Automating Business Processes by Using InfoPath 2007 Forms with SharePoint Designer 2007 Workflows

Summary: Forms and workflows are essential to business processes. With Microsoft Office InfoPath and Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer, you can create powerful data-driven form solutions on your SharePoint sites. This article shows how to import a Microsoft Word form into InfoPath, and then enhance it with data validation and rules. You also learn how to use SharePoint Designer to create a versatile workflow to route the InfoPath form. (17 printed pages)

  Asif Rehmani, SharePoint-eLearning.com

January 2010

Applies to: Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007; Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Enterprise Edition; Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007

Contents

• How to Automate Business Processes Without Code

• Scenario: New Employee Resource Allocation Process

• Overview of the Solution

• Convert the Word Document to an InfoPath Form

• Publish the Form

• Set Up the Workflow

• Conclusion

• Additional Resources

How to Automate Business Processes Without Code

With Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007, automating business processes has become significantly easier. An information worker can implement processes that were previously only possible through code with the help of a developer. Office InfoPath can create powerful electronic forms that are served to users through form libraries. If you have Office Forms Server 2007 (Forms Server is included in the Enterprise Edition of SharePoint Server), you can server these forms to users directly through the browser. You can then use SharePoint Designer to create workflows to automate the routing of the form as needed.

This article assumes that you have at least beginner-level exposure to SharePoint Products and Technologies, InfoPath, and SharePoint Designer workflows. The article describes how to combine these technologies to create an end-to-end solution to automate a common business process without using any code.

Scenario: New Employee Resource Allocation Process

In this scenario, a new employee joins a company and the proper equipment needs to be provided. The equipment required differs depending on the department the employee is joining within the company. For example, if the employee is being added to the Marketing department, a desktop computer is provided. But a new employee joining the Sales team is given a laptop and a mobile phone because that person is expected to be on the road often.

This scenario describes the fictional company Adventure Works, where the current resource provisioning process is very manual. New employees fill out a resource provisioning Microsoft Office Word 2007 document, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The resource provisioning document created with Word

The new employee is asked to fill out this document with basic information such as name, e-mail address, current date, and the date of hire. The employee must also specify which department he or she is joining and the name of the department head. After the employee completes the document, it is sent by e-mail to the Human Resources (HR) department. The information in the document is verified by one of the HR personnel, by e-mail message or phone, with the department head listed on the document. If the information is incorrect, the employee is contacted and asked to correct the information and resubmit the document. When the information is verified successfully through the department head, the HR person assigns the resource manager for the appropriate department to provision the equipment to the employee. The resource manager then makes a record of the equipment that is being provided to the employee. These record entries are currently being made in a notebook that each individual resource manager keeps.

This scenario has many potential pitfalls. Because all the communication is happening through e-mail messages or by phone, it is difficult for the employee or the HR representative to identify the current status of a submitted document. Also, the Office Word document does not alert the employee about any missing information or errors before the document is submitted. In some instances, the new employee does not know the exact name of the department head and must ask other employees to obtain that information. Issues such as these and many more make obvious the need for automating this process.

Overview of the Solution

This first step in automating the resource provisioning process is to take the existing resource provisioning document, which is based in Word 2007, and convert it to an InfoPath 2007 form. After the conversion, the InfoPath form is enhanced with data validation and rules. Then the form is published to a forms library in a SharePoint Server environment. This creation process is depicted in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Converting the resource provisioning Word form to InfoPath and then publishing to Forms Server

After the resource provisioning form is published to a forms library, a workflow is created that performs the following processes:

• Verify the department affiliation of the employee from the department head

• Send an e-mail message to the employee with the status of the form

• Log in a SharePoint list the equipment that has been provisioned

• Inform the resource manager what to deploy to the employee

• Send an e-mail message to the employee with a list of what has been deployed

Convert the Word Document to an InfoPath Form

InfoPath can convert Word documents and Microsoft Office Excel workbooks to InfoPath forms. You can import into InfoPath other types of forms by either creating your own converter or using a third-party tool.

For the scenario in this article, you can use the built-in InfoPath functionality to convert the resource provisioning Word document to an InfoPath form.

