Getting Started with SharePoint Designer in Office 365

I get a lot of questions about workflows and SharePoint Designer. You will see that I did a series of blog posts on that topic:

Creating a SharePoint Workflow

You’ve read the blog posts now see the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw-P-4YR6dw

Hopefully, all these will show you how easy it is to get into workflows for SharePoint Online.

As with most areas with technology, the rabbit hole goes as deep as you want it. SharePoint Designer is a very, very powerful tool that can create some really amazing things when it comes to workflows and SharePoint site design. Best of all SharePoint Designer is free.

So if you have been meaning to get your feet wet with automation in SharePoint Online, hopefully all this material will get you off the blocks to a flying start.

Creating a SharePoint Workflow

I wrote two previous blog posts about creating workflows with SharePoint Designer:

What are SharePoint Workflows

and

SharePoint Workflows – first steps

This post follows on from those.

In this case we’ll create a simple workflow that sends an email when a document is added to the library.

Firstly give the workflow a name and a description and then select the platform type (which you normally leave set as SharePoint 2013 Workflow) and press the OK button to create the workflow.

SharePoint 2013 allows you to create either SharePoint 2010 or 2013 Workflows. Each has differences and the following:

What’s new in workflow in SharePoint 2013

Is the recommended place to start when it comes to understanding the differences between the versions. In most cases you will want to work with SharePoint 2013 Workflows.

This now takes you to a location where you can edit and create the workflow.

For a SharePoint 2013 Workflow you will see a stage box or “block” divided up into two sections. The upper box is for a set of Actions and the lower box (Transition to stage) which allows you to jump to other stages you may have created. This Transition to stage is a unique feature of SharePoint 2013 workflows and allows you to bypass code by ‘jumping’ to certain locations.

You should also see a blinking cursor under the top section as shown above. You position this cursor where you wish to insert a command in the workflow.

In the Ribbon Bar you should see a number of buttons contained in the Insert section as shown above. Press the Action button to insert an execute command.

When you press the Action button you will see a list of all the actions that can be taken, as shown above. Scroll through the list until you locate Send an Email and select it.

You should now see that command displayed in the workflow area below in the location where your cursor was as you can see above. The cursor now moves to the line just below what you inserted.

You will also note that the text these users is hyperlinked. This indicates that additional details are required for this command to complete. In this case you will need to specify the email address that you wish the email to be sent to. To do that simply press the hyperlinked text these users.

Now the additional settings for each Action will vary. In this case you should now see a dialog as shown above, basically asking you to complete the details for the email.

There are plenty of options that can be configured here (including data lookup) but we’ll keep this simple and plug in just an email address, subject and some text in the body.

When complete, press the OK button to save.

You should now see that the workflow action has updated with the email address you entered. You can modify these properties again at any time by simply clicking on the hyperlinked email address.

Although this is the only command that will be run by the workflow at this stage it is good practice to correctly terminate the workflow. To do this, click once in the Transition to stage area so the cursor appears there as shown above.

Select the Action button again from the Ribbon Menu. From the menu that appears select Go to a stage.

Once again, this will place the Action in the workflow window as shown above.

To complete the options for the Action select the hyperlinked text a stage.

From the drop down menu that appears select End of Workflow. Doing so will ensure that the workflow does not continue to run in the background consuming resources.

The completed workflow should now look like the above.

You now need to set the workflow so it runs whenever something new is added to the Document Library. To do this locate the Workflow Settings button in the Ribbon Menu in the Manage section and select it.

On the right hand side you will see a box called Start Options as shown above. Place a check in the Start workflow automatically when an item is created.

If you need to return to your workflow and edit it select the Edit Workflow button under the Edit section on the Ribbon Menu.

You can also Save your workflow if need be but in this case we are ready to Publish to the SharePoint site so we select the Publish button from the Ribbon Menu.

You should now see the workflow being Published to the SharePoint site. If there are any errors you will be notified and have to make changes.

If there are not errors, your workflow has been successfully Published to SharePoint.

You can check that your SharePoint element has a workflow attached to it by navigating to that location (in this case Documents).

If you then select the Library tab at the top of the page.

Then the Workflow Settings button on the very right of this.

You should then see the name of the Workflow you just created.

If you look closely at the SharePoint element that now has a workflow attached you will see an additional column has been added to the default view. This column is the same as the name of your workflow (in this case Send email workflow as shown above).

