Workbox Blog

2011 National Leader of Innovation and Development Award for Workbox!

2012-02-01T01:14:00.000-08:00

Our company was awarded the title of the 2011 National Leader of Innovation and Development in Poland! We received this prestigious award in the category Innovative Product for our flagship application Datapolis Workbox 2010. The aim of the competition, organized every year by the Foundation for Innovation and Development, is to identify and promote initiatives which are distinguished by a large degree of innovation and functionality.

New release of Workbox 2010 is ready for download

2011-10-19T06:55:00.000-07:00

We have published a new release of Workbox 2010. Current version is 2.2.0.1174.
As always you can get it from here: www.datapolis.com/workbox/get

What is new in the latest release:

Workflow Innovations
Workbox has been extended to support new workflow types introduced by SharePoint 2010: Site Workflows, Reusable Workflows and Globally Reusable Workflows.
Extended Launch Forms
Launch Forms for both actions and workflows have been extended with the possibility of using InfoPath forms or custom Web sites.
Add Item Activity With Possibility of Setting Item Field Values
Add Item activity has been extended with the ability of setting field values of the newly created item, thus eliminating the need of using Edit Items activity to perform this task and allowing items to be added correctly when a list-level validation is set.
Add User to Active Directory Activity
The activity allows creating new Active Directory accounts with defined properties.
Run PowerShell Script Activity
The activity allows running PowerShell scripts on current SharePoint farm.
Send Web Service Request Function
The function allows sending SOAP requests to Web services and receiving responses.
Extended Field Permissions
Field permissions for workflow state now support two new fields: Attachments and Author Information.
End State Name in Workflow History
Workflow end state’s custom name is now displayed in workflow history.
Extended Loop Activity
Loop iterator has been added to Loop activity. The Result field has been renamed to Run Loop Again and, if performing next iteration will not be possible, the field will contain information about the cause.

Please update and let us know what you think!

Shootout: "Workflow on SharePoint" at the European SharePoint Conference

2011-10-10T05:54:00.000-07:00

Shoot out in Berlin at European SharePoint Conference (17-20 Oct. 2011) is confirmed! [read more]

Since we are very excited about this event, we owe you a few words of explanation.

What is Shoot Out? It will be a great Workflow Battle between the most respected workflow companies, top Microsoft partners. Datapolis along with K2 and Nintex will participate in a workflow competition. Each company will be given three tasks, listed below:

Task 1 Create and publish a workflow for travel request [5 minutes each, total duration 15 minutes]
Task 2 On-board a new employee (Create AD account, grant SharePoint Access, create MySite, assign an office, print an ID Card, order a car from an external Dealer) [10 minutes each = 30 minutes]
Task 3 Describe the License Model
- Price, description and limitations of the cheapest entry version
- Price for a medium farm configuration, with 3 SharePoint servers and 500 users
  [5 minutes each on slides, totaling 15 minutes]

Who will win? There will be no vote taken by the audience to declare a winner, but the audience will be encouraged to tweet and blog about the Shoot Out. Finally all presentations will be judged by the jury that consists of vendor companies.

The Shoot Out initiative was presented by Michael Greth, Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, specializing in SharePoint Server. Michael, due to his knowledge and technical expertise, is a VIP in the SharePoint world. He is also a member of the Conference Program Committee.

Please feel invited to Shoot Out in Berlin! Hoping to see you there cheering us on.

Remember: European SharePoint Conference, Berlin, October 19^th, 11:15 AM!

We'll be at Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Anaheim

2011-09-26T01:42:00.000-07:00

We areproud to announce we will be present at Microsoft SharePoint Conference, the biggest SharePoint event inthe world which will be held on 3-6^th October in Anaheim, CA, USA! MicrosoftSharePoint Conference according to the organizer, Microsoft company, willgather more than 5000 attendees! More than 250 technical slots available for ITPros, IT Devs and business. Unforgettable occasion to meet all significantpeople in the business, find out what is new in our SharePoint World.

Datapolis willbe presenting its flagship product Datapolis Workbox 2010. So if you areinterested in Workbox functionality, we will be delighted to meet youpersonally at our booth no. 671, Hall B! Please feel invited!

MicrosoftSharePoint Conference is Datapolis’ second American technology conference thisyear. Busy times has come this fall. But this is what we like! Shortly afterMicrosoft SharePoint Conference we will be present in Berlin on EuropeanSharePoint Conference 2011!

Lookingforward to seeing you in Anaheim!

Pawel's article published on WSS.pl

2011-09-22T03:58:00.000-07:00

Recently I’vedecided to spread my vision of SharePoint more publicly. I’m proud to announcemy article was published on Polish WSS community portal in the knowledge basesection! I hope this will be helpful for those who have trouble with SharePointconfiguration.

Here is the abstract:

Sometimeswe need to create a new site based on a site template. It is especially useful whenwe build a solution based on a site and we want to deploy it on anotherenvironment or when client reports a problem and sends us the solution to debug.The site creation is really simple, yet while creating the site we can find stumbleon an issue caused by the lack of essential functions on the site. Thisconcerns full version of SharePoint Server, as well as SharePointFoundation. I have came up with a procedure that will speed up finding and enabling the missing functions.

If you areinterested in the whole article in Polish, please visit the site: http://www.wss.pl/baza-wiedzy/sharepoint-2010---funkcje-witryny-a-tworzenie-witryny-na-podstawie-szablonu-z-innego-srodowiska,1391.

Enjoy!

Workbox 2.1.16 is released

2011-07-14T06:15:00.000-07:00

New Workbox 2010 hotfix - 2.1.16.1083 was released. Below is the list of changes made in this version of Datapolis Workbox.

Error Fixes
- Workbox now supports retrieving data from External Lists via lookups. Also, since lists of this type do not support workflow, Workbox has been made inactive on them.
- Editing a procedure from Activity Diagram in Workbox Designer no longer produces broken lookups.

WBInterface now provides a schema that can be used for integrating Workbox with other applications, like Microsoft InfoPath.

Workflow diagram can now be printed directly from Workbox Designer.

Most of Workbox’s user interface has been translated into German.

List item edit form now contains Workflow Actions Ribbon button, which can be used to save the form and launch a Workbox action with one click.

To download Workbox please follow this link http://www.datapolis.com/Products/DatapolisWorkbox2010/Download.aspx

Two new clips about installing and licensing

2011-07-07T02:54:00.000-07:00

Hello

We have added two movie guides giving you step-by-step instructions how to setup and license Workbox.

Installation guide
Licensing guide

Hope this will help you to quickly deploy Workbox to your environment.

2 webinars on Wednesday (21-06)

2011-06-21T00:45:00.000-07:00

This Wednesday we are giving two webinars for technical staff.

First webinar is focused on achieving some of the most common requirements of your business users. It is intended for people not familiar with Workbox and it's features. More details and registration.

Second webinar is a technical webinar about potential traps you can fall into when deploying SharePoint workflow solutions. This session is not a product session and is focused on standard SharePoint and WWF issues. If you are planning to develop an enterprise-wide solution or you have already tried and failed - this session is for you. We are going to have two sessions - one for Europe and one for US. Check out the details and register.

Hotfix 1.7.7 is released

2011-06-15T03:06:00.000-07:00

New hotfix for version 1.7 was released. The following issues were solved:

Activities not working for user who has permissions only to elements in a single folder on the site collection,
Errors when matching content types while importing workflow definition,
Error while editing user field with activities that work on list items,
Adding user, who's not among site users, to a list column,
Missing filters in lookups to list item,
Issues with adding and removing user permissions using activities.

To download the fixed version please follow this link
http://www.datapolis.com/Products/DatapolisWorkbox2007/FreeTrial.aspx

Webinar - Help your business people create workflows effectively

2011-04-28T04:51:00.000-07:00

Have you ever try to share the process with the business or define a time-restrained workflow?

Join our free webinar :

HELP YOUR BUSINESS PEOPLE CREATE WORKFLOWS EFFECTIVELY

Please look into Datapolis Workbox, a graphical workflow designer for SharePoint. You will learn:

How to map various business processes into workflows easily
How to document and change workflows in order to facilitate teamwork between business and IT departments
How to overcome SharePoint Designer limitations

Thursday, May 5 - 11.00am BST | 12.00pm CEST

Impersonating user in Workbox vs impersonating user in SharePoint Designer

2011-04-21T06:56:00.000-07:00

As you probably know SharePoint Designer 2010 allows you to create an impersonation step in which activities are done in impersonation mode. But what does it mean? And how it compares to Workbox impersonation?