To convert the resource provisioning Word document to an InfoPath form

1. Start InfoPath.

2. On the Getting Started page, click Import a Form.

3. Choose Word documents as the import method to use, and click Next.

4. Click Browse and select the Word document.

5. Click Finish to start the import process.

6. The next page shows any errors or warnings that the import process encountered. Click OK, and the InfoPath form opens (Figure 3).

   Figure 3. Resource Provisioning Form in InfoPath

   

InfoPath displays a cautionary statement in the task pane: Objects may be positioned incorrectly. This is because InfoPath lays out its components in tables. Because Word documents are often created in a free-flowing format, the InfoPath conversion engine makes a best guess as to how the form should be laid out.

After a form is imported into the InfoPath environment, most of the work is done. However, the remaining work of adjusting and enhancing the form claims most of the time you spend on this process.

Enhancing the InfoPath Form

The form that was imported in the previous section closely resembles the original Word document. In addition, InfoPath named the controls by using the wording from the preceding labels, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. FirstName label on a text box

The field names that you see for each control on this InfoPath form do not contain any spaces. Spaces are not allowed in the field names for any InfoPath control. As Figure 4 shows, the label First Name becomes FirstName in a Pascal-style notation (the first letter of each word is capitalized) to name the field control following it. Always follow this strategy and name all of your controls by using Pascal notation, because if this form is later published to the Forms Server, Forms Server takes each field and reintroduces the spaces in the appropriate places to make the field easily readable.

In addition to naming the fields, you can enhance this form in many ways to make it more robust. Here is a list of a few examples:

• Marking fields as required

• Changing the data type of a control (for example, from text control to whole numbers)

• Changing control type (for example, changing a text box to a drop-down list)

• Fetching data from a variety of data sources and populating the values in controls on the form

• Changing the value of a field depending on the status of another field on the form

The following procedures show how to perform some of these enhancements in the form.

To make the LastName field required on the form

1. Right-click the LastName field, and click Text Box Properties.

2. In the Text Box Properties dialog box, select Cannot be blank.

3. Click OK.

To change the Date field control to a Date Picker control

1. Right-click the Date field control, click Change To, and click Date Picker.

   Changing a control does not change the underlying format of the field. The Date field control changed in this step still has a data type of Text.

2. Double-click the Date field to open the Date Picker Properties dialog box. Change the data type to Date, and click Apply.

3. In the Date Picker Properties dialog box, under Default Value, click the Fx button.

4. In the Insert Formula dialog box, click Insert Function and then select the Today function. The Date field will now show the current date when the form is being filled out by a user.

5. Click OK three times to close the Insert Function dialog box, the Insert Formula dialog box, and the Date Picker Properties dialog box.

The Department field control on the form currently shows three check boxes, one for each department: Sales, IT, and Marketing. Currently, a person filling out this form can select more than one of these departments. You need to modify this behavior so that only one department can be selected in the form. Option buttons work best for this need.

To change the Department check box controls to option buttons

1. Select all three Department check boxes by clicking each one while holding down the CTRL key.

2. Right-click the group of check boxes, click Change To, and click Option Button.

The list of department heads has already been assembled and is located on the Human Resources SharePoint site where the forms will be ultimately published. You want to populate the DeptHead field control in the InfoPath form with the name of the appropriate department head. This action requires creating a secondary data connection from the form to the Department Heads list. The Department option button group then needs to be programmed to fetch the information from that data connection. The next few steps show how to add that functionality.

To automatically populate the DeptHead field control

1. On the Tools menu, click Data Connections.

2. In the Data Connections Wizard, click Add to create a new secondary data connection.

3. Select Create a new connection to: Receive data. Click Next.

4. Click SharePoint library or list, and click Next.

5. Enter the URL of the location of the site where the list or library exists. Click Next.

6. Select the Department Heads list. Accept the default options and click Next three times.

7. Accept the suggested data connection name Department Heads and click Finish.

8. In the Data Connections Wizard, click Close to return to the form.

Publish the Form

After all the enhancements have been made to the form, it is now ready to be published to a forms library. This form can also be Web-enabled so that if SharePoint Server is running Forms Services, the form can be opened in a browser.

To Web-enable and publish the form to Forms Server

1. In Design Tasks, click Design Checker, and then click Change Compatibility Settings.

2. In the Form Options dialog box, select Design a form template that can be opened in a browser or InfoPath and click OK.

