Future Proofing your Workflow Investment How to Develop Maintainable Custom Workflows in Office365 Sharepoint Online
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This document discusses future proofing workflow investments in Office 365 and SharePoint Online. It provides tips for developing maintainable custom workflows, including using naming conventions, comments, flow charts, status fields, and separating logic into multiple workflows. It also covers throttling limits, such as a 5000 request limit per 24 hours which can cause workflows to suspend. The document recommends designing workflows to avoid these limits and termination of workflow instances.
Future Proofing your Workflow Investment How to Develop Maintainable Custom Workflows in Office365 Sharepoint Online
- 1. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Future Proofing Your Workflow Investment - How to develop maintainable custom workflows in Office 365SharePoint Online? Prashant G Bhoyar (PGB) Collab365 20 October 2016
- 2. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar 2 • Born and raised in India • Came to United States of America in 2007 for studies • University of Maryland College Park Alumni • Technical Reviewer of the book “Pro : SharePoint 2013 Administration” • Organizer of SharePoint Saturday Baltimore (SPSBMORE) • Founder and Organizer of DC-Metro Office 365 User Group Monthly in person & online event http://www.meetup.com/DC-Metro-Office-365- User-Group/ • Recipient of Antarctic Service Medal • Senior Consultant at Portal Solutions Who AM I ? Prashant G Bhoyar (PGB)
- 3. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar About Portal Solutions We deliver Digital Workplace Products and Solutions that help organizations share what they know and find what they need by connecting people, data, and content. 3
- 4. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar OneWindow Capabilities – Modern Intranet Out-of-the Box Social and Mobile experience Collaborative workspaces (public or private, communities or projects) People directory and gateway to other applications (my apps) Stories and corporate communication publishing
- 5. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar OneWindow Workplace • Built on and for Office 365 and Microsoft Azure • Available for Office 365 and SharePoint Hybrid environment OneWindow Yammer SharePoint Online Skype For Business Office Groups Office Graph/Delve Videos OneDrive for Business OneWindow APIs Planner Analytics
- 6. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Next Steps 6 Interested in assessing if OneWindow Workplace is right for you? Let’s talk. Click here or go to http://www.onewindowapp.com to learn more.
- 7. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar • Future • Tips for writing maintainable workflows • Throttling Limits in Office 365 • Limitations of SharePoint Workflows • Q&A Agenda
- 8. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Typical SharePoint Workflow Life Cycle Initiation • When the workflow instance is started on list/library item Running • User Interaction via tasks • Status page reflects the status of the workflows Termination • End of the workflow instance Association • When the workflow is associated with List/Library
- 9. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar • Browser • SharePoint 2013 Designer • Visio 2013 • Visual Studio 2012/2013/2015 • Third Party Tools • Flow/Logic Apps Office 365 /SharePoint Online 2013 Workflow Tools
- 11. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Recent Announcements • There will NOT be SharePoint Designer 2016 http://sharepoint-community.net/forum/topics/what-s-happening-to-sharepoint-designer-in- sharepoint-2016-is-it • Microsoft Flow https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-microsoft-flow-and-announcing-the- public-preview-of-powerapps/ 11
- 12. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar What does this mean? • SharePoint Workflows most probably will have same fate as InfoPath forms services Microsoft will continue to support No future enhancements • Time to explore other options Microsoft Flow Under Preview https://flow.microsoft.com Visual Studio Workflows Can deploy them only as “App” Other Third Party Products 12
- 14. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar 14 • The development/testing experience is slow Because of platform’s architecture In general Workflow development is slow process Analogy : Public Transportation System • Difficult to gather all the requirements before start of the development Be ready for multiple revisions Lessons Learned
- 16. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Tips for developing maintainable custom workflows • Naming Convention for Custom Workflows Use the naming convention that works best for you and your organization For example, List or Library + ListName + Purpose • Use activity “Add a comment” to write informative comments in the workflow End users will not see these comments unlike workflow history list logs