I'll start to describe how the impersonation works in SPD 2010. By default (and it's the only option in SPD 2007) SPD workflows run in the context of the user who started the workflow. What it means that if your workflow is editing an item, checking some value on a list, adding items then this user needs to have permissions to do that in SharePoint. So in other words to edit an item with a workflow you need to make sure that every user who started the workflow has permissions to modify this item. If not, the workflow will fail. Impersonation allows you to run selected workflow activities in the context of the user who deployed the workflow. This approach is more safe, because users who create workflows are usually site owners or site collection admins and have permissions to do everything on the site.
Unfortunately both approaches have a big flaw. Lets imagine that we have quite complex process designed in SPD and it was started few weeks ago by user X. Unfortunately this user is no longer working for our company so his account was deactivated and his permissions revoked. Now if the workflow will try to edit an item it will fail, since the user who started the workflow no longer has permissions to edit the item .We can restart the workflow, but the problem is that we will need to start from beginning and loose all workflow data and progress. We will run even into bigger issues if user X was a workflow author and has used the impersonation steps in the workflow he has published. Now all workflows based on this workflow definition will crash when trying to do something that requires permissions.

Now let's take a look at impersonation in Workbox. By default all Workbox workflows run in the context of the SharePoint system account, in other words as the app pool account. This means that Workbox workflows will have full permissions to do everything on your SharePoint application. Before you start worrying that this is unsafe, lets look at the benefits of this approach.
First benefit is that you do not need to worry about ensuring that workflow starters or designers have all the permissions required for the workflow to run and that those permissions will not change some time (few days, month, year?) after the workflow was implemented.
Second benefit is that in many cases you do not want the users to have access to lists you are modifying or querying with the workflow. For example you would like the workflow to change the number of leave days the user has, but you don't want to allow the user to do that by themselves and you also want to make sure that each user sees only their own records.
Third benefit is that Workbox has a very nice feature in item activates. It allows you to decide if these activities should run as a system account or as a "current user". "Current user" in this case does not mean "user who has started the workflow" but the "user who has launched the action". So you are able to modify the item as the user who for example approved it and this will show in the item history and in the "modified by" column. You have also a third option "Current user with system rights". When you use this option Workbox will work in the context of the system account, but set the "Modified by" column to a current user. This way others will be able to see who has modified the item without the need to grant them additional permissions.

Now for the security concern. Theoretically running the workflow in the context of the system account can be dangerous - someone designing the workflow could do everything on the farm. Fortunately Workbox implements the security on the designer level. It means that users are not able to define or deploy a workflow that can modify or query objects (sites, lists, items) to which they do not have appropriate permissions. In other words - to modify an item on a list, to query a list, to see a site on a lookup tree you need to have "manage list" (for list and libraries) or "manage site" (for sites) permissions for the list or site you want to use. This way we ensure that if you cannot manage an object directly in SharePoint you will not be able to manage it and share it's contents using workflows.
All the above is true for any workflow solution that uses WWF engine and which workflows run as workflow author or initiator (for ex. Nintex).

Datapolis at Microsoft SharePoint & Office Conference in Milan

2011-04-19T14:32:00.000-07:00

We are attending the Microsoft SharePoint & Office Conference in Milan.
If you are attending this conference please visit us in the booth number 20. On Thursday we will also host a session on SharePoint Designer limitations - http://www.sharepointconference.it/events/2011/agenda.aspx#SP203

See you there!

Datapolis at European SharePoint Best Practices conference

2011-04-06T11:40:00.000-07:00

Datapolis has become a Gold Partner of European SharePoint Best Practices conference which will take place in London on April 11th-13th, 2011.

The third conference of its kind hosted by Combined Knowledge is set to be the European SharePoint conference of 2011, with over 96 sessions and 69 speakers. It will be the SharePoint conference to attend in Europe in 2011, no other event outside Microsoft’s in the US will have this many talented SharePoint speakers in one place.

Among the experts is Datapolis, which will present Workbox – a solution for optimizing business processes. We encourage you to visit our stand where we will share with you our knowledge and experience. You will have a chance to win a great prize.

We also invite you to attend our session on overcoming SharePoint Designer limitations on Tuesday the 12th at 12:45. [read more]

Workbox 2.1 is ready! New SDK is ready! Sidebar Gadget is ready

2011-03-21T16:06:00.000-07:00

What’s new in Workbox 2.1

Today we have published a new version of Workbox. Below is the list of changes made in the new version of Workbox.

Decisions
New functionality extends existing usage of actions and states and makes designing of automatic workflows much easier.
Decision which outgoing action to perform is make based on conditions – when incoming action for decision is launched. If none of conditions are met then the last action if launched.
Filtered lookups was expanded
New functionalities allows you to:
- Choose from elements collection returned by filtering; available options: First, Min, Max, All
- Multiple sorting of returned collection
- Save collection using provided separator
Launch workflow parameters
Allow you to initialize workflow variables when launching workflow. It works similar to launch action parameters. Useful when passing input parameters for workflows during:
- Manual launch
- Using Workbox network service to launch workflow
- When using “Launch workflow action”
Workbox Designer is using Silverlight 4!
Building Workbox Designer with Silverlight 4 extends functionality and makes working with graphical designer much easier.
Value editing directly in form’s field
You can now change form field value by editing it directly on the form. To use lookups just click on icon placed on the right side of the field and choose one from history of lookups or create it from scratch.
Rich text box context menu
You can right-click in the rich text box and use a context menu to copy and paste text between designer windows as well as between Workbox and other applications. This functionality allows you to copy lookups as well.
Changing color scheme of Workbox Designer
You can choose one of predefined color schemes or define your own. You can set the following elements:
- Actions – color of action, action name and icon (common color)
- Workspace background color
- Grid line color
- “Add new role” icon color
- Role and state highlight color
- Panel with roles background color
- Action indicators color
New fields for „Send E-mail” activity
Added new, not required fields for message recipients:
- CC (carbon copy)
- BCC (blind carbon copy)
„Run asynchronously” option for selected activities
Option is available for “Launch workflow” and “Launch action” activities.
Keyboard shortcuts inside Workbox Designer
- CTRL+C – copy selected text to system clipboard
- CTRL+X – cut selected text to system clipboard
- CTRL+V – paste content from system clipboard
- CTRL+Z – undo changes in form field
- CTRL+Y – redo changes in form field
„Current Action Destination State’s Name” – new lookup for workflow states
You can find it in following path: Workflow Data > Workflow States.
Icon indicating using some activities in action
Over the arrow which shows action’s direction there is an icon which informs that there are following activities (or procedures with those activities):
- Start workflow
- Launch workflow action
- Terminate workflow
Icon indicating using action execution conditions
When at least one action execution condition exists proper icon indicator appears.
Icon indicating existing of selftimer
If there is a selftimer defined using outgoing action for specific state – then that action gets an icon indicator.
New activity - „For each item”
Activity allows launching other activities or activity group for list items matching provided conditions. This solution simplifies iterating through all or selected items, returning information which were modified.

Also we have published new Workbox 2010 SDK - with lot of new features - this is Software Development Kit for Workbox 2010. It includes Web Services description, Object Model description, help on how to create activities and functions and Visual Studio sample projects.

In addition we have published new Windows Desktop Gadget for Workbox - This small application placed on Windows 7 / Vista desktop gives users immediate information about new workflow tasks waiting for them. User can monitor chosen SharePoint lists and launch workflow actions straight from the gadget without the need to log into SharePoint. The gadget allows defining up to 8 shortcuts to SharePoint lists with deployed workflows.

To download our products please follow this link http://www.datapolis.com/Products/DatapolisWorkbox2010/Download.aspx

Another webinar on SharePoint designer limits

2011-03-18T04:00:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, March 23rd we are having another webinar regarding SharePoint designer limits in the workflow area. We also give you insight into new workflow features in SharePoint 2010. The webinar will be held at 9:00 AM Pacific Time (5pm CET).

More details and registration form can be found here.
We are also having a webinar in Polish, more details can be found here

SharePoint performance and setting the item permissions with a workflow

2011-03-11T04:49:00.000-08:00

When you model processes in your environment you will sooner or later come upon a request to change a permissions of the item depending on some of the item's meta-data - the author, people assigned as approvers, divisions, categories etc.

The most natural way to tackle such request would be to have a event-handler or a workflow running when item is created or modified and modify current item's permissions. It very simple with Workbox - you just need to use the "set item permissions" activity - you can read more in this post.

If you deploy it on some small list with small number of users then everything will work fine. If you try to implement it on larger list (few thousand items) with larger number of users then you may run into serious performance issues. You can experience long page load times, very high load on the SQL processor, timeouts for queries and workflow crashes.

The information about unique permission limits can be found here for 2007 and here for 2010 (look for the "Security scope") but it's worth clarifying what it exactly means.

For both SharePoint 2007 and 2010 there are limits of 1000 unique security scopes for a list. Microsoft defines a security scope as a "security boundary for a securable object and any of its children that do not have a separate security boundary defined".
In other words this is a definition of permissions a single item, folder or list. If you do not break the inheritance for any item, the total number of scopes for the list will be equal to 1. If you break inheritance for 2 items then the total number of scopes for the list will be 3 - the scope for the list itself + the scopes for each item. But number of scope is not the full picture. The size of the scope also matters - if you set permissions on user levels, then the list will automatically get new entry in the scope for each user with the "Limited access" permission level, which then can be inherited by items that have their permission broken and before you know you end up with a large number of very large security scopes.

The problem is not related to Workbox or a workflow in general - the cause is laying in the way SharePoint tackles the permission settings.I guess that when the SharePoint team has designed this functionality they did not think that people would break the inheritance this much. Having a workflow do it automatically for you can get you very quickly past the recommended limits.