3. On the File menu, click Publish.

4. The Publishing Wizard starts and presents you with four choices. Select Publish to a SharePoint server and click Next.

5. Type the location in which this form is to be published. Click Next.

6. Select Publish this document to a Document Library and click Next.

7. The next page asks whether a new document library should be created or if this form template should be used in an existing document library. Select Create a new document library and click Next.

8. The Publishing Wizard prompts for the name and description of the new library. Type the following values, and then click Next:

   Name: Resource Provisioning Forms

   At this point in the Publishing Wizard, the property promotion page appears. One or more fields in the InfoPath form can be selected to be promoted to the document library as columns. This functionality serves a variety of purposes. For example, any fields that are promoted can be easily used in the library for sorting or filtering. Views can also be created based on the content of the fields to filter for specific parameters. In addition, this functionality is crucial when creating workflows on a library.

9. On the property promotion page, click Add, select the FirstName field, and click OK to promote this field.

10. Repeat the previous step to also promote the following fields: Date, LastName, DateOfHire, EmailAddress, DeptHead, and Department. Click Next.

11. Repeat the previous step to also promote the following fields: Date, LastName, DateOfHire, EmailAddress, DeptHead, and Department. Click Next.

12. On the last page of the Publishing Wizard, click Publish.

13. The publishing process completes and you are presented with a success notification. Select Open this document library and click Close.

14. The Web browser opens and takes you to the document library where this form was published, as shown in Figure 5. Notice that the fields you promoted now appear as columns in this library.

    Figure 5. Resource Provisioning Forms library

    

The forms that are hosted in the Resource Provisioning Forms library go through a workflow. To track the status of that workflow, you need a Status field.

To create a Status field

1. In the Resource Provisioning Forms library, on the Settings menu, click Create Column.

2. On the Create Column page, name the column Status and mark it as type Choice.

3. Enter the following values for the Status column: Pending, Equipment Requested, Request Fulfilled, and Rejected. Click OK.

The Resource Provisioning Forms library is currently set up to open the Resource Provisioning Form in InfoPath for the employee to fill out. If the employee has InfoPath installed, the form opens in InfoPath. If InfoPath is not present, the form opens in the browser. You can change this behavior and have the form always open in the browser, to provide a consistent interface to all users.

To have the form always open in the browser

1. In the Resource Provisioning Forms library, on the Settings menu, click Form Library Settings.

2. On the Customize Resource Provisioning Forms page, click Advanced settings.

3. On the Form Library Advanced Settings page, in the Browser-enabled Documents section, click Display as a Web page.

4. Click OK to return to the Customize Resource Provisioning****Forms page.

5. Use the navigation breadcrumb at top of the page to return to the Resource Provisioning Forms library.

The library is now ready for the users. Any employee can navigate to the Resource Provisioning Forms library, click the New button on the toolbar, and get a new instance of the form.

At this point, the form requires the user to click the Save button rather than submitting the form. This approach has two problems. First, the Save option allows a user to save a form even if it has validation errors. Second, the industry standard is to provide a Submit button for submitting a form to be processed; the Save button might be confusing to the user.

The following procedure describes how to configure the submit functionality. Also, as part of the submission process, automatic naming of the submitted form is configured so that users don't accidentally overwrite their own forms or, even worse, someone else's form.

To enable submit functionality on a form

1. In InfoPath, on the Tools menu, click Submit Options.

2. In the Submit Options dialog box, select the Allow users to submit this form check box, and choose SharePoint document library from the destination list.

3. Click Add. The Data Connection Wizard opens.

4. In the Document library text box, type the complete URL for the Resource Provisioning Forms library.

5. Click Fx to open the Insert Formula dialog box.

6. Click Insert Function and select concat. Click OK.

   The concat function lets you concatenate (join together) two or more values (dynamic or static). This concat function is displayed with placeholders for three values. Each placeholder currently states "double-click to insert field". You use the concat function to create a string to be used for file name.

7. Double-click the first field where it states double-click to insert field. In the Select a Field or Group dialog box, select FirstName. Click OK to return to the Insert Formula dialog box.

8. Single-click the second double-click to insert field and type the following text: "-" (that is, double quotation mark, hyphen, and another double quotation marks).

