In this post, I’ll cover as many resources as I can that a person new to SharePoint workflow needs to know. This is all Workflow 101 stuff – if you’re trying to do workflow in SharePoint and you haven’t read this stuff, you deserve all of the frustration and headaches you will surely encounter.
Blogs
· Eilene Hao, Program Manager for SP workflow, created a 7-part series on SharePoint workflow (available as a slightly-expanded whitepaper here). It’s phenomenal. Stop reading now and go read that.
· The whole workflow category of the SharePoint Team Blog is worth perusing: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/tags/Workflow/default.aspx
Articles
· Andrew May’s article on MSDN: Developer Introduction to Workflows for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2007
SDK Documentation / Other Official MS Publications
· If you’re developing in SharePoint, you really ought to be on friendly terms with the WSS / MOSS SDKs, but in this case, you want to get comfy with the workflow sections: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms416312.aspx (WSS) and http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms549489.aspx (MOSS)
· You also want to check the samples in the downloadable version of the MOSS SDK
Books
· OK, you knew this had to be coming, and in general I won’t be pushing my book here, but right now it’s one of two books solely dedicated to SharePoint workflows on the market. I’ll admit to being biased, but I think it has some useful information within its pages. Take a look and see: http://www.amazon.com/Workflow-2007-Microsoft-Office-System/dp/1590597001/sr=8-1/qid=1171936365/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-7306809-0545512?ie=UTF8&s=books.
· Scot Hillier’s book has a chapter on workflow
· Ted Pattison and Daniel Larson’s book has a chapter on workflow that provides a good introduction and coverage of workflow
· Wrox published Professional SharePoint 2007 Development, authored by the cast of Ben-Hur. John Holliday wrote the chapter on Workflow and while I admit to having only skimmed it, it looked good.
That’s all I have so far that covers introductory material (some of it DOES cover more advanced material as well, so there will be duplicates when I get around to the more advanced resources list).
PS: I know that this is a lot of reading and that people do not like to read. Unfortunately, there are no silver bullets here. Workflows in SharePoint are not easy until you’ve done them a few times (and a lobotomy doesn’t hurt J) so it’s going to take some work on your part. I’ll help as much as I