1. Bob Bruce & Jeremy Marshall
Donald Donais
August 9th, 2017
Build Accountability into Your SharePoint Designer Workflow Solutions
Bob Bruce & Jeremy Marshall

2. Agenda MNSPUG Information Problem/Solution Architecture
Lists & Workflows
BREAK
Building the Dashboard
Results
Giveaways

3. User Group Goal / Objectives
Develop and support a local community focused on Microsoft SharePoint Technologies
Educate user group members about SharePoint Technologies
Transfer knowledge within the community
Communicate best practices
Introduce new products / solutions

4. MNSPUG Sponsors Dedicated Sponsors Annual Sponsor
Avtex (
Microsoft (
Softvative (
K2 (
SharePoint User Group Support
Sponsorships Levels:
Gold Sponsorship - $500
Silver Sponsorship - $250
Wrox Press ( O’Reilly (

5. MN SharePoint Users Group Website
SharePoint Resource Documents
SharePoint Resource links
RSS Feeds
Meeting Schedule
Past User Group Presentations
Past User Group Recordings
Sponsorship Information

6. Social Networking
Linked In group – The most interactive… includes job postings…
Post Job Posting on the Jobs Discussion page
Twitter tags and #MNSPUG
Yammer – Minnesota SharePoint Users Group

7. Upcoming Schedule Next Meeting Ongoing Schedule
September 13th, 2017 – Developing your Intranet Content Strategy like a Coder (Virgil Carroll)
Microsoft Technology Center, Edina, MN
Check for updates!
Ongoing Schedule
2nd Wednesday of every month
9:00 to 11:30 am
Microsoft Technical Center – Edina

8. Local and Online Events
SharePoint Fest Seattle – August 8th – 11th, Seattle, WA
Minnesota Office 365 User Group – August MTC (4:30pm)
SharePint – August Senser’s in Roseville
SharePoint Saturday Kansas City – September Overland Park, KS
Microsoft Ignite – September 25th – 29th, Orlando, FL
IT/Dev Connections – October 23rd – 26th, San Francisco, CA
SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities – October Normandale Community College, Bloomington, MN
Collab365 24hr Global Conference – November 1st
SharePoint Fest Chicago – December 5th – 8th, Chicago, IL
Anything Else?

9. Evaluations & Giveaways!

10. Speaker

11. Bob Bruce & Jeremy Marshall
Donald Donais
August 9th, 2017
Build Accountability into Your SharePoint Designer Workflow Solutions
Bob Bruce & Jeremy Marshall

12. Bob Bruce Business Architect at Trista Technology, LLC
Building solutions with SharePoint since 2001
Also specialize in Excel and Power BI
Website:
Mobile:
Linkedin:
Weird Facts:
I’m Ambidextrous: handwriting is identical and equally poor with either hand.
My jogging partner, Delilah, would rather chase the cursor on my computer than tennis balls.

13. Jeremy Marshall K2 / SharePoint Development Programmer
Ortho Molecular Products, Inc.

14. The Problem Sales Onboarding strategic importance
Weekly report to president
10-12 week process
Task assignees: managers & directors
Project manager: admin
Assignees update status
notification to assignees
Task Start
Task Due
Daily on overdue
Bulletproof

15. Major Elements Lists Sales Onboarding Workflow Steps
Sales Onboard Tasks + Content Type
Libraries
Documents: Contains Onboarding Dashboard
Sales Documents: Contains “IT Equipment Checklists” + Content Type
SharePoint Designer Workflows
Onboarding: Runs on Sales Onboarding list and creates Onboard Tasks
2013 Manage s: Runs on Sales Onboard Task list and sends notification s on status change
Workaround: Runs on Workaround list and auto generates “IT Equipment Checklists”

16. Demo

17. Rejected Traditional SPD Approach Using “Assign a task” & “Start a Task Process” Actions For a Project Based Approach
All tasks generated at once from Steps List
Manage messaging from workflow on individual tasks
More robust (bulletproof) fault tolerant
Required for Dashboard
Need manually generate item links
Also a combinations of serial and parallel blocks