What's worth mentioning is that Microsoft states that in case of exceeding the limits the impact of the performance degradation will be the entire farm not only the list where the security scope exist! This is something I can confirm because we have found out this problem on our own while deploying a solution for our customer (This limitation was documented only in the second half of 2010) - when our farm started to run terribly slow we started looking for the cause and after analyzing all the queries and SQL tables we saw what has happened.
The reason for this behavior is that SQL loads the ACLs into each list and item query and list of ACLs can have even few megabytes. And it's being loaded with EVERY query which brings your SQL to its knees. Here is a good article explaining this issue details http://e-junkie-chronicles.blogspot.com/2011/03/sharepoint-2010-performance-with-item_23.html

There is no good workaround for this problem.
Definitely you need to read this Best Practices document from Microsoft - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg128955.aspx.
One of the solutions could be using folders - you can set up permissions for few folders and then put items in those folders based on their parameters. The benefit from this solution is that permission inheritance is broken only on the folder level, so even if you have few thousand items in each folder, they all inherit permission scopes from the folder, so the number of scopes does not rise with each new item. This solution has few downsides - you need to have a limited number of security combinations (like only A, only B, only A&B, only A&B&C, only B&C, etc), because if you would like to have a separate folders for all possible combination for 100 users then you will get (number of possible permissions)^(number of users) folders. For only 10 users and 3 different permissions you get 60k folders, which gets you nowhere. Second problem is that SharePoint does not allow you move an item into a folder - you need to create a new one in the folder and delete the existing one. And once you do it you loose your workflow, workflow history, change the item ID and link to it and will need to tackle it as well.
Other solution is to remove everyone's permission to such list and create your own web parts that will run with elevated privileges and will take care of the presentation of the list and it's items and restricting permissions. This means that SharePoint list would serve only as a database and you would need to code all other functionality (list views, display and edit forms, web services, etc) yourself.

Webinar - How to create complex workflows in SharePoint – overcoming SharePoint Designer 2010 limitations

2011-02-18T05:32:00.000-08:00


As you probably know SharePoint Designer allows creating simple workflows. Have you ever try to share the process with the business or define a time-restrained workflow?
Free webinar: How to create complex workflows in SharePoint – overcoming SharePoint Designer 2010 limitations. Please join our Consultant Pawel Wrobel for 60 minute tour which will answer following questions: What improvements SharePoint 2010 brought to workflows? Where do SharePoint Designer workflows hit the wall? How to create complex, business-oriented, human-centric workflows in SharePoint 2010? We are running this webinar twice - you can attend the time which is most convenient for you: Tuesday, February 22 - 10am PST \| 1pm EST \| 12pm CST \| 6pm GMT Thursday, February 24 - 10am GMT \| 11am CET \| 2pm GST \| 5am EST
To get more information about Datapolis Workbox visit: www.datapolis.com/freetrial to download free Workbox trial partner.datapolis.com to register on partner site and receive product news and technical information www.datapolis.com/workbox to find out more about Datapolis Workbox

After the SPTechCon

2011-02-18T05:21:00.000-08:00

We got back lat week, but amount of work waiting in our office has kept us from posting.We would like to thank all of you that have visited our booth. It was a great experience to show Workbox to you.We are planning to be present on most bigger SharePoint conferences this year and hope to see you there.

Visit Datapolis Workbox booth at SPTechCon San Francisco and win Toshiba Netbook

2011-02-04T01:23:00.000-08:00

Datapolis will be exhibiting at the SPTechCon in San Francisco from 7th to 9th February showcasing the newest version of Datapolis Workbox, a human-centric workflow solution for SharePoint.
Datapolis Workbox 2010 is a user-friendly and flexible graphical designer for creating, automating
and managing workflows. Main features:

Graphical Web-based designer for SharePoint
Business-oriented solution – separated Business and Technical Layers
Ease of modifying and remodeling workflows
Full integration with SharePoint
Extended SharePoint permission model
Reporting and decision support

Please visit our booth #106 and fill in the questionnaire to win Toshiba Netbook.
To get more information about Datapolis Workbox visit:

www.datapolis.com/freetrial to download free Workbox trial.
partner.datapolis.com to register on partner site and receive product news and technical information.
www.datapolis.com/workbox to find out more about Datapolis Workbox.

SPTechCon is the SharePoint conference with classes for IT professionals, business managers, analysts and developers.
The conference offers more than 90 classes and workshops, presented by both local and international SharePoint speakers. Conference will be held in San Francisco from 7th to 9th February 2011.

Hotfix 2.0.5 is released

2010-12-21T23:32:00.000-08:00

The following problems were resolved in the current version:

active Workbox feature blocking changing permissions for site, list and list items,
no source site's address encoding causing incorrect redirection after executing a workflow action,
lookup to action not accessible in Edit Items activity's Fields parameter,
issues in Workbox Designer when saving changes to workflow variable in some cases,
no possibility of removing first record in Fields parameter in Edit Items activity,
no possibility of adding user to role when using Forms-Based Authentication,

as well as other errors.

To download Workbox 2.0.5 please follow this link
http://www.datapolis.com/datapolis/en/Products/DatapolisWorkbox2010/FreeTrial.aspx

Workbox at Collaboration Days in Luzern, Switzerland

2010-11-30T12:16:00.000-08:00

If you are going to be at Collaboration Days in Luzern please stop by our partner's booth to talk to us about Workbox.
Our partner - 1Source - http://www.one-source.ch/ is an exchibitor and invites everyone to learn more about their services. Datapolis is supporting 1Source in this event and 3 of our collegues will be there to answer all your questions.

More about the exhibit - http://www.collaborationdays.ch/one_source_ag.html.

Hotfix 2.0.3 and SDK 2010 are released

2010-11-15T22:57:00.000-08:00

The following problems were resolved in the Workbox 2.0.3 version:

active Workbox feature blocking changing permissions for site, list and list items,
no source site's address encoding causing incorrect redirection after executing a workflow action,
lookup to action not accessible in Edit Items activity's Fields parameter,
issues in Workbox Designer when saving changes to workflow variable in some cases,
no possibility of removing first record in Fields parameter in Edit Items activity,
no possibility of adding user to role when using Forms-Based Authentication,

as well as other errors.

Also we have published Workbox 2010 SDK - this is Software Development Kit for Workbox 2010. It includes Web Services description, Object Model description, help on how to create activities and functions and Visual Studio sample projects.

To download Workbox 2.0.3 please follow this link
http://www.datapolis.com/datapolis/en/Products/DatapolisWorkbox2007/GetaFreeTrial.aspx

To download Workbox 2010 SDK please follow this link
http://www.datapolis.com/datapolis/en/Products/DatapolisWorkbox2010/TechnicalInformation/SDK.aspx

Hotfix 1.7.5 is released

2010-11-04T04:32:00.000-07:00

New hotfix for version 1.7 was released.The following issues were solved:

lacking workflow's ending time in WBInfo web service,
not encoded ID parameter causing incorrect redirection from Action Launch Form,
no possibility of defining lookup to action in Fields parameter of Edit Items activity,
on some machines workflow's starting time reported by WBInfo consisting only of date part,
no possibility of removing first record in Fields parameter of Edit Items activity,
some lookups names not updating in parent text boxes when closing Lookup Edit Form window.

To download the fixed version please follow this link
http://www.datapolis.com/datapolis/en/Products/DatapolisWorkbox2007/GetaFreeTrial.aspx

Workbox 2010 is ready!

2010-10-22T02:15:00.000-07:00

Today we have published a new version of Workbox. It has the same functionality as Workbox 1.7, but is designed for SharePoint 2010.

You can download the new release from:
http://www.datapolis.com/workbox/get

Hotfix 1.7.4 is released

2010-09-22T07:11:00.000-07:00

New hotfix for version 1.7 was released. This hotfix repairs the following:

In Edit Items activity:
- Issues when copying the activity using clipboard,
- Error blocking activity edit window,
- Errors when deploying a workflow,
- Setting empty value to User of Group field of an item.
Issues when defining the name of End State;
Issues when adding items to Document Library using Action Launch Form.
Issues with displaying logical functions in Spanish version.

To download the fixed version please follow this link www.datapolis.com/EN/wb_freetrial.html.

Hotfix 1.7.3 is released

2010-09-08T04:05:00.000-07:00

New hotfix for version 1.7 was released. This hotfix repairs below problems:

View and edit form ignored the filed security settings for state - error applied only if SCP Pro was not installed and turned on for given list.
Launch form "Date" and "Users" field types allow empty values despite having the "Required" parameter set to "True".
Launch form "User" field type accepts people despite "Groups only" setting.
When the "Edit item" activity is copied it shares it's "field values" setting with all the copies. Update on one instance of the copied activity changes all other "Edit item" activities copied from the same source.
Reusing the "Find user" lookup inside one activity returns empty string.
Name, description and value of variable appeared in the used lookups.
The designer stayed grayed out after submitting an error.
SCP Pro feature was not activated during the setup.

