Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Windows Workflow Foundation and SharePoint

The day 2 keynote had some new surprises but the best was without a doubt Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) - for more info check out
http://www.windowsworkflow.net. WWF will offer a unified way to create both system and human-based workflow (There goes Biztalk HWS ...). Products such as Office12, WSS V3, Biztalk and MBS will make use of this new architecture. I can't wait to get my hands on that one.

The demo with WSS V3 was especially interesting:
  • You can now define workflow directly from within the SharePoint user interface.

  • It is possible to attach workflow to individual documents, to document library and also to a new functionality in SharePoint called content types (still have to check out how this exactly works

  • FrontPage 12 will be used as a primary tool to create new workflow definitions and to link these workflow definitions to SharePoint.

  • A workflow is defined as a set of activities, great integration with Outlook 2003 - activities in a workflow can be linked to tasks in Outlook 2003


  • Some interesting links:
  • WWF Beta 1 download

  • WWF PDC Lab download


  • I will write some more postings about enhancements to SharePoint in the coming hours... but this definitely was worth it.

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