When you trigger a workflow (in this case by uploading a new document) the new workflow column will report what stage the workflow is at. Remember, that each “block” of Actions and Transition to stage is designated by its name.

In this example, there is only one code “block” called Stage 1 as shown above. Thus, when the workflow is triggered by the addition of a new document to the element the workflow executes and start and ends on Stage 1. This status is then reported in the workflow column in the SharePoint element. This allows you to more easily debug your code since it allows you to easily see where a workflow is currently situated.

As you can see from the above, the workflow was completed and an email has been sent with the subject and text created in the workflow.

You can now return and edit the workflow and create additional Actions. You can create additional workflows for the same elements if you wish or you can create them for other elements.

Conclusions

SharePoint workflows provide the ability to automate processed in SharePoint. However, workflows are not like pure coding, they are more like constructing a flow chart. They are great for simple and straight forward processes but become quite cumbersome and difficult to create when the task gets complex or involved.

Best practice is always to map out your workflow prior to developing with SharePoint Designer. Keep your code as simple as possible and make sure you maintain good documentation elsewhere about what you have created because SharePoint Designer doesn’t provide for adding comments to your code.

If you ever need to debug a workflow, break it down and look at the stages that are reported in the SharePoint element to which the workflow is attached. Also, don’t overlook the workflow start conditions. If you set a workflow to commence when something changes, that means when ANYTHING changes. That may mean you have multiple workflows running at the same time causing confusion. That is why it is so important that you programmatically terminate your workflow upon completion, rather than simply letting the process end.

Use correctly, SharePoint Designer and workflow can be huge source of productivity improvements. Use incorrectly or poorly implemented they can be a huge source of frustration. Remember, SharePoint Designer is not the only tool that you can use to create workflows. You can use Visual Studio for far greater control, but for that there is a much greater investment in both time, material and knowledge. SharePoint Designer allows a balance to be struck and be used by people who aren’t software developers.

Smarter help when editing with Office Online

Here’s something I just learnt that I think is really, really helpful.

Click on a Microsoft Office document somewhere in SharePoint Online (Team Site or OneDrive for Business). It will then open that document in a browser using Office Online. If you then elect to edit that document in a browser you’ll see the familiar ribbon as shown above.

See that box at the top of the ribbon that says ‘Tell me what to do’?

If I type ‘create table’, as you can see that menu option immediately becomes available, allowing me to select and create a table.

If I instead type in the box ‘create grid’, Office Online works out that I probably mean table and again shows me the appropriate menu command right there so I can create my table.

This is very powerful as it allows people to find what they are after much quicker and reduces the needs for lots and lots of menus and buttons.

Use it, love it.

Sharing files with OneDrive for Business

So here is another attempted video on the Surface with Windows Azure virtual machines.

It shows you the basics of document sharing with OneDrive for Business.

It is still a little blurry for my liking which probably has to do with the high resolution of the Surface machine.

I’ll need to do more testing.

Yammer integration has arrived

One of big things I see with Office 365 is the integration with social. I have been a big fan of Yammer and have been using the free offering for a while now.

Recently I started to configure the direct integration with Office 365 so I could take advantage of all the new things that are coming such as Officegraph and project Oslo.

However, the main reason I wanted Yammer integration was based n this post:

Yammer bring conversations to your OneDrive and SharePoint Online files

That highlight how Yammer can work with SharePoint today.

As you can see from the above, after configuring my Yammer network and then turning it on as my default social network I have the conversations feature available to me. Yeah-HA!

Now it’s ‘play’ time.

Working with OneDrive for Business offline

In two previous posts:

Answering some OneDrive for Business questions

OneDrive for Business document sharing

I’ve been doing a deep dive into how OneDrive for Business allows co-authoring on documents. I’ve covered working both directly from a browser but also using the OneDrive for Business desktop sync app.

That’s all well and good if you are always connected to the cloud but what happens in those rare cases when you aren’t? So let’s see.

If you followed along with the previous post you will know that we have two users working on a document from OneDrive for Business.

Robert Crane has a Word document in his OneDrive for Business in Office 365 called ‘cloud qualification worksheet’ that he has shared with Richard Dawson who is a member of the same Office 365 tenant.

Now let’s say that Robert has this document sync’ed to his desktop using the OneDrive for Business desktop app. Everything is up to date and no one is currently editing the document. he takes his laptop on a flight and decides to work on that document while he is disconnected from the cloud, which he can do as he has a local copy.

For Robert, his updates are saved to his local machine in the local OneDrive for Business location.

