoint list

Workflow Management

Workflow Conductor includes centralized administrative features that allow administrators to control which users can create workflows, which features those users can access, and even how those features behave. Administrators can also view and manage all workflows across the entire farm. Whether defining custom e-mail templates for task notifications or limiting deployment windows, administrators can rest easy knowing they can control what happens. Workflow Conductor also includes custom Web Parts that give end-users an easy way to view their workflows and workflow tasks, and allow managers and administrators to create custom reports about workflow status.

Workflow Conductor leverages Microsoft's Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) architecture to ensure that workflows fully integrate with SharePoint's native capabilities. This includes a .NET-based workflow creation and management interface, as well as multiple Web Parts and features that provide workflow management and reporting across a SharePoint farm. Workflows created with Workflow Conductor are published directly from the designer interface, and are deployed as site collection features that are automatically activated and associated with targeted lists and libraries.

Workflow Conductor includes the following components:

Component	Description
Workflow Conductor Studio	Conductor Studio is a browser-based workflow design tool with a drag-and-drop interface that lets users create custom workflows in logical view that reflects business process. Workflows can be published directly from Conductor Studio, and can be saved as templates that can be reused across the farm.
Workflow Conductor Widgets	Workflow Conductor Widgets are configurable snippets of code that are presented as drag-and-drop objects in Conductor Studio. Designers drag widgets to the Conductor Studio diagram and configure them with simple property selections to create complete workflows. Most widget settings can use lookups to workflow variables or SharePoint item properties so workflow behavior can be customized at runtime.
Workflow Conductor Control Panel	The Workflow Conductor Control Panel is a centralized configuration, management, and reporting tool that gives administrators the ability to define global workflow settings, manage deployed workflows, and view workflow status for the entire farm.
Workflow Conductor Web Parts	Workflow Conductor includes a collection of Web Parts that provide customizable reporting for workflows, workflow tasks, workflow status, and workflow logging. End-users have access to personalized views of their own workflows and tasks. Administrators and managers can customize reports to view workflow status for the site, site collection, or the entire farm.