So for example does sharepoint 2013 have the capability to validate against thresh hold amounts e.g budget = £3000 but request goes for 3.500, will it be able to validate that we have exceeded the budget & not allow the worflow to start?
Also can SP13 workflow manager “Read” from smartforms & use the data for the worflow processes? This is something 2007 cannot do.
If anyone could help on this that would be fantastic.
Haryr, it was not clear to me whether your questions, listed below, are cojoined with the workflow questions, but here are some ideas:
Workflow engin in SP2013 is significantly different to SP2007. A developer can design workflow which would cover majority of business requirements where the parameters and any supporting data is available either from SP itself (from lists for example) or from a database, which itself is connected to SharePoint. Sending email, providing forms, tracking responses, looping decisions. I would point out this is not what I consider ‘out of the box’ and requires goood skills with either SP designer or Visual Studio. There are excellent products which seek to enhance SP workflow by exposing the design to a ‘power user’, less coding skills, more visula connecting stages, decisions and objects.
What Smart forms are available to use ?
‘smart’ forms are usually designed and published using InfoPath, which is separate from Visual Studio and SP Designer. InfoPath is in general a simple method of collecting data which is usually automatically added to a list in SP. A workflow can then act on data collected.
What database options are there?
SP has it’s own databases in MS SQL server. These SQL data shoudl never be changed or touched outside of the admin processes for SP.
If you have MS Access or data in another enterprise type data centre like Oracle or MS SQL server, SP provides BCS (Business Connection Services) which enables conenction to the database and exposure to users or (workflow) processes via SP.
There are scenarious where MS Access db may be fully delivered through SP 2013. Basically the data is imported into SP SQL server database and delivered to user through browser via a special team site, which can in turn be managed for permissions etc. The benefit here is that a workflow can refer to the data more reliably than an Access db which may be subject to data, file server or network connection failure. Access 2013 is advisable.
So, with a bit of effort the following questions get a qualified ‘yes’
Can we select data elements to go into the body of an email?
Can we build selected views of the database?
Can we extract the data to excel?
It may be, that when revising the business requirements, business process, storage of collected data, subsequent processing and data handling, the resultant workflow does not need Access db, but can be run from and through a well structured team site with lists. Just a thought.
Mike B