To download the fixed version please follow this link www.datapolis.com/EN/wb_freetrial.html.

Hot fix for 1.7

2010-08-18T02:15:00.000-07:00

We have just released hot fix for version 1.7.
New release has number 1.7.2 and fixes the following problems:

Setup problems when upgrading from previous versions of SCP and Workbox
Anonymous user gets "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" error when trying to display item view form, add new form or edit form
Error "access denied" when trying to enter list view by authorized user who is not site administrator
Problems with "file" field type on action launch form
Returning null in "IF" activity under specific conditions

You can download it from here.

Hotfix 1.7.1 is released

2010-07-26T06:42:00.000-07:00

New hotfix for version 1.7 was released. This release repairs below problems:

Wrong functionality of lookups to actions
Not properly working IF activity
Wrong functionality of lists web service in SCP PRO

To download the fixed version please follow this link www.datapolis.com/EN/wb_freetrial.html.

Workbox 1.7 is ready!

2010-07-20T06:17:00.000-07:00

Today we have published a new version of Workbox. Most emphasis was put on improving performance, but a number of new features were added as well.

Below is the list of changes made in the new version of Workbox.

"Loop" - new activity
"Loop" activity allows running other activities multiple times, assuming that:
- Set conditions are met
- Maximum iterations number is not exceeded.
All Workbox activities can be executed within loop, including other (nested) loops
"Send E-mail" activity – two new output parameters
Two new output parameters have been added to "Send E-mail" activity:
- "Sent to" - returns e-mail addresses to which message had been sent
- "Invalid accounts" – returns names of users who could not be found or whose e-mail addresses had not been set
"Edit items" – modifying multiple fields in one activity
"Edit items" activity now supports modifying multiple fields in one go. This helps to prevent workflow’s size bloating, which resulted in impaired performance.
The functionality bases on a new field type – Hashtable – which can be used in custom activities. For more information, please see SDK.
Set of new functions
The following functions have been added:
- Text before
- Text after
- Right
- Date format
Procedures
Procedures is a new functionality allowing creating groups of activities which then can be reused in various places within the workflow. It simplifies both the workflow’s definition and managing sequences of activities.
Performance
In the current release, performance has been considerably improved:
- Workflows – faster workflow starting and action execution:
- Workbox Designer:
Changes in activities' category structure
New activity category has been introduced: Control. Additionally, categories are now collapsed by default.
Advanced Workflow Editing
This option is available for Administrators on "Workbox Settings" page. It allows free, unconstrained editing of activity fields in workflow definition (for instance, in place of selecting SharePoint list from lookup tree, user can enter its URL). The feature is for advanced users. Note: the feature does not include security constraints, therefore caution in using it is advised.
Licensing improvements
A number of issues concerning Datapolis’ products reinstallation have been fixed.
New SharePoint Column Protector Pro
This release contains SharePoint Column Protector Pro ORM, instead of SharePoint Column Protector OEM. In case you are using other Datapolis solutions besides Workbox, please see the compatibility table, which can be found at http://www.datapolis.com

You can download new release here:
http://www.datapolis.com/EN/wb_freetrial.html.

Hotfix 1.6.4 is released

2010-06-21T01:27:00.000-07:00

New hotfix for version 1.6 was released. This release repairs below problems:

Licensing occasionally blocking part of Workbox functionalities

Send E-mail activity - problem with recognizing users in certain security configurations

To download the fixed version please follow this link www.datapolis.com/EN/wb_freetrial.html.

Functions Pack for Workbox has been released

2010-05-31T02:14:00.000-07:00

We have just published Functions Pack which extends Workbox with four new functions. The functions included in the Pack are the following:

Substring After
Substring Before
Right
DateTime

You can download the Pack from:
http://www.datapolis.com/datapolis/EN/wb_functionpack.html

Polish version:
http://www.datapolis.com/datapolis/pl/wb_functionpack.html

User guide is included. The package is free of charge.

Hotfix 1.6.3 is released

2010-05-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

New hotfix for version 1.6 was released. This release repairs a problem with workflow history on Italian language site.

To download the fixed version please follow this link www.datapolis.com/EN/wb_freetrial.html.

Workbox 1.6 is ready!

2010-03-15T03:16:00.000-07:00

We have just released a new release of Workbox.
Below you will find a list of changes included in the release 1.6. Changes that affect the existing workflow and designer functionalities are marked with red exclamation marks and should receive your attention.

“Current Item" parameter for item-operating activities
When you want an activity to perform operations on the current item only, you can simply check the “Current Item” checkbox – there will be no need to provide a site, list and set item filters.
The parameter is available for the following activities:
- Edit Items
- Copy Items
- Delete Items
- Check In/Out Item
- Approve/reject Item
- Send an E-mail (current item attachments)
- Launch Workflow Action
- Start Workflow
- Terminate Workflow
There is also a new parameter for “File” field type in Action Launch Form: “Attach to current item”. When selected, all files uploaded by Action Launch Form will be attached to the current item.
“Run as” parameter for activities
The “Run as” parameter provides a way to set the account on which an activity should operate. You can select from the following:
- Current user with system rights
- System account
- Current user
The parameter is now available in the following activities
- Add Item
- Edit Items
- Copy Items
- Delete Items
- Check In/Out Item
- Launch Workflow Action
- Start Workflow
- Terminate Workflow
Note: The option “Current user with system rights” is not available for workflow-managing activities (last three from the list above).
The “Run as” parameter is also available in Action Launch Form for the “File” field type. You can choose by which user account the files should be uploaded
System Update in Edit Items activity
In Edit Items activity there is now a new parameter: “System Update”. It allows modifying an item without changing its “Last modified” and “Last modified by” fields.
Activity containers
We have added a new quasi-activity: a Container. It can group a number of activities, allowing you to move them all at once, thus helping you manage your activities diagrams. It can also be collapsed, making the diagram more readable by hiding its content.
Name of the If activity.
You can change the name of the If activity. This will make your complex activity diagrams more readable and easier to understand.
Send E-mail activity – now sends e-mails to group members
Now you can provide SharePoint users and groups as mail recipients without the need of knowing their e-mail addresses.
New function: Replace Multiple Words
A new function has been added: Replace Multiple Words. It eliminates the need to use the Replace function for each word. The Replace Multiple Words function replaces all occurrences of specified words with other words.
!Null (empty) workflow variables!
Workbox now accepts variables to be null (empty). For example, in previous releases of Workbox if you didn’t provide a value for an Integer field on Action Launch Form, the corresponding workflow variable was automatically set to 0 (zero). Now the variable will have a null (empty) value.
Action Launch Form templates
When you create a new an Action Launch Form, set its header and footer, assign workflow variables and set all the field parameters, you can save such a form as a template, which could then be used in other actions.
Action fields validation in WBInfo web service
If you are using Workbox SDK, this information might be important: starting from this release there is server-side action fields validation when running an action through web service, implementing the same logic as the standard Action Launch Forms. The web service returns any errors found and halts the action execution process.
Read-only fields on Action Launch Forms
You can now set a field to be read only. It will work as a normal field, but the user will not be allowed to change its value. The field will be rendered as disabled.
Permission level matching while importing workflow from file
Workflow matching functionality has been enhanced with permission levels.

Note: Remember that this functionality works only for workflows exported by Workbox Designer 1.6.
Changes in deploying workflows on email-receiving document libraries
Now, if you work on a site administrator and site owner account, you don’t have to set in web.config a different account for deploying workflows on email-receiving document libraries. The workflows are deployed using your account and will start automatically after an e-mail is received

Note: Remember that you need additional configuration for SharePoint – see Known Errors on Workbox Blog for more information.
Custom name for End state
The End state can now have a custom name. The name can vary, depending on which action ended the workflow.

Two new tutorials

2010-01-26T05:44:00.000-08:00

We have published two new tutorials on our site.

First tutorial introduces you to the new action launch form designer functionality - http://www.datapolis.com.pl/EN/forms.html
Second tutorial explains how to use SDK to increase Workbox functionality and connect to workflows from external applications - http://www.datapolis.com.pl/EN/workbox-sdk.htm

Enjoy!

Hotfix 1.5.3 is released

2010-01-11T06:14:00.000-08:00

New hotfix for version 1.5 was released. This release repairs a problem with the "Copy items" activity.

To download the fixed version please follow this link www.datapolis.com/EN/wb_freetrial.html.

Workbox and SCP

2010-01-04T07:10:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed during Workbox installation or when viewing the features, that apart from Workbox, you have one more product from Datapolis installed - SharePoint Column Protector (SCP).

SharePoint Column Protector is a Datapolis product which is embeded into the Workbox. SCP is used to manage permissions to view columns (fields) of an item. It is used in Workbox to manage permissions to an item in a state.

SCP is a commercial product (you can check the price on our web site) that can work completely independent from Workbox. You can try it out (it has 30 day trial period) and see if it is usefull for you.

