Sharepoint Workflow Development (2 part question)

Question

I\'m trying to develop some SharePoint workflows for the company I work for, and I\'m not too familiar with the ins and outs of the technology. Normally when I want to familiar

Answer 1

Yes, you can develop SharePoint Workflows, WebParts, etc. in a multi-developer environment without any hacks. I suggest you use

• a MOSS 2007 VPC Image
• Ankhsvn to use svn inside Visual Studio
• and also the WSPBuilder Extensions

and maybe you should read What are your biggest complaints about Sharepoint? to see what you're up to ;-)

To learn SharePoint Workflow development,you can start at Step by Step Tutorial. Creating Workflows for Windows Sharepoint Services and MOSS2007

Answer 2

Yes, you have to do all your development on a the SharePoint server itself. Consider using a virtual machine and package up features that you can deploy to your staging and production environments.

http://weblogs.asp.net/erobillard/archive/2007/02/23/build-a-sharepoint-development-machine.aspx http://www.wssdemo.com/Pages/EntDev.aspx

Answer 3

Also, it was casually mentioned in this thread, but you cannot develop SharePoint workflows on a 64-bit SharePoint Server at this time. You will have to have a 32-bit Windows Server and SharePoint Server installation.

Answer 4

While it's true you need SharePoint installed on your development computer for most SharePoint development, you can get away without it for workflow development. Follow these steps:

• Copy the SharePoint DLLs to your development computer (for workflow you'll need microsoft.sharepoint.WorkflowActions.dll).
• Open Visual Studio and open the Toolbox tab
• Add a new tab (call it SharePoint Workflow Items)
• In the new tab, click "Add Items"
• Click the "Activities" tab
• Locate and add microsoft.sharepoint.WorkflowActions.dll
• You'll see a few new tasks show up and already selected.

Once you do this, you'll be able to develop WF workflows that can use SharePoint-specific tasks. Deployment and testing the workflow is another task altogether.

Answer 5

Here is a link to some SharePoint workflow how to videos.

http://chrisbarba.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/sharepoint-workflow-how-to-videos/

Answer 6

If you want to create a Sharepoint workflow using the Sharepoint Templates, you need to have a Windows 2003 or 2008 Server running Sharepoint. Essentially, that is true for all Sharepoint development: For it to be really efficient, you need to run Visual Studio on a Sharepoint Server. This in turn means that every developer needs his own Sharepoint server and then you have one additional "Staging"-Server where you deploy and test your combined solutions. Suddenly, that MSDN Subscription looks very attractive :-)

As for your Workflow learning question: I can highly recommend "Workflow in the 2007 Microsoft Office System" by Apress.