For Richard, who remains online during this process, he continues to make changes to the document while Robert is travelling.

So now we have the worst case scenario. Both Robert and Richard have changed the same file. Richard’s updates are now in OneDrive for Business in the cloud and Robert’s are on his local machine waiting till he reconnects to the Internet to sync.

So now, Robert arrives at his destination and connects to the Internet, what happens?

You’ll see that Robert get an error when his OneDrive for Business next tries to synchronize to Office 365. This is a clear indication that there are sync issues.

So if Robert right muse clicks on the file that has the error and selects OneDrive for Business then View sync problems from the menu he sees the following dialog.

The result is that it seems to think there is a problem downloading the file as well a conflict. For the resolution of the conflict it says to open the file using its application to resolve.

So I did that and as you can see in the above screen shot I get no apparent options to resolve the conflict.

Ok, now the question is how do you resolve this so you can at least keep the two files and allow the one on OneDrive for Business to remain shared.

If I however simply tried to rename the file on my desktop then I still got the sync error (as it is still the same file just with another name).

After taking a copy of my local desktop file and allowing it to sync and then deleting the conflicting file from my desktop it also removed that file from OneDrive for Business in Office 365. This meant that all the changes Richard Dawson made where lost and Richard could no longer access the file since the one shared had been deleted. Basically, even though the file on my desktop was reporting a conflict deleting it also deleted versions in the cloud. Watch that.

At the moment this is where OneDrive for Business does have limitations. However, the best solution is to avoid these type of offline issues by firstly checking the file out if you believe you will need it offline for an extended period. Checking a file out means that no one else can change the file until you check it back in. That means here Robert should have checked out the file before leaving and checking in back in upon arrival. During that period Richard could not edit the file but he could at least view it.

There will always be a struggle working offline in an online world and hopefully the OneDrive for Business desktop sync app will improve soon to add more intelligence on how this is dealt with. Simply being able to rename one copy while retaining the other copy seems like the smartest thing to me. However, at the moment if you delete the conflict it deletes the sync’ed version on OneDrive for Business even though it is different, so beware of such conflicts. The best suggestion is to make a copy of the file in OneDrive for Business using a browser before attempting anything on the desktop.

Roll on an updated sync client for OneDrive for Business on the desktop I say.

OneDrive for Business document sharing

In a previous post I covered how basic document collaboration and co-authoring worked with OneDrive for Business. That was in response to this question:

Does OneDrive provide any file locking at all? I.e., if two people open the same file at the same time, does it manage locking to prevent both updating the same file with conflicting updates, or does is simply provide collision notification later?

A follow question on from that was:

How is offline/synchronized file access reconciled with shared access (if at all)?

So let me address that one in this post.

If you followed along with the previous post you will know that we have two users working on a document from OneDrive for Business.

The previous post covered how they where able to work together on the document using both Office Online and Office on the desktop as well as mixing and matching between all of the options.

Now what happens if Robert elects to sync that Word document to his desktop and work on it there. Let’s see.

As you can see above the document in question is synced to the desktop using the OneDrive for Business desktop app. You’ll notice that it is all up to date since it has a green check mark over the type icon.

If Robert right clicks on the file he received the context sensitive menu shown. He select’s Edit.

This opens the document in Word as normal for Robert. He can now start editing it.

As before, Richard now see multiple people working on the document (top right) and see that the paragraph being edited by Robert using Word is ‘locked’ (i.e. Richard can’t edit this area until Robert saves his changes) when he starts working on the document also.

Richard is free to change any other part of the document.

Let’s now return to Robert’s desktop .

When Richard starts making changes using Word Online Robert receives notification of this in his desktop document as well a corresponding ‘lock’ on the paragraph Richard is working with using Office Online in a browser as shown above. This means Robert can’t change that area that Richard is working on until Richard is complete and Robert saves and ‘refreshes’ his document.

You will also notice a little globe next to Richard name here in Robert’s version indicating Richard is editing ‘online’ (i.e. using Office Online). If you also mouse over Richard’s name you might see the message that updates are available and you should refresh the document. This means Richard has made changes and to get the latest version Robert should save and ‘refresh’.

Since Richard is using Office Online any changes he makes are automatically saved and the document in OneDrive for Business is also updated. You can tell when Office Online saves are complete by looking at the bottom of the window as shown above where it says saved.

Once these online updates are saved they are automatically available to others. If those people are also using Office Online they will see the changes immediately. If they are working ‘offline’ using Office for the desktop they will need to save and refresh their document to see the changes.