When you install Workbox, SCP is installed in runtime mode, in which you are not able to manage the permissions to the item columns without the workflow. In other words, SCP in embeded in Workbox and can be used only through Workbox. There is a small hack that you can do and use the SCP fully for 30 days, but after that it will stop working and will be accessible only through Workbox

If you purchase SCP then you are able to use its full functionality and Workbox will still use it. One important thing - Workbox overrides SCP settings - so if you configure something in SCP and then run a Workbox workflow on this list, then SCP setting will be ignored.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-23T05:02:00.000-08:00

Scope of the release 1.5.5

2009-12-22T05:30:00.000-08:00

Sorry for not publishing this earlier - most of the Workbox team is currently off for holidays after the exhausting release 1.5. We will start working on the new release in January.
As always - after releasing the big release we are going to do the sub-release, that will be shorter and will only improve the existing features, without introducing any big changes.
In the next release of Workbox (expected by the end of January) we will introduce the following functionalities:

"Current item" check-box - you will be able to quickly point to the current item on item activities instead of defining the list and item filter "ID=[Current item ID]".
"As current user" check-box - you will be able to define on item activities, that in item modification history the "modified by" will be set to the user launching the action instead of the "system" account
"Do not change version" check-box - you will be able to set on the "edit item" activity that the changes should be done without adding new version to the item. Very useful when editing multiple fields.
Launch form templates - you will be able to save your launch form as a template and use it on another action in the same workflow
Read only fields on launch form
Permission level matching - currently permission levels are not matched during workflow migration. This will change in the new release
Activity grouping - you will be able to group selected activities on the activity diagram, fold such group, copy it, move, etc.
"If" activity name will be displayed on the diagram

We will also optimize the workflow deployment mechanism to speed up the workflow deployment process and fix any bugs from the previous releases.

Mathematical operations in Workbox

2009-12-22T04:17:00.000-08:00

As you may have noticed, inputting "3+5" in the activity parameter will return "3+5". What to do, to receive (in this case) "8"?

To perform the calculation you need to pass the equation to a variable using "set variable" activity or use the "calculate" math function.
NOTE: The variable which will receive the equation must be of "double" or "integer" type. Only then the calculations will be performed.

Later, you can use this variable in other lookup fields.

So, for example - you want to take data from one SharePoint item field, subtract it from another field and put the equation result into another SharePoint item field. To do this:

In the activities window add "edit item" activity and double click it to enter the details
Pick the list, filters and field you want to add the new value.
Open the new value field
Click on the "Lookup" button
Go to functions -> math ->calculate
Click on the value textbox, new window will appear
Pick (using lookups) value of the selected SharePoint item field
enter minus sign
The equation should look like this (without quotation marks) "[list_name - field_name] - [list_name2 - field_name2]"
Click ok,

Now Workbox will do the calculation instead of treating the values as text.

You can use the following functions:

^
+
-
/
*
cos
sin
exp
ln
tan
acos
asin
atan
cosh
sinh
tanh
sqrt
cotan
fpart
acotan
round
ceil
floor
fac
sfac
abs
log
%
>
<
&&
==
!=
||
!
>=
<=

and constants:

euler
pi
nan
infinity
true
false

Item field permissions on for multiple workflows

2009-12-15T02:55:00.000-08:00

If you have more than one Workbox workflow on a SharePoint list item or document in library, all of these workflows affect permissions for item's fields.
The general rule is that Workbox is taking the sum of all permissions for given user. So if in workflow A in state A1 you have permissions to view fields X,Y and in workflow B in state B1 you have permissions to view fields W,Y,Z then you will see fields W,X,Y,Z. If in state A2 you do not have permissions for any column, and in workflow B you are still in state B1, then you will have the W,Y,Z columns visible.
The same rule applies for the "edit" permissions.
Since there are no "deny" permissions, if you are included in a role that has permissions to see a column - you will see it, regardless of settings from other workflows.
If you are also using another Datapolis product - SCP, then SCP settings are ignored when the workflow kicks in. This mean that Workflow settings override SCP settings and you will get what you have defined for workflows in given states.

Hotfix for 1.5

2009-12-14T15:08:00.000-08:00

We have released a hotfix for version 1.5.
The most important fix is the wrkstat.aspx error - please see details here.

As always you can download the newset version here www.datapolis.com/docs/WorkBox.zip

Workbox 1.5 upgrade - best practice

2009-12-01T09:35:00.000-08:00

Workbox 1.5 is here. But since we have change a couple of things (the most invasive one is the change of feature scope - from site collection feature to site feature) upgrade should be taken with a bit of care.

Before you start we recommend reading the "Upgrading..." chapter from installation instruction.We also recommend reading this page about new features.

This is the recommended upgrade scenario:

Download Workbox 1.5 from here.
If you do not want to turn on the Workbox feature on all sites of chosen web application please note the sites where you want to turn the Workbox feature.
NOTE: Uninstalling and installing Workbox will cause the workflow actions to be unavailable. Make sure to perform the upgrade when users are not using Workbox workflows.Expected downtime is around 15 minutes.
Go to the location where you have your Workbox setup files (c:\program files\datapolis\workbox setup by default).
Run setup.exe and choose the "remove" option.
Do the IIS reset.
Run the new installer
Extract the files to Workbox setup 1.5 folder (or someplace different than the old setup files).
Run the setup.
Select the web applications. If you do not want to turn on the feature automaticaly, uncheck the checkbox.
Run IIS reset after the setup (machine restart recommended).

If you do not follow the above steps and just select the "upgrade" option in the installer you can expect 2 things:

your machine might (but does not have to) cache the DLL's which may lead to some strange behavior (deployment problems, workflow stopping after start and lack of workflow actions)
Workbox site feature will not be activated anywhere, so you will have to activate it manually on every site.

UPGRADE FAQ:

Q: How will new version change my workflows?
A: We tried to make the new version as much backwards compatible as possible. There were some areas where it was impossible (for example the "BR" tags in mail messages). Generally your workflows should work without any problems with the new version, users will have a little different (better) experience with action launch form. The only thing that might work differently are the e-mails - you might lose some line spacing there. Please see the "What's new" article in Workbox help or on this page and help for the "Import/Export" and the "Launch form"

Q: Won't the uninstall destroy my workflows?
A: No. The workflows that are already running will not be affected by the uninstall. The only problem that might occur is with new workflow starting during the uninstallation or the users launching some actions. Also users will not be able to use the workflows until the new version is installed. We recommend doing the upgrade when no one is using Workbox workflows
Q: I don't like the new functionality/something went wrong. Can I roll back?
A: Yes, you can. Simply use the new installer to deinstall version 1.5 and resintall the version you had previously.

If you have any questions or comments regarding the upgrade please leave your comments underneath this post.

Workbox 1.5 is ready!

2009-12-01T09:19:00.000-08:00

After 4 months of development we have released version 1.5 of Workbox for SharePoint (build 1.5.0.161).

In this version:

action launch form
Saving workflows in STP
Action URL
Folder in item activities
Logical funtions

and much more - see this page for full info.

You can download the new release from here.

UPGRADERS - PLEASE NOTE
If you are upgrading from version 1.4.3 or earlier please make sure you read the installation instruction. Release 1.5 brings in some changes that might stop your workflows. In general - please de-install old version using old installer and install the new version using the new installer. After setup turn on the Workbox feature on every site you would like Workbox workflows to work. Please see this post for details.

Saving workflow solution in site template.

2009-11-26T08:05:00.000-08:00

Starting with release 1.5 Workbox allows you to save workflow definitions in site templates. This means that you can prepare a SharePoint site with multiple lists and workflows and deploy it to different locations. All you need to do is to save site as a template and use it to create other sites. Workflows will be deployed automatically on newly created site.

In order to get your workflows to work properly after you create new sites from STP, you need to prepare the STP correctly.

Follow these steps to create a properly working workflow solution:

Configure a site that you want to save as template. Create all lists and workflows you need. Test if everything is working as it should.
Delete all content you do not want to save inside the template.
TURN OFF the Workbox feature.
Save site as STP. REMEMBER TO CHECK THE “Save content” CHECKBOX.

When you want to deploy a solution:

Create a new site using your STP as a site template.
After the site is created, turn on the Workbox feature.
Wait for the feature to activate.
After all the workflows are matched, you will receive an e-mail with log of the match process. If there were any errors during lookup matching, you will get notification. This log is also accessible from the Workbox workflow administration page. Workflows that did not match correctly will be listed in the log and marked with red exclamation marks on the workflow list.
If there were workflows which haven’t been matched properly, open each of them in Workbox Designer. You will be taken automatically to the matching form, where you would be able to manually match all the lookups that could not be matched automatically. When finished, deploy the workflow.

NOTE: Instances of running workflows are not saved. This means that if you have any working or completed workflows on items, these workflow instances will be lost. This includes workflow history for all items.

