Yesterday I had some time to get some work done on this idea I have had for the past 5 months. Little history; 5 months ago a collegue needed permission to attend a BlackBoard conference in Mancester. So the organization has a standard Request for Leave form for him to fill out. Unfortunatly it took him almost 2 weeks to get the appropriate signatures. This took me by surprise because the initial okay was already given and only the papers had to be filled out and marked with the "seal of approval". Why the paper form? Why does it has to be mailed 4 times to different places? Why does this process has to take 2 weeks, while it's a standardized procedure? Surely a combination of SharePoint and InfoPath could fix this?
Well yesterday was the day I finally put the "idea cloud" into production.
InfoPath & SharePoint
Okay first off: Checklist! What process does it the form+site have to follow, what is the succesfull outcome and what is needed? Always draw this out and put it on paper, so you keep your eye on the ball.
1. the Form
- Locked Username + creation date (for security & admin reasons)
- Start/End dates
- Place
- Budget
- Remarks
- Event name
- Travel means
- Justify: why do you need to go and to what regard? A drop-down menu in which you specify an area of interest that applies to the event
2. Process
- Employee can create a new form
- Only the correct managing director (lookup through justify field) can approve
- Seniors for the Area of Interest receives and FYI email
- Managing director receives update and task to approve
- Employee receives updates if anyhting happens
- All forms are handeld by Form.Library and are archieved here
3. Flow of procedure (outcome=succes)
- Employee fills out form
- Senior receives FYI update
- Managing director receives OUTLOOK task
- Employee receives update that workflow has started
- Director approves request
- Employee receives update of Approval
- Workflow/task is done and recorded in Form.Lib and Task.List
4. Stuff you need
- TEAMsite with Form.Library
- InfoPath
Path of Enlightment
So, what did I do? I already created a teamsite to "play with" and added a Form Library. Next I created a custom list (screenshot) with the different Areas of Interest + senior advisors. And that will be all for now at the SharePoint site. Not too hard, right?
Now it's time to create the template with InfoPath. I started from a completely basic and empty template. First off; adding the usual stuff (username, date/timestamp, event name, etc.) so the template got some face (screenshot). The fun thing I did was the link with the custom list I created earlier. When chosing an Interest Area that should justify your reason for attending an event, the name of the senior is automatically added to the form (see how). Why? Well, it's needed to create the action that the senior will receive a FYI email (Sent to=Field[Managing Senior]).
I mentioned it, so I'll go on adding the Submit button which gets 2 tasks. 1st: Sending the information to the SharePoint Form Library and 2nd: creating and sending a FYI email. This can all be done with the InfoPath Wizard, so no real troubles here (screenshot1 & screenshot2). I probably won't have to explain how the publishing works. :-)
Back to the Library. The form has been published to the form library, which means that when creating a new item, the newly created form will be loaded. Unfortunatly the company doesn't run InfoPath server, so no fancy web interface but filling the form out in InfoPath itself. Oh well, no biggy.
Now the approval has to be turned on, because the procedure requires an okay from the managing director. So next it's; Settings > Form Library Settings > Versioning Settings > Content Approval=Yes.
Then it's the case to create the workflow; Settings > Form Library Settings > Workflow Settings > Add a workflow. I used en configured the standard Approval workflow template (screenshot1, screenshot2). And you're done! The cycle is now complete. Approval tasks will be created in the outlook app of the managing director, the managing senior will be informed and the requesting party will recieve email updates. And the whole process is protected as long as the managing director doesn't use his birth date as his password :-)
Finally
It took me less than an hour to complete the whole process and that left me stunned. Only an hour?! And most of the time I was fiddeling around with the different form fields I wanted to add, just to make it more realistic and (yes) more attractive to look at. I really should have done this earlier. What even struck me more was the fact that the company has "SharePoint Hobbyists" Projectmanagers that take more than a full year to create a POC, which only proofs their own lack of knowledge. Absolutely stunning.
Oh well, that's another discussion, another day, another fight. I'm glad I got my POC done. I'll try to get a video demonstration done if I can find some more spare time...