When they do so they will see the above message in their desktop application. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear in my testing that you see if overlay if one of the editors is using Office Online.

If Richard now opens the document in Word both users will get a similar experience to what was outlined in the previous post with desktop to desktop editing, so I won’t revisit that here.

Thus in summary, using the OneDrive for Business desktop app to sync files locally and opening and editing from this location while online is pretty much an identical experience to what happens if you open and edit a document directly from the browser. It allows you and others to work on the document together at the same time while keeping up to date.

You will notice if you right mouse click on the file in your OneDrive for Business location on your desktop there is a OneDrive for Business menu option as shown above. Basically the options available there simply take you directly to you OneDrive for Business in a browser to allow you to perform the selection.

Thus, if I select Share from this menu all it does it take me directly to the Share option for that file in my OneDrive for Business in a browser (I’ll also need to login to Office 365 if I haven’t already).

So, the OneDrive for Business desktop client app allows you to synchronize you files from your OneDrive for Business location in Office 365 to your desktop. When you work with these desktop sync’ed files you get very much the same co-authoring experience you would if you had opened the documents directly from a browser. Any command menu shortcuts redirect you back to browser to complete.

So now the question is what happens with this synchronization process when one of the authors is offline and makes changes? That’ll be the subject of an upcoming post so stay tuned.

Answering some OneDrive for Business questions

I saw these questions about OneDrive for Business in a forum recently with the complaint that the said information could not be located. So I thought I’d answer them here for everyone.

1. Does OneDrive provide any file locking at all? I.e., if two people open the same file at the same time, does it manage locking to prevent both updating the same file with conflicting updates, or does is simply provide collision notification later?

OneDrive for Business supports document co-authoring. This means that a document can be opened and worked on by two people simultaneously. Here is a scenario:

Both using Office Online

So what I am going to do is directly share a file from the admin user’s OneDrive for Business with another Office 365 user, Richard Dawson in the same tenant.

In the top right of the site I get a message letting me know the document is shared.

The other user (Richard Dawson) receives an email telling him about the shared file and providing a link.

Selecting that link takes him straight to the document where he can now elect to edit it in Office Online or Office on the desktop.

In this case he chooses to edit it with Word Online.

With Richard now editing the file that I (Robert Crane) shared. I go into that same file and start editing it also in Office Online.

What Richard now sees when he is editing the file is that there is another author and the location of those authors edits are shown by a cursor as you see above, which when highlighted shows that authors name.

So now, Richard knows Robert is editing the document and can see that in the top right of the page as shown above.

Thus, when the shared OneDrive for Business document is opened in Office Online it is opened in co-authoring mode to allow multiple people to make changes while showing them what other editors are doing.

One using Office Online, one using Office on desktop

Let’s now say that Robert opens the document in Word to do more advanced editing.

Robert now gets the message and information about additional authors in the lower left of Word as shown above.

What Richard now see in his Office Online is that Robert is editing the document but doing so ‘offline’ (i.e. not in a browser).

This means that neither party can now see real time edits since they are no longer in a browser, however they can continue to edit the document together.

If Robert now starts editing the document using Word from the desktop Richard sees a ‘paragraph lock’ symbol, as shown above, indicating that someone is working on this paragraph offline. Richard is unable to edit this paragraph while that is taking place.

Now when Robert is ready he saves the document. You’ll notice that the save in the top left is actually a ‘refresh’ button. What this does is update the document in OneDrive for Business with any changes Robert made while updating the local document with changes other authors may have made elsewhere. Doing, so means that both the local copy and the current one in OneDrive for Business are up to date with everyone’s changes.

In a matter of moments the version of the document Richard is editing using Office Online is updated on the fly with the changes Robert made on desktop and the paragraph he is working on is ‘unlocked’.

Now what happens if Richard also edits the document using Word?

Richard now has the same ‘offline’ experience editing the document that Robert did. He can see other authors as shown above. he can continue to update the document at the same time as others. When he works on a part of the document that paragraph is locked for other editors until he completes his work and saves and ‘refreshes’ the document in OneDrive for Business as before.

So there you have it. In a nutshell multiple people can edit Office documents in OneDrive for Business whether via Office Online or via Office on the desktop.

Office Online allows real time viewing of edits. Office on the desktop locks paragraphs during editing until updated.

What I’ll look at in the next post is how all this works with the OneDrive for Business desktop sync client.