Here are few facts that will help you to understand the workflow deploying process:

Workbox workflows are dependent on object GUIDs. These are unique IDs that allow Workbox to identify SharePoint elements (sites, lists, items). When you create new site, these GUIDs are generated anew. This causes workflow definition to point to locations it cannot recognize. To fix this problem, workflow lookups must be matched again after the site is created.
Workbox tries to match workflow definitions when you turn on the Workbox feature. This is the same matching functionality you know from when you import workflow definition from file. When you turn the Workbox feature on, Workbox will automatically try to match all the workflows and deploy the workflows that were deployed when the template was created.
Workbox may be unable to match lookups automatically if your template is referring to some objects outside the site – other sites, permission levels, SharePoint groups – that do not exist in the new environment. In such case you need to match those lookups manually. Workbox will detect such situation and tag unmatched workflows. If you open them with Workbox Designer, the matching window will come up, allowing you to manually point the desired objects. When corrected, workflow must then be deployed.
Workflow definition is stored as a file on SharePoint library. To include the workflow into the site template, you must include the content in the site definition by checking the “Include content” checkbox.
Workflow instance data is stored outside the site. That’s why information about any running or completed workflows will be lost. We advise you to save to definition only the data that is necessary for the solution to work (e.g. workflow libraries, mail data, etc).
Aside from lookup matching, Workbox also performs authorization provider match. It determines whether you use Active Directory or Forms Authentication and tries to match domains or membership providers with those which can be found in a new environment. If it cannot find a domain or membership provider with the name provided in a workflow definition, it assumes the first found domain or membership provider, ignoring the internal NT AUTHORITY and SHAREPOINT domains.

Deleting list permissions vs. item permissions

2009-11-24T04:02:00.000-08:00

We have received an issue report from one of our partners. They have encountered a situation where the Workbox 'List permissions’ activity changed an item security. After looking into this problem we have learned that this is a standard SharePoint behavior, but it needs a bit of explanation.

Workbox allows you to create a workflow that will set SharePoint list permissions. This is achieved through an activity called "List permissions". One of the activity parameters is the "Delete existing permissions" check-box. If you select it Workbox will remove all existing list permissions. This allows you to quickly clear the list permissions and set them exactly the way you want them.

There is one thing that you need to remember about if you break permission inheritance for an element. In general - if you remove a user from the list, then SharePoint will automatically remove this user's permissions from all items in this list. This is because user needs to have access to the list to have any permissions to the item. You can see this behavior if you add someone permissions to some item when they had no permissions assigned directly to the list. The user will get the "Limited access" permission to the list.

Having that in mind, when you select the "Delete existing permissions" check-box ALL permissions to the list will be deleted. This will result in deleting ALL permissions to the items with broken inheritance. So please be very careful in using this settings as it can mess your item permissions.

Workbox and SharePoint 2010

2009-11-20T02:04:00.000-08:00

You are probably wondering what are our plans regarding Workbox compatibility with SharePoint 14.

The general answer is that we are definitely going to support SP2010 and we want to have it ready for the official release of SP14. Probably we will start some R&D next week, but we cannot promise the SP 14 compatible version this year.

Availability of Workbox for SP2010 depends on how much changes Microsofthas made in the API. We will need to change the references from the SP12 to the SP 14 DLLs, but we are not sure if Microsoft pledge, that old application will work canbe taken literally. The amount of work depends how many things we will need to adjust to the new API. We will post new information as soon as we know more on this issue.

Workbox on Twitter

2009-11-18T06:29:00.001-08:00

Now you can quickly see what is going on with workbox - simply follow us on Twitter - www.twitter.com/workboxworkflow

News about Workbox

2009-11-13T09:21:00.000-08:00

Recently we have been very quiet about Workbox. This is because there have been a lot things going on that kept us from posting. In the previous weeks we were focused on making bigger impact with Workbox in the nearest future.

I can now reveal few things what you can expect soon.

The most important one is of course the new release. I know that you are waiting impatiently for the new features and I can assure you that we are just as impatient to give them to you. The changes we are introducing are very wide and require throughout testing on our side, so you have to wait a bit longer. We are now in the beta phase - polishing all details, checking different scenarios, focusing strongly on backward compatibility to make sure you workflows will work properly. One thing we haven't told you is that we are going to introduce Spanish version of Workbox.

The next thing is that we are preparing new web site, that will be strongly focused on Workbox. We are also going to be more active on the social sites to spread the word on Workbox and keep you informed. Below you can see how our main page will look like.

Third great area where we have invested is getting ready for the SharePoint 2010 and Project Server 2010. We have attended Project Ignite in Prague to get more details on workflows in PS 2010.

Blog commitment

2009-11-13T08:53:00.000-08:00

In the recent weeks we all have been very busy getting the release finished.

Unfortunately there is also a lot to be done in related areas - partners, marketing, new opportunities - so this blog has suffered and no new updates appeared here.

That's why I have deceived to make a commitment to post at least 1 post weekly to keep you up to date on what's going on and also give you more insight on Workbox. You can expect new post by Friday each week.

Sneak peek - Viewing the values provided by user on action launch form (variables)

2009-10-15T07:04:00.000-07:00

As you probably might know, you can ask your user to provide some information when launching the action.
This data is then stored inside the workflow. You can surface it by using the "edit item" activity and putting this value unto some SharePoint field, or for example send it in the e-mail and so on.

In the new release we will also display that data in the workflow history. Thanks to this new functionality you will be able to easily check what data the users have provided in the launch form.
You can see how it looks on the screen-shots from the beta version:

Rich e-mail messages

2009-10-09T05:34:00.000-07:00

You might have come to a problem, when you had to send an e-mail with Workbox and it was, well .... ugly.
Your only option to make it look better was to use HTML with styles and format entire message in the not-so-convenient textbox. We do not have any good Silverlight control that would allow you to create nice looking messages in the Workbox, but we have a workaround.

The workaround is to create a separate list, where you can use the SharePoint richtext box to define the message. For example - have a list with 2 fields - one would be the title, which would define what kind of message this is and another is a multi-line textbox field with rich content enabled. Then inside the designer just use lookup to make the workflow use this field value in the e-mail. This has also a great advantage that you can change e-mail message without redeploying workflow.

How about using lookups in such message?
You have two options - either you combine the message from few elements and insert lookup between them or you can use the "Replace multiple words" to replace a chosen tags with lookup values.

One thing to remember - text in Sharepoint textboxes is using SharePoint styles. Make sure to choose the font family and size to get the same styles in your message.

Hotfix 1.4.3 is released

2009-10-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

Because the release was postponed we have decided to publish the hotfix. It is fixing the bug that is causing the designer stalling (see this error). There is also one fix to the installer, which is making the installer more resistant to the errors.
As always, the new version is available here www.datapolis.com/workbox/get.

Workbox vs. SharePoint Designer

2009-10-07T07:10:00.001-07:00

We have created a table that compares SPD 2007 and Workbox. You can download it from here

Release postponed

2009-10-03T15:24:00.000-07:00

I should have published this 2 weeks earlier, but I just forgot.

The release of version 1.4.5 is posponed. We were having some staffing dificulties (few vacations, another project, 2 sick leaves, one honey moon) which have led to time-line slip. Most of the functionalities are ready, but we need to test them, which will take us 2-3 weeks. The more specific date will be published next week.

Sorry to all who were expecting the release - we are doing all we can to get it ready as soon as possible

Coping or moving your lookup

2009-09-25T06:39:00.000-07:00

Lookups are very powerful and allow you to greatly enhance your workflow. They are also sometimes time consuming to configure (especially when using functions or embedded lookups).

As you already might have noticed it is impossible to copy anything from the rich textbox that allows you to configure the lookup. What can you do if you would like to use the same lookup somewhere else or move the lookup to another place?
This can be a really important feature when after defining some lookup you realize that you would need to do one more operation with the lookup (for example trim it or add "5" to a calculated value). What to do, apart from creating the lookup from scratch?

The solution for this problem are the "used lookups". As you might have noticed, when you create new lookup a small context menu appears, allowing you to create a lookup based on another lookup.

If you would like to copy an already created lookup, simply choose it's new location and select the lookup that should be copied from the list of used lookups. If you want to move the lookup, simply delete the source lookup AFTER creating the copied one. If you would like to insert a used lookup into a function do it the same way as you would move the lookup - create a new lookup in the function, based on the existing one and then delete the first one.

One more thing - new lookups do not modify the lookups that were used to create them. The existing lookups act as templates for the lookups. You can modify the new one and be sure that the existing one will not be modified.

Automatic item permissions in SharePoint

2009-09-22T06:11:00.000-07:00

NOTE: See important performance information in this post

We have been asked by one of our users

"Our business need is to allow users access to particular items only if they are listed in a 'points of contact' field in the item. This appears to be possible but not clean with MOSS.

Is this something your product can help with? If not, do you have a suggestion?"

Workbox allows you to create a solution for this problem in minutes.
We have created a short tutorial to show you how you can easily achieve this scenario by using Workbox workflow.

You can also download a definition of this workflow to try it our on your environment.

Generally you can use the "Set item permissions" activity to set the permissions of the current item. Users who shoudl receive permissions can be extracted from different sources - current user, author, last editor, user inputed in the item fields or by user when launching the action. There are many options and ways you can use this activity in. If you have some comments or ideas, please write them in comments to this post.

Second hotfix for 1.4 - updated

2009-09-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

Today we have released a hotfix for version 1.4.

