With the increasing complexity of today’s business processes and office procedures, the shift toward workflow management technology becomes more and more pronounced. Many of the activities we perform in our daily lives carry within them the seeds of workflow. Simple decision making processes, order processing, coordination within business-to-business (B2B) processes, and managing document life cycles are only few of the instances where workflow provides a better solution than the classic programming paradigm.

Some of the advantages of workflows over pure procedural approaches are: the flow through the business logic can be represented graphically on a screen, as the execution moves through succeeding steps of the workflow; the user can inspect the workflow during its development, as well as track it during its execution; and a workflow can be put together using suitable activities stored in the tool box, tabbed and appropriately grouped. Workflows can be machine-centric or human-centric. Automobile assembly lines are examples of machine-centric workflow. Riveting, welding, painting, and laying electrical connections are tasks that are completed in a pre-specified sequence, to achieve the goal of manufacturing new cars, and with a speed and precision unmatched by humans. Credit-card approvals for online purchases involve tasks (verification of card number, address, and credit limit) to be completed in a specific order before achieving the goal of selling a product online. This is another example of a machine-centric workflow that completes a set of pre-defined tasks to ensure the integrity of every credit card transaction and preempt all fraudulent transactions. A workflow is machine-centric when the process enables the user to prepare the code to enforce the process--unplanned-for conditions have to be handled separately because unexpected situations cannot be coded.

A human-centric workflow generally needs some kind of advanced reasoning or thinking that is not easily amenable to coding. Such workflows include tasks that require approval by an authorized person. A salesperson provides the information needed for creating a sales invoice through a form, but the workflow-generated invoice has to be routed for approval by the sales manager before sending it to the customer. Preparation, approval, and deployment (through secure channels) of documents are examples of human-centric workflows. Human-centric workflows are the main theme of this book.

The first part of the book covers: the general concepts of workflows, the .NET Framework Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) of Office 2007; the client applications and the workflow features of Office 2007; and Office 2007 servers. WF is executable only with the host associated with it, SharePoint. SharePoint is an executable process that serves as the interface between WF and the workflow participants. Each workflow host determines the specific requirements and mechanism for rollin/rollout, for handling delays, and for communicating messages between WF and the host implementation. SharePoint is made up of two distinct products: Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. WSS comes free of charge, but MOSS does not. The setup of the necessary hardware and software rounds out Part 1.

Parts 2 and 3 take the reader through the techniques of workflow design. Human-centric workflows can be divided into sequential workflow or state machine workflow. Today, the majority of offices use the former variety for document review and approval. The latter variety is useful in situations where complex logic is involved, or where workflow execution has to be event driven. Users can design simple workflows using Workflow Designer. This tool presents the user with a wizard-type interface that contains a set of pre-configured workflows. They cover many situations normally faced in office settings. This makes it easier for a potential user to enter the exciting world of workflows. Power users, who prefer to design their own workflows with more complex actions and structures, should use the Visual Studio Workflow Designer. This tool provides a graphical user interface for building sequential as well as state machine workflows.

The first three parts of the book cover the basics of Office 2007 Workflow. The last part of the book has an interesting section on the prospects of Office 2007 applications becoming available on mobile devices. The discussions of the topics are replete with figures, screen shots, and code listings. The book is suitable for a developer experienced in object-oriented programming, Visual Studio, and the .NET Framework. Overall, the author has created an extraordinary book on an exciting technology.