SharePoint Workflows

SharePoint workflow helps people to collaborate on documents and mange project task by implementing business processes on documents in a SharePoint site. It also improves organizational efficiency and productivity by managing the tasks.

There are the following tasks that you can perform on the SharePoint workflow -

  • View the list of workflows that are available for document or item.
  • Start a workflow on a document or item.
  • View, edit, or reassign a workflow task.
  • Complete a workflow task.

Create a workflow

There are the following steps to create a workflow -

Step 1: Go to the Home page of your site. Click on the Add an app.

SharePoint Workflow

Step 2: A list of apps page appears on the screen, select app according to your requirement.

SharePoint Workflow

Note: In our case, we select Announcements.

Step 3: A small pop-up appears, in which enter the name that you want to add, and click on the Create. Now, go to the site content and search for the file that you have recently created. Once you find the file, click on it.

The below screenshot shows that a new Holidays Announcement list is created.

SharePoint Workflow

Step 4: Go to the Setting icon at the top right corner of the screen, select list setting from the drop-down menu. Once list setting window appears on the screen, scroll down the window and click on the Create column.

SharePoint Workflow

Step 5: a). Enter the name of column that you want to create and select the type of information for the column.

SharePoint Workflow

b). In the Additional Column Settings, enter the type choice, and click on the OK at the bottom of the screen.

SharePoint Workflow

Step 6: Click on the Workflow Setting, from the list setting page.

SharePoint Workflow

Step 7: Workflow Settings page appears on the screen, in which click on the Add a workflow.

SharePoint Workflow

Step 8: In Add a workflow page, enter the name for the workflow, in our case it is “Holidayworkflow.”

SharePoint Workflow

Step 9: Select a task list, tick on the Creating a new item will start this workflow, and click on Next.

SharePoint Workflow

Step 10: Customize the three-state workflow window appears on the screen, scroll down the window, in the Task Details, select Task Assigned to: Custom, and enter the name of user for which you want to assign the task.

SharePoint Workflow

Step 11: Select Custom and enter the name of the user, and click on the OK at the bottom of the screen.

SharePoint Workflow

Step 12: Click on the +New, a New item window appears at the right corner of the screen, in which enter the required information, and click on the Save.

SharePoint Workflow

Step 13: Now, refresh the page and you can see that a Holidayworkflow is In Progress. Click on the In Progress.

SharePoint Workflow

Once you click on the In Progress, Workflow Status window appears on the screen. This window shows you about the Tasks and workflow history, for this, consider the below screenshot.

SharePoint Workflow

How does the workflow generate tasks?

Go to the Site content, you can see that a system generates a Tasks list. Click on the Tasks list.

SharePoint Workflow

Click on the more options (three dots), select Edit item from the drop-down menu.

SharePoint Workflow

Click on the Show more, select Status as Completed from the drop-down menu, and click on the Save.

SharePoint Workflow

Now, go to the holidaysAnnouncements page, you will see that your holiday workflow status is Approved.

SharePoint Workflow

When you click on the In Progress, you can see a new entry that is Task Completed.

SharePoint Workflow

Notify user that task is completed

Go to the Site Content -> Task, and click on the Edit item at the top left corner of the screen.

SharePoint Workflow

The following window appears on the screen in which click on the Show more, select status Completed from the drop-down menu, and click on the Save.

SharePoint Workflow

Now, go to the HolidaysAnnouncement, you can see that workflow status is Finalized and workflow status is Completed.

SharePoint Workflow

Consider the above screenshot, click on the Completed to see the list of all tasks and workflow history.

SharePoint Workflow