Three-state Workflow in SharePoint

Please view the Real World Scenarios section of the book to enable this.

• Configuring Email for Development Server

Testing Workflow

Now let us test the workflow by creating a task. Create a Task and make sure you select a valid user having an email for the Assigned To column.



Save the changes and you should see the smtp4dev tool caught the email as shown below:



You will see that the ID value is being highlighted. This concludes our experiment with Three-state workflow.

Editing the Workflow

We can associate multiple workflows with a list or library. To edit an existing association use the Workflow Settings > Workflow Settings menu item.



In the page that appears you can view the existing workflows associated and edit the settings.



The Workflows in Progress column displays the number of workflow instances currently active.

There are additional links to Add / Remove workflows, View workflow reports too.

Where should I apply this Workflow?

We can use this workflow for the following requirement scenarios:

• Product or Project approval process where a new product idea can be traversed through different stages of approval before acceptance.
• Issue tracking system where a customer can create an issue item, the support team updates it to resolution, the Customer can change the status to Closed or Active again.
• Bug tracking system where the QA can create a task item, developer can change it to Resolved, QA can reopen it.

The effective use of a Three-state workflow should decrease the delivery time for a tracking system with email notifications. We can also use custom lists with transition properties for using the Three-state workflow.

References

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-sharepoint-services-help/use-a-three-state-workflow-HA010154431.aspx

Summary

In this article we had explored the Three-state workflow of SharePoint 2010. The following are the points worthy of summarization:

• Three-state workflow tracks status changes
• A Choice column is required for the list / library to use this Workflow
• Choice column requires at least 3 fields
• Issue Tracking list template is apt for this workflow
• Association of Three-state workflow with list instance is required
• Email notification is enabled for a Three-state workflow