Using workflows to parse values in a list item. SharePoint Designer is an easy, yet robust designer that enables the integration of business logic into lists. To illustrate this feature, I’ll begin with a simple list illustrating what might be an email sent from a customer. Obviously, it would be nice if team members wouldn’t have…

Incorporating a workflow process into a business. Continuing on my Task: Approval Process article where I illustrated how to apply a business process whereby employees would submit new items (plan tickets) for approval before continuing, I’ll now show a complimentary step that represents a natural progress – workflows. Workflows allow teams to be notified when…

Using SharePoint Designer to create custom workflows for sending alert emails. When collaborating on SharePoint lists, some team members may need notification when actions are performed on lists. For example, let’s pretend a user wishes to be notified via email when an item is added to a list. To illustrate this functionality, I will begin…

Creating a portal for collaboration. In addition to using a Document Workspace, I can use a Meeting Workspace to facilitate collaboration amongst team members, for example if a series of meetings were needed. First, I’ll use the Calendar from the Document Workspace, to schedule a meeting. During the creation of that meeting, I’ll select to…

Tracking/Restoring changes in business data. In order to provide the ability to recover changes to an item, I will enable versioning on a list. For this example, I’ll select Tasks on which to enable this feature. On the List tab, I’ll select List Settings, then Versioning settings. To enable versioning, I only have to select…

Enabling an approval process into team lists. In a typical business process where employees require approval before continuing a certain action, such as completing a purchase of airline tickets, SharePoint approval process provides a nice solution. Let’s say you have a SharePoint Task list where employees populate it with items that each denote their progress…

Creating a portal for collaboration. Workspaces provide a collaborative portal for team to engage in a project. To illustrate how to create a new workspace, I’ll begin with a test document in my team site. To create a new workspace, I’ll use the context menu by right-clicking the document and selecting to create a new…

Using Document Libraries to collaborate on Office documents. As illustrated in my Custom List article, there are many options available to create various types of list. In this article I will show how to create a library, which is similar to a list, but may also contain attachment. Again, I will use the Site Actions…

Using SharePoint Designer to create custom workflows for sending alert emails. When collaborating on SharePoint lists, some team members may need notification when actions are performed on lists. For example, let’s pretend a user wishes to be notified via email when an item is added to a list. To illustrate this functionality, I will begin…

Using custom lists as the building block for automating business processes. Perhaps the most widely used feature in SharePoint is the list. While there are many predefined lists, being able to define one from scratch yields much needed flexibility. In order to illustrate this feature, I’ll begin by selecting Site Actions -> More options. This…