- 17. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Tips for developing maintainable custom workflows • Have flow chart of the workflow handy Use Microsoft Visio Pen and Paper works too • Implement the logic to stop/start at a particular stage Super helpful in case the workflow instance gets terminated Super helpful during migration Helpful to update the business logic • Using If condition and a custom variable, we can pick and choose the additional logging Similar to #if debug directive in C# The workflow will be long, but it can save a lot of troubleshooting/development time End users will not see additional comments in Production
- 18. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Tips for developing maintainable custom workflows • Save the Workflow status in a separate field Avoid default workflow name Helps to divide workflow into multiple workflows • Create a separate Workflow status field as text Gives the ability of filtering and sorting Approvers love this option • Capture the dates of various approval steps Helps to generate audit logs/reports
- 19. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Tips for developing maintainable custom workflows • Review the workflow starting logic Limit how many times the workflow gets started Make sure they won’t start unnecessarily after the workflow is ended successfully • If possible Break down the workflows in multiple WFs Helps a lot in development and maintenance We can start SharePoint 2010 workflows from SharePoint 2013 only We can not start SharePoint 2013 workflows from SharePoint 2013 workflows You can use “Wait for field change in current item” to trigger the workflows
- 20. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Tips for developing maintainable custom workflows • Use new Task List and History list for each workflow To create the new tasks list and history list, we can use Workflow Settings page SharePoint Designer SharePoint UI OOTB “Workflow Tasks” List has additional notifications To turn off -> List Settings – Advanced Settings -> Uncheck “Send e-mail when ownership is assigned?”
- 21. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Tips for developing maintainable custom workflows • Don’t create the variable if you don’t have to 50 is the limit • Use SharePoint groups to assign the tasks/send emails instead of individual users • Keep workflow initiation activity to minimum
- 22. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Tips for developing maintainable custom workflows • Do not modify the OOTB global workflows Create copy and then modify • Log information in the History List Log variables, important info that will be helpful during debugging/troubleshooting End users can see the logs
- 23. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Tips for developing maintainable custom workflows • Create custom task content types for tasks with only one logical outcome • Pay extra attention while modifying the Custom Task content types Task outcome field must be the last field • Restrict the access • For large lists, don’t remove the workflow, but set to no new instance Do it in non business hours
- 25. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Throttling Limits in Office 365 • In Office 365 workflow manager has strict throttling limits for SharePoint 2013 Style workflows • The instance has exceeded the outbound http request quota for a 1.00:00:00 time period. The 5000 request limit was reached in <time>. Analogy credit score • Workflow instances can get suspended and we need to wait 24 hours to resume the suspended workflow instance by clicking Resume for the workflow or by using the SharePoint Workflow Client Object Model • Suspended workflow instances will be terminated after 10 days. Source : https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3076399
- 26. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Throttling Limits in Office 365 • The resource limitations are for per workflow in a site collection in the span of 24 hours • There is no OOTB email alert if the workflow get suspended • We can find the suspended workflows on the page /_layouts/15/WorkflowServiceHealth.aspx • If we develop workflow as an “App” these throttling limitations does not apply
- 27. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Throttling Limits in Office 365
- 28. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Throttling Limits in Office 365 – Design Consideration • Avoid infinite loops We may use “Wait for field change in current item” • Avoid using a workflow to execute complex algorithms Workflows are intended to manage document-driven, human processes and not to dispatch significant computational tasks. • Avoid the use of the “Wait for Event in List Item" activity Source : https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3076399
- 30. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar 30 Limitations We can not start workflows on delete event 50 variable limit No source control for SPD workflows String functions are limited For advance implementations you will need to involve devs/architects You can not start the workflows on Task lists whenever new tasks gets created by SP2013 style workflows Workaround : Create SP2010 style workflow in Task List
- 31. #Collab365 @pgbhoyar Questions? Feedback? Contact me: Twitter: @PGBhoyar Blog: http://pgbhoyar.com (limited contents) Email: pgbhoyar@gmail.com Feedback : Please provide feedback Conference Link Email or Anonymous Suggestions: https://www.suggestionox.com/r/pgb Thank You Organizers, Sponsors and You for Making this Possible.