The hotfix fixes 2 things:

It will contain full French version, with all literals translated
It will fix the error causing the action conditions to ignore the functions (thus you cannot use any functions in the action conditions)

You can download the hotfix from here www.datapolis.com/workbox/get

Workbox technical videos

2009-09-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

We have strated to publish our technical videos on the You Tube.

These videos will help you to understand how different Workbox functionalities work and how to use them.

Our You Tube channel is www.youtube.com/datapolis. On the right side of the blog you can find the newest videos. We are planning to release the core of the technical videos by the end of next week.

Permission reporting tool for SharePoint

2009-09-10T14:57:00.000-07:00

Few days ago Microsoft has released the Fourth Release of the Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit. It was announced on the SharePoint team blog.

A very interesting part of this toolkit is a permission reporting tool. I think that every administrator should have it on their MOSS/WSS environment as this helps with permission management on the farm. It is also really useful when working with Workbox - it can help you debug some problems with the permissions to the workflow and workflow items.

Generally the tool allows administrators to quickly check users' permissions. This is very useful, since due to multiple inheritances and big number of permission levels it is very easy to lose track who has which permissions.

The tool allows you to check on every level - site, list and even item - what permissions has chosen user. The tool displays what kind of permission levels given user has to a chosen object and how were they assigned (through group or directly). More about this functionality is here.

Reporting tool gives you also ability to quickly glance through permissions for all lists and sites in a given site. It also lets you to compare the permissions to parent permission and list which are different - who was added and who was removed. More on Office.com.

What is strange - the tool does not tell you that a user is a farm admin.

The third cool thing is a broken inheritance report. This report gives you information what are the permissions for current object and its siblings. More info about these report is here. The reports are in form of an XML, but can be easily opened in Excel. By default reports are stored in SharePoint list. It takes some time to run the report.

You can download the tool from here.
Here are some tips about the setup:

you need to have SP2 with the April Cumulative Updates. I would recommend installing the June Updates, as the April ones are included in the June CU. All details how to setup the June CU are here. Make sure you install SP to all the language packs, as without them you will not be able to install the CU.
after you setup the Toolkit you will find the reporting tool in the folder where the toolkit was setup (by default C:\Program Files\Microsoft\SPAdministrationToolkit\PermissionReportingSolution). It's in the form of a WSP. You need to use the STADM and addsolution operation and to set it up on your farm. Here is an MSDN article on how to add solution, depoly it and activate the feature from the STSADM
Next you need to deploy the solution from the central administration (operations -> global configuration -> solution management).
The last step is the feature activation - you activate it for the farm. You need the April CU to activate the future.

After that you are good to go. Enjoy!

Hotfix for 1.4

2009-08-18T04:31:00.000-07:00

Today we have released a hot fix for version 1.4. The latest version is 1.4.1.120. Please download it from here: www.datapolis.com/workbox/get.

The hotfix fixes these 3 errors:

Sorry for problems these errors might have caused.

Action launch form

2009-08-13T04:39:00.000-07:00

Currently in Workbox you can ask users to provide some information when they launch an action. This is a very simple mechanism, which is lacking a lot of features - you just chose the variables and that's all - no control over validation, default value or text on the launch page.

This has been a big pain for us for a long time, but with every release other things seemed more important. Finally in this release we have chosen the modification of action launch form as our top priority.

How will this functionality look? We wanted to keep the very simple and intuitive way of choosing the variables and give you at the same time a lot of configuration capabilities.

We have come up with the following - the "variables" window on the action properties will change to "Launch form". The existing form will be heavily modified and will look something like this (sorry for Polish screens but I don't have time to translate them):

On this window (going from the top):

do not show the form and launch action without confirmation - after choosing this button rest of this window will be inactive and when user clicks on the action launch button or selects it from the context menu action will launch immediately
Copy the form's settings from different action - you can select another action in this workflow and copy the settings to this action
Form header - a text field which allows you to input DHTML that will be displayed as a header of the page. You can use lookups to make the content rich with information
Variable picker - this picker works a little like user picker in the role membership. It has replaced the checkboxes on the old "action variables" window. This picker allows you to choose which variables will be used as form fields. You can also change their order on the form and enter field properties window.
Manage variables button - open variables window - this is the same button an in the old window
Form footer - same as the header but is displayed below fields and above the buttons.

This screen does not bring much new into the form management - the new thing is that it allows you to enter form footer and header, control field order and see better which variables are chosen.

The real power is in the field properties. This window works much like list columns setting on SharePoint. We were trying to keep it as similar as possible, so it would be straightforward to SharePoint users. Also the launch form itself will be in SharePoint design, so users will see the interface they know. We will also use the standard SharePoint controls for the rich text box, people picker etc.

The window will look like this:

There are 3 groups of parameters:

General properties. This group has 3 fields:

name
description
field type- will have the following values - single line of text, multiple lines of text, number, date and time, yes/no, list, people picker, file.
By default name will have the name of the variable, description will have the description of the variable and field type will be by default the type of the variable. We will introduce lookups to variable name and description.

Validation - here you will be able to set validation rules. These fields will change depending on the field type.
Properties - here you will be able to set default value (you can use lookups for that, by default the value of the variable will be set here), source of the dropdown list, etc.

Most of the fields work like this - when you select the variable, all default values will be set to the field. User is presented the form and inputs the values. Values are then stored within the variable. Because you can use lookups in most of the fields, it is really easy to display all the data user needs to launch the action - for example you can insert a link to the item or display a value from the item as a default value of some field.

In the release after the next one you will be able to create a dropdown list that provides the values from different lists from the entire SharePoint application, filter these values, add additional ones, etc. Something like this cross site lookup but more powerful.

The file field works a bit different. First - it gives you the ability to upload many files at once - without having to reload the window like on SharePoint form. Second - files are not stored within the variable. Instead of that, you can define where the files uploaded by user should be stored. They can be stored as files in the document library or as attachment to a chosen list item.

Plans for the next release

2009-08-12T13:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the late post - we have started working on the release and I couldn't find the time to write on this blog.

Thenew release - probably version 1.4.5 will introduce 2 big features -saving workflows in STP and action launch form management.

Thismeans that starting from the new release you will be able to save yoursite as a site definition and then create a new site from thisdefinition. All your workflows saved in the definition will match anddeploy automatically.

Inthe new release, instead of just choosing the variables for the actionlaunch form, you will be able to completely control the form - moredetails in next post.

Also in the new release:

values provided on the action launch form will be displayed in the history
you will be able to specify the folder in the item activities
Workboxwill be setup as a site and not site collection feature - this willgive the administrators more flexibility in configuring theirenvironment
Actionlaunch URL lookup - you will be able to get the URL of the actionlaunch pages for the next state. Thanks to that you can for ex. send ane-mail with a link that takes you to the "Accept" action page, insteadof just to element.
"IF", "And", "Or" functions
History for the "If" activity

and as always - bug fixes and more "Help"

Different models of approval workflows - voting approval

2009-06-17T09:43:00.000-07:00

In the previous posts I have described the first answer applies workflow and multi-approval/multi-reject workflow.

Inthis scenario a number of rejection votes or approval votes are neededto approve or reject the item. For example – 3 approvals are needed forthe item to be approved and 2 rejections are needed for the item to berejected.

Notethat when setting up this kind of scenario you need to make sure thatthe voting algorithm will not cause a clinch where item cannot beaccepted nor rejected. If you have 6 or more users, then 3 approvals or2 rejections model is fine. If you have less than 6 users, then in somesituations workflow could end in dead point.

Download the workflow definition

To create a workflow that will meet this scenario:

Createa role "Approvers" and add selected users (you can assign users, domaingroups or SharePoint groups). You can also add users later on with theactivity "Add to role".
Create a state "Waiting for approval".
Addfour actions – two named "Approve" and two named "Reject". One“Approve” and one “Reject” action must lead back to the “Waiting forapproval” state (we are creating a loop). The other pair can lead towhere you want, for example to the ending state.
Assign the "Approvers" role to all “Approve” and “Reject” actions.
Create 2 variables – “Approved votes” and “Rejected votes” – set both to “integer” type.
Inthe looping actions add “Add to role” activity. Use it to add the“Current user” (use lookups to go to SharePoint -> Current ->Current user) to “Denied” members of the “Approvers” role. Note: useactivity clipboard to copy the activity.
In the looping “Approve” action use the “Set variable” activity to set the “Approved votes” variable to “Approved votes”+1.
In the looping “Reject” action use the “Set variable” activity to set the “Rejected votes” variable to “Rejected votes”+1.
In the non-looping actions add “Approve/reject item” activity and set it to approve/reject the current item.
In the looping “Approve” action set action launch conditions to “Approved votes < 2”.
In the looping “Reject” action set action launch conditions to “Rejected votes < 1”.
In the non-looping “Approve” action set action launch conditions to “Approved votes >= 2”.
In the non-looping “Reject” action set action launch conditions to “Rejected votes >= 1”.

