■ Introducing Office 365 Workflows

IN THIS CHAPTER:

■ Introducing Office 365 workflows

■ Creating a new workflow ■ Using a workflow for your project ■ Managing workflows

CHAPTER 7

Adding and Managing Workflows

WHETHER YOU KNOW IT or not, you use workflows all the time. They might not be written down, and others might not follow the same process (which might or might not cause you lots of headaches), but there is some kind of flow to the work you’re doing. Whether you’re publishing an annual report, getting a mailing out, launching a new Web site, or trying to support a sales force, the tasks you complete in your day fit into a larger work process that can be mapped and organized. Workflows in the traditional sense are logical structures that help you know who does what when in the work process. When you’re working with a team, workflows can help keep a project on track and help you see easily which team member is responsible for tasks at any given time. SharePoint Online in Office 365 makes it easy for you to create and apply workflows to the team projects you create. This chapter shows you how to create and use a workflow to keep your team engaged and working smoothly together.

Introducing Office 365 Workflows

Your SharePoint Online team site offers all kind of features and tools you can use to keep your team on track. Creating workflows for processes you use often—especially if they involve customer interactions or important project tasks or documents—can help you reduce the amount of time you spend worrying about getting things done.

To add a workflow to your team site, you need to first create a library or a list that includes a Choices column (which enables you to set the state of each item in the workflow). The basic idea is captured in the following steps: 1. You create a list of the tasks you need to accomplish to reach completion on a particular goal. 2. You create a workflow for that list that enables you to indicate when a task has been completed and whose involvement is needed next. 3. The workflow can notify that team member automatically by email to let him or her know it is time for his or her task in the project. 4. When all tasks are marked as finished, the workflow is complete.

Note You might want to use the Issues Tracking list template in SharePoint Online to create a list you can use with a workflow. You can also use the Custom List or a document library to create a customized list that you can use as the basis for the workflow, but for the workflow to work properly, you must include at least one Choice field that enables you to set multiple options. The Choice field is where you set the three different states (Active, Resolved, and Completed) the workflow uses to track the progress of the tasks.

The workflows you create help you easily coordinate the people, tasks, and deadlines on your different projects. By enlisting SharePoint Online to help you track the project’s status, you can make sure things stay on schedule and that the right people are involved at the right points.

HOW WILL YOU USE WORKFLOWS?

A workflow does require a little forethought and planning when you set it up, but it can save you time and trouble if you have a number of people all working on different parts of the same process. You could use workflows to ■ Follow a call for customer service from the initial contact to the resolution

■ Track client inquiries about a new product