18. Rejected Traditional SPD Approach Using “Assign a task” & “Start a Task Process” Actions
For a Project Based Approach
All tasks generated at once from Steps List
Manage messaging from workflow on individual tasks
More robust (bulletproof) fault tolerant
Required for Dashboard
Need manually generate item links
Also a combinations of serial and parallel blocks

19. Benefits of a Project Based Approach
Matrixed view of multiple projects
Applies to any business case with multiple projects with identical tasks
Task assignees can plan weeks out

20. Application Architecture

21. Special Features/Requirements
Onboarding Tasks Separate from workflow tasks (all generated at once)
Date table translates start & due dates to working days
Link in each task for bidirectional update of Onboarding item
Notification s are sent on:
Onboard launch
Task start
Task due
Task overdue (every day)
IT Checklist generated in Onboard Workflow
Content types for Onboard Task List & IT Checklist
Excel Dashboard
Connected to special Export View
Get & Transform (aka Power Query) processing
Pivot Table to shape presentation
Conditional formatting for KPIs

22. Challenges SharePoint 2013 workflow can’t launch a 2013 workflow
Also can’t create a list item and auto start 2013 workflow on new item creation
2013 Workflow recursion prevention
Solved with http: web services
SharePoint 2013 workflow can’t create a document in a library based on a content type
Solved with 2010 workflow on workaround list
Manually create return links and URL’s
Outside reps get credit cards inside reps don’t

23. Sales Onboarding List
Tabbed input form courtesy of JavaScript; Jquery; JQueryUI
Mark Rackley:
SPUtility.js Show Hide Field:

24. Workflow Steps List Project owner/manager can edit
Project owner can edit without messing with workflow
Workflow Steps List
Workdays to complete task
Project owner/manager can edit
Don’t need to mess with workflow
Onboard workflow uses “Datum”, “Offset”, and “Due Duration” to calculate:
Task “Start Date” & “Due Date”
Date list ensures adherence to workdays
People lookup
How many times to loop
Reference for workday date calculations

25. Onboard Tasks My Tasks View Link to view provided in emails
Shows tasks for assignee only
Tasks for all active onboard projects
Link to Onboard item to provide & receive necessary task info
Checkbox for easy complete in list view
Each task has link to respective item in Sales Onboarding list
Need to generate link in Onboard workflow
Master fact table for Excel Dashboard

26. Onboard Workflow

27. Onboard Workflow: Set Variables & Create Onboarding Documents
Reads & sets variables from Onboarding list and Workflow Steps list
Extracts First & Last Names from the Name Column
Creates a new item in the “Workaround” list & passes metadata to same columns as “IT Equipment Checklist” content type

28. Create Tasks 1 Builds item link URL to embed with Tasks
Sets variables for Task Name and Assigned To
Generate Tasks loop block runs until vStepID > 22
Calculates Task Start & Due Dates from Onboarding list, Workflow Steps list, and Dates list. The If..then..Else block executes only for datum set for the current task.
Inside Reps don’t need credit cards. Skips step 7 if “Rep Status” = “Inside”

29. Dates List used by Onboard Workflow
Onboard List
Ensures all dates fall on workdays
All duration calculations use workdays
Client provided workday calendar as Excel Table
Workflow Steps
Lookup and return Start Date from Start Date ID 4
Count back Offset -5 to return Start Date ID 3
Lookup StartDate Datum 1
Return ID 2
Sales Onboard Tasks
Add Duration (3) to Start Date ID to lookup and return Task Due Date 5

30. Create Tasks 2 Site Content Types
Starts workflow with HTTP Web Services
Follows step-by-step FIX: SharePoint 2013 Workflow recursion prevention—Part 2
Increments the vStepID by 1 to start loop again and create the next task in the Sales Onboard Task list. When the vStepID reaches 23 the workflow exits the loop and sends an to Task Owners
Starts “Manage s” workflow on just created task