What's going to happen in the workflow:

Workflow enters the "Waiting for approval" state
Membersof "Approvers" role have 2 looping actions "Approve" and "Reject" –both “Approved votes” and “Rejected votes” variables are smaller than2.
Until two people chose “Reject” or “Approve” only the looping actions are available
Everytime the looping action is launched, a vote counter is raised by oneand the workflow is entering the “Waiting for approval state”
If2 people have approved, then the looping “Approve” action willdisappear and the other “Approve” action will be visible. This way thethird approval action will be the one doing the final approval.
Ifsomeone has already rejected, then the looping “Reject” action willdisappear and the other “Reject” action will be visible. This way thesecond rejection action will be the one doing the final rejection.
Whenthe non-looping action is launched, workflow exits the "Waiting forapproval" state and item approval status is set to “approved” or“rejected”.

Different models of approval workflows - one approval, one rejection

2009-06-16T09:26:00.000-07:00

In this post I will continue the previous post about different approval workflow models. There I showed how to create a "First response applies" workflow.

2) One approval
Inthis scenario we need only one approval to approve an item, but toreject it we need all approvers to reject. This means if anyoneapproves - the item is approved. But the item is rejected only afterthe last person from the approvers rejects the item.

Download the workflow definition

See a screencast on how the workflow is defined.

To create a workflow that will meet this scenario:

Createa role "Approvers" and add selected users (you have to use NAMED users,do not use domain groups or SharePoint groups, later on you will seewhy). You can also add users later on with the activity "Add to role".
Create a state "Waiting for approval".
Addthree actions "Approve", "Reject" and “Final rejection”. “Approve” and“Final rejection” can lead to where you want, for example to the endingstate. “Reject” action must lead back to the “Waiting for approval”state (we are creating a loop).
Assign the "Approvers" role to “Approve” and “Reject” actions. Remove permissions for everyone from “Final rejection”.
Inthe “Reject” action add “Remove from role” activity. Use it to removethe “Current user” (use lookups to go to SharePoint -> Current ->Current user) from the “Approvers” role.
In the “Approve” action add “Approve/reject item” activity and set it to approve the current item.
Copy the activity to clipboard
Open the “Final rejection” action and drag the activity from the clipboard. Change approval status to “Reject”
Open the “Waiting for approval” status and click “Self-timer” button.
Setself-timer to launch the “Final rejection” action 0 minutes afterworkflow enters this state. In the conditions set that the “Allow”membership of the “Approvers” role must be empty. Note: if you areusing a workaround, the membership must be equal to “empty”.

What's going to happen in the workflow:

Workflow enters the "Waiting for approval" state
Membersof "Approvers" role have 2 actions "Approve" and "Reject". “Finalreject” is not visible, as they do not have permissions to launch it.
Ifanyone from the approvers launches the action “Approve”, workflow exitsthe "Waiting for approval" state and item approval status is set to“approved”.
Ifsomeone from the approvers launches the action “Reject”, then thisperson is removed from the “Approvers” and cannot launch any actionsanymore. Workflow returns to the “Waiting for approval state”.
Everytime the “Reject” action is launched, workflow is entering the “Waitingfor approval state” and self-timer condition is checked.
Ifthe person doing the rejection was the last approver in the role(everyone else already has rejected), then the role membership isempty. Self-timer condition is met, so the self-timer action will belaunched. This is why you need to use named users – otherwise you wouldnot be able to check if all members of a group have already rejected.Note that because timer is launched by SharePoint job action “Finalrejection” will not be launched momentarily – it can take up to 5minutes.
“Finalrejection” action is launched, workflow exits the "Waiting forapproval" state and item approval status is set to “rejected”.

3) All must approve
Inthis scenario we everyone to approve the item. One rejection is causingthe item to be rejected. This means if anyone rejects - the item isrejected. But the item is approved only after the last person from theapprovers approves the item.

Asyou can see this scenario is exactly the same as the “One approval” –only the “Reject” and “Approve” are switched. Switch “Approve” and“Reject” action names, change “Final rejection” name to “Finalapproval” and change the activities between “Reject” (previously“Approve”) and “Final approval”.

Next post (voting approval)

Different models of approval workflows - First response applies

2009-06-15T16:10:00.000-07:00

We have received a number of questions regarding different approval models. Workbox does not offer any predefined workflow models, but allows you to create a workflow that completely suits your needs. We have defined some sample approval workflows that might help you get an idea how to define your own approval workflow.

In this and following posts I will focus on 4 most common ones:

First response applies
One approval (2nd post)
All must approve (2nd post)
Vote (3rd post)

Below I will show you how to implement each of these scenarios on any list.

Forevery scenario there is a workflow definition file for you to downloadand use. It will help you understand how the workflow is configured.

Ihave used a list with content approval turned on, to give you the ideawhen item is accepted or rejected. In the final approving or rejectingaction I have used “approve/reject item” activity. This is just anexample of what you can do in the approval actions and it is notrequired for the workflow to work properly.

1) First response applies
Thisscenario is really simple - decision of the first approver counts. Thismeans if anyone approves - the item is approved. If anyone rejects -the item is rejected.

Download the workflow definition

In this scenario all you have to do is:

Createa role "Approvers" and add selected users (you can use users, domaingroups or SharePoint groups). You can also add users later on with theactivity "Add to role".
Create a state "Waiting for approval".
Add two actions "Approve" and "Reject", that lead to where you want, for example to the ending state.
Assign the "Approvers" role to both actions.
In the “Approve” action add “Approve/reject item” activity and set it to approve the current item.
Copy the activity to clipboard.
Open the “Reject” action and drag the activity from the clipboard. Change approval status to “Reject”

What's going to happen:

Workflow enters the "Waiting for approval" state
Members of "Approvers" role have 2 actions "Approve" and "Reject"
Afteranyone from the approvers launches the action, workflow exits the"Waiting for approval" state and item approval status is set to eitherapproved or rejected.

Next post (one approval, all must approve)

Workbox vs other workflow solutions

2009-04-08T07:02:00.000-07:00

We have received a number of questions regarding how Workbox places itself against other Workflow solutions on the market, like Nintex, K2, Skelta or Kaldeera.

First of all, Workbox is working on the state workflows, all other products use sequential ones. In our opinion the sequential workflows are harder to use when modeling a complex processes and also are harder to comprehend. People tend to think more in a state workflow manner - "what is happening with the invoice now", "what is the current situation", "what I want to do next with this item". If you have a large workflow seeing (like in sequential workflow) all actions on one diagram is very confusing and does not give you a general insight of the process.

Also, we are much more integrated with SharePoint – we use SharePoint's engine, lists, users, permissions and so on, so the environment is easier to deploy, manage and develop. Users do not have to use additional add-ins like special workflow libraries or separate sites and tasks list to use the workflow. They can act directly from their item - invoice, task, call.

Next thing – we only have the web designer, so all functionality is available through the web. Other companies (except Kaldeera) have additional windows applications, that provide the full functionality, and the web designer is less functional.

We also think, that our designer is easier to use and provides more capabilities in some areas like lookups. Lookups in Workbox are very powerful and give users the ability to use the SharePoint and external application data in the workflow.

Workbox is a small but powerful solution. We have heard many times that people see other workflow solutions as huge tools where they are not sure where to start from, how to configure it, how to install it and how to do more complicated things. We try to keep the designer simple, limit the number of objects and just enhance the way you can configure the objects and make them work together. At the same time Workbox is very flexible. You do not have a predefined solution that you must use (for example an approval activity) and adjust jour process to the tool's capabilities. It takes a bit more configuration but gives a lot more flexibility and allows you to model the process exactly as you want it to run.

We are at the same time aware, that we lack certain things our competitors have – like reporting. We are just starting with workbox, and with every release we are making it more and more functional. We think that our state workflow architecture and deep integration with SharePoint give us great advantage over other products. And also we are cheaper than the competition products and our licensing model is more flexible.

Workbox team

2009-01-14T04:47:00.000-08:00

This is the team that creates Workbox:

PAWEŁ BUJAK

project sponsor, Workbox inventor

CEO of Datapolis. Has came up with the idea of Workbox and for the last 2 years is defining the general direction Workbox is moving in.

PAWEŁ WRÓBEL

project manager

Project manager of the Workbox project and key analyst. Makes sure Workbox is usable and that new releases keep coming.

Also runs this blog.

He's an MCTS in configuring WSS and MOSS and MCP in MSF and analyzing application requirements. Also an expert in SharePoint area on experts exchange.

TOMASZ GŁOGOSZ

dev team leader

An experienced developer and system architect.
Responsible for solution architecture and server part of Workbox.

RAFAŁ ZADURA

main silverlight dev

Silverlight expert, MCTS in application development for MOSS.
Responsible for the core designer functionalities.

JOANNA CHMIELEWSKA

developer

Our special task force. If it's impossible, she will find out how to make it work. Responsible for the visual SharePoint part of Workbox and the designer forms.

PAWEŁ MAZURKIEWICZ

key tester

Makes sure Workbox is released without errors. He's a real pain for all developers.

PIOTR KOTKOWSKI

graphical designer

Makes sure Workbox is pretty and functional.

These people left the Workbox team, but added a lot to the project:
DAMIAN DUDEK (left the team in June 2009)

developer

DAWID IRENO (left the team in Feb 2009)

developer