9. Single-click the third double-click to insert field. Click Insert Function and select now. (The now function generates the current date and time to the millisecond. Including this function ensures that the name of the file is always unique.) Click OK.

10. In the Insert Formula dialog box, press DELETE on your keyboard to delete double-click to insert field.

11. The final formula in the Insert Formula dialog box should match this:

    concat(FirstName, "-", now())

12. Click OK to return to the Data Connection Wizard. Click Next.

13. The last page of the wizard asks for the name of the data connection. Type Resource Provisioning Form Submit. Click Finish to complete the Data Connection Wizard.

14. In the Submit Options dialog box, click Advanced to show more options.

15. Select Use custom messages, and type the following messages in the two text boxes:

    On success: Your form has been successfully submitted.

16. Click After submit and click Close the form. Click OK to return to the form.

    Submit options have now been configured. However, the Save button on the form is still visible in the browser. To disable the save functionality, you need to configure the form options.

17. On the Tools menu, click Form Options.

18. In the Form Options dialog box, in the Browser category, clear all check boxes except Submit and Show toolbar. Click OK.

    The form now needs to be republished to the form library. The Publishing Wizard stores the settings from the first publish process, making republishing very simple.

19. On the File menu, click Publish.

20. In the Publishing Wizard, select the option to publish to SharePoint Server.

21. Click Next five times until you get to the last page of the Publishing Wizard.

22. Click Publish to republish the form.

23. The publishing process completes, and you see a success notification. Select the Open this document library check box, and then click Close.

After you perform the preceding steps, when a form is created in the Resource Provisioning Forms library, it has a Submit button in the lower left corner.

Set Up the Workflow

Workflows in SharePoint Products and Technologies can be created and attached directly to a list, a library, or a content type. In the scenario in this article, a workflow is needed to route the forms that the employees create and complete in the Resource Provisioning Forms library.

You have three ways to create SharePoint workflows, as described in Table 1.

Table 1. Tools to make SharePoint workflows

Tool	Description
SharePoint interface in browser	Five workflow templates are included in the product. Workflows can be created using these templates through the browser.
SharePoint Designer	SharePoint Designer can be used to design workflows that add application logic to a site. These workflows are rules-based and declarative in nature. Each rule can associate conditions and actions with items in SharePoint lists and libraries.
Microsoft Visual Studio	Visual Studio can be used to lay out the structure of the workflow and then add code to event handlers associated with workflow activities. This method requires coding knowledge.

The workflow in this example is created by using SharePoint Designer, because it offers a way to create powerful declarative workflows without the need for code.

Several steps are required to create this workflow. The following sections describe what each step accomplishes and how to create that workflow step.

Step 1: Confirm Department Affiliation

This step confirms the department affiliation of the employee. The department head is requested to verify that the employee belongs to their department.

To confirm department affiliation

1. Open the SharePoint site in SharePoint Designer 2007.

2. On the File menu, click New, then click Workflow.

3. The Workflow Designer opens. The Workflow Designer is a modal window within SharePoint Designer. It might take a minute to appear because it first needs to fetch all lists and libraries on the site.

4. In Workflow Designer, in the Give a name to this workflow text box, type Deploy Resources. In the What SharePoint list should this workflow be attached to? Text box, type Resource Provisioning Forms.Under Select workflow start options for items in Resource Provisioning Forms, select the first two check boxes: Allow this workflow to be manually started from an item and Automatically start this workflow when a new item is created.

5. Click Next to return to the main Workflow Designer page.

6. Change the name of the first step from Step 1 to Confirm Department Affiliation.

7. Add the Collect Data from a User action.

8. Click the data link, which opens the Custom Task Wizard. Click Next and name the task Confirm Department.

9. Click Next and then click Add to add a custom form field.

10. In the Add Field dialog box, in the Field name text box, type Is user in your department? Click Information type and select Choice. Click Next.

11. Enter the choices Yes and No on two separate lines.

12. In the Add Field dialog box, click Finish. In the Custom Task Wizard, click Finish.

    Now you need to assign this task to a person. You will make a connection to the Department Heads list in the Human Resources site. Depending on the employee’s department, the appropriate department head will be assigned the task.

13. Click the user link. In the Select Users dialog box, click Workflow Lookup.

14. Click Add. In the Define Workflow Lookup dialog box, click Source and select Department Heads.

15. Configure the rest of the Define Workflow Lookup dialog box as displayed in Figure 6.

    Figure 6. Workflow lookup to retrieve e-mail address of department head

    

    Tip

    The Define Workflow Lookup dialog box looks complicated, but there is an easy way to read this lookup. It states the following: Select Head Email from Department Heads list Where Department Head in Department Heads list is equal to Dept Head in Resource Provisioning Forms

16. After the workflow lookup is completed, click OK and acknowledge the subsequent dialog boxes until you return to the Workflow Designer dialog box.

17. Click Variable: collect and select Create a new variable to create a new variable named ConfirmDepartmentID.

    The ConfirmDepartmentID variable is used later in the workflow as a pointer to this workflow task. By using this ID variable, you can determine whether the employee’s department was confirmed.

Step 2: Change Request Status and E-mail Confirmation

In this step, first you determine whether the department was confirmed for the user. The information is retrieved from the Tasks list, because the department head was requested to provide the information as part of a task.

If the department is confirmed, the status of the form is changed to Equipment Requested and the employee is sent an e-mail message about the successful confirmation.

If the department was not confirmed, the employee is sent an e-mail message and asked to resubmit the form with the correct information. The status of the form is set to Rejected, and the workflow is stopped.

The subject and the body text of the e-mail messages sent out in this step and others following are stored in a SharePoint list named Email Text, as shown in Figure 7. Lookups in SharePoint Designer are used to get to this data. De-coupling the e-mail content in this way helps makes it easy to manage from one central location. Also, the same content can be reused by multiple workflows as necessary.

Figure 7. SharePoint list containing subject and body text of e-mail messages

To change the request status and e-mail confirmation

1. Add a new workflow step and name it Change Request Status and Email Confirmation.

2. Add the condition Compare any data source. Click the first value link and then click Fx to open the Define Workflow Lookup dialog box. Configure the lookup as shown in Figure 8.

   Figure 8. Workflow lookup to retrieve the department confirmation status

   

3. After the workflow lookup is completed, click OK and acknowledge the subsequent dialog boxes until you return to the Workflow Designer page.

4. Click the value link. You should see the options Yes and No. Select the Yes option to complete this condition statement.

5. Add the Set Field in Current Item action.

6. Click the field link and select Status. Click the value link and select Equipment Requested.

7. Add the Log to History List action.

8. Click the message link and type Department Confirmed.

9. Add the Send an Email action.

10. Click the message link, which opens the Define E-mail Message dialog box.

11. For the To section, click the address-book icon button to open the Select Users dialog box. Select Workflow Lookup and click the Add button.

12. In the Define Workflow Lookup dialog box, click Field and select Email Address. Click OK. On the next page, click OK to return to the Define E-mail Message dialog box.

13. In the Define E-mail Message dialog box, click the Fx button for Subject. In the Define Workflow Lookup dialog box, configure the workflow lookup as shown in Figure 9.

    Figure 9. Workflow lookup to retrieve e-mail subject

    

14. Click OK and acknowledge the subsequent dialog boxes until you return to the Define E-mail Message dialog box.

15. Click Add Lookup to Body. In the Define Workflow Lookup dialog box, use the same technique as earlier to fetch the Email Body text.

16. Click OK and acknowledge the subsequent dialog boxes until you return to the Workflow Designer screen.

    Multiple conditional branches can be created within each step to handle a variety of scenarios. A new conditional branch is needed to handle the scenario in which the department was not confirmed.

17. Create a new conditional branch by clicking Add 'Else If' Conditional Branch.

18. In the new conditional branch, use the same steps as earlier to create a new condition that determines whether the task field Is User in your department? equals "No".

19. Add an action that sets Status to Rejected.

20. Add a second action to send an e-mail message to a user. Use the same technique as earlier to e-mail the user. However, this time the e-mail subject and body should correspond to the list item "Dept Un-confirmed" in the Email Text list.

21. Add the Stop Workflow action and log the message "Department could not be confirmed."

Step 3: Assign Task and Log Equipment Issued

Depending on the department of the employee, log the appropriate items to the SharePoint list named Equipment Issued. Also, assign a task to the resource manager of the department to provision the equipment.

To assign task and log equipment issued

1. Add a new workflow step and name it Assign Tasks and Log Equipment Issued.

2. Add the condition Compare Resource Provisioning Forms field. Configure the condition to read "If Department equals IT".

3. Add the action Create List Item. Click the list link to open the Create New List Item dialog box.

4. From the List drop-down list, select Equipment Issued. Click Add to open the Value Assignment dialog box.

5. From the Set this field drop-down list, select First Name.

6. Click the button beside To this value. In the Define Workflow Lookup dialog box, select First Name. Click OK. In the next dialog box, click OK to return to the Create New List Item dialog box.

7. Use the same series of actions to assign the Last Name value to the Last Name field in the list.

8. Add a third field, Equipment Issued. Assign a text value to it by typing Laptop. Click OK in this dialog box and in the following two dialog boxes to return to the Workflow Designer screen.

9. Use the preceding steps to add two more Create List Item actions:

   List: Equipment Issued

   First Name: Resource Provisioning Forms:FirstName

   List: Equipment Issued

   First Name: Resource Provisioning Forms:FirstName

10. Add another action, Assign a To-do Item.

11. Click a to-do item and follow the task wizard to name the task Provision IT Equip. Click Finish.

12. Click these users. In the Select Users dialog box, configure a workflow lookup as shown in Figure 10. Click OK to close the dialog box.

    Figure 10. Workflow lookup to retrieve e-mail address of resource manager

    

13. Follow the same procedure to create two more conditional branches within this step.

    Second conditional branch

    Condition: If Department equals Sales

    Actions:

    Create two list items: Laptop, Cell Phone

    Third conditional branch

    Condition: If Department equals Marketing

    Actions:

    Create one list item: Desktop

The completed workflow task should resemble Figure 11.

Figure 11. Assign Tasks and Log Equipment Issued step of Deploy Resources workflow

Step 4: Mark Process Complete

This step changes the status of the form in the form library to Request Fulfilled.

To mark the process complete

1. Add a new workflow step and name it Mark Process Complete.

2. Add the Set Field in Current Item action and configure it to read Set Status to Request Fulfilled.

3. Add a second action, Log to History List. Log the message "All Equipment has been provisioned."

Step 5: E-mail User Confirmation

E-mail the employee with a message stating exactly what he or she has been provisioned based on department affiliation.

E-mail user confirmation

1. Add a new workflow step and name it Email User Confirmation.

2. Configure the first conditional branch as follows:

   Condition: If Department equals IT

   Action: select Send an Email action and configure it as in earlier steps. Email Subject and Body are retrieved from the Email Text list that corresponds to IT Equipment Provisioned.

3. Configure the second conditional branch as follows:

   Condition: If Department equals Sales

   Action: select Send an Email action and configure it as in earlier steps, with one change—the subject and body from Email Text should now correspond to Sales Equipment Provisioned.

4. Configure the third conditional branch as follows:

   Condition: If Department equals Marketing

   Action: select Send an Email action and configure it as in earlier steps, with one change—the subject and body Email Text should now correspond to Marketing Equipment Provisioned.

The workflow is now finished. Click the Check Workflow button to verify that it contains no errors. Click the Finish button to compile and publish the workflow to the Resource Provisioning Forms library.

Conclusion

This article explains how you can use InfoPath, Forms Server, and SharePoint Designer to create an end-to-end solution. The resource-provisioning scenario described in this article demonstrates how a manually intensive process, dependent on a Word document and ad hoc e-mail messages, can be replaced with an automated system that uses an InfoPath form published in a forms library with an attached workflow that was created by using SharePoint Designer.

Although this article focuses on one particular scenario, you can create many more applications using these same techniques. Information workers can easily create robust electronic forms by using InfoPath and publish them to Forms Server without having to create or manage any code. In addition, the declarative rules-based workflow engine in SharePoint Designer puts the ability of automating business processes within the reach of any aspiring information worker.

Additional Resources

For more information, see the following resources:

• InfoPath Developer Center

• InfoPath Team Blog

• SharePoint Designer Developer Center

• SharePoint Designer Team Blog

• Convert a Word Document to an InfoPath Form Template

• SharePoint Developer Center