31. Manage Emails Workflow
Makes sure additional is not sent if task starts or has started when workflow is first run
Compares task Start Date & Due Date to today’s date
Sends
Checks/sets sent flag
Ensures no more than one notification is sent for this task each day
Tests for “completed” every 4 hours

32. Onboard Task List Manage Email Status
Link to item in Onboard List

33. Notification Emails from Manage Emails Workflow
Task Start
Task Due
Task Overdue

34. Notification Emails from Onboarding Workflow
Sent once to Sales Onboarding Task Owners permissions group for each Onboard Candidate

35. Workaround to Create IT Equipment Checklist

36. Generate IT Equipment Checklist
From Onboarding 2013 Workflow
Create new item in Workaround list
Pass metadata to Workaround list columns
From Workaround List
2010 Workaround workflow AutoStart on new item
Create new item in Sales Documents using “IT Equipment Checklist Content Type
Pass metadata to new Sales Document
In Sales Onboading Document Library
Documents created with “IT Equipment Checklist Content Type

37. Experimenting with PDF ShareForms
For this Onboarding application
I can now have a PDF Content Type!
Eliminate Workaround list and Workflow
Form can be completed and signed online
PDF form fields synchronized with content type list columns
New SharePoint Designer 2013 actions
For other applications
Create content types from existing PDF forms and map form fields to columns
Digital signatures
BI on SharePoint form library
Can utilize smart form technology built into PDF (workflows, stages, JavaScript)

38. Create New PDF Document on Content Type from SPD Workflow!
New SPD Actions
Collects data from current item
creates PDF form on content type
passes in metadata
Onboard Workflow

39. Break
BREAK :: 10:30 – 10:40

40. Excel Management & Reporting Dashboard
Decision to use Excel
Web services from Power BI & Excel doesn’t let you choose a view
Conditional formatting
Licensing for Power BI
Export to Excel exports user names without lookup
Imports as Excel table
Get connection & save .odc file to list from owssr.iqy
One among many things that Excel does very well is to pivot tabular data like a SharePoint list into a matrix (pivot table) format

41. Connection File .odc

42. Import from SharePoint

43. “Get & Transform” aka “Power Query”
Master of data munging
Macro language for importing and transforming data
Gives Excel ETL capability (Extract, Transform, & Load)
Calculate today’s date for comparison in table
Conditional formatting requires a number
Use “M” language if then logic to calculate status and return numbers

44. Management Dashboard Pivot Table with Conditional Formatting

45. Management Dashboard Pivot Table is Based on Processed Table

46. Get & Transform: Import to Processed
aka Power Query
Import Table
Processed Table

47. Get & Transform Records Processing Steps
Master of data munging
Macro language for importing and transforming data
Gives Excel ETL capability (Extract, Transform, & Load)
Calculate today’s date for comparison in table
Conditional formatting requires a number
Visual UI/Ribbon
Use “M” language if then logic to calculate status and return numbers

48. Get & Transform Records Steps in “M” Language
Can edit steps in Advanced Editor
Can transport (copy & paste) to other workbooks

49. Monday, June 5th

50. Tuesday, June 6th

51. Wednesday, June 7th

52. Thursday, June 8th

53. Friday, June 9th AM: Before report to president

54. Friday, June 9th PM: After report to president

55. Monday, June 12th

56. Tuesday, June 13th

57. Thursday, June 15th

58. Friday, June 19th

59. New Rep Added Midstream
Wednesday, June 21st
New Rep Added Midstream

60. Thursday, June 22nd

61. Friday, June 23rd

62. Monday, June 26th

63. Monday, July 3rd

64. Wednesday, July 5th

65. You Get What You Measure

66. Thanks for coming! Last But Not Least Please Fill Out Evaluations
Drawings for Giveaways
Online Participants Eval
Today’s Presenters:
Bob Bruce
Jeremy Marshall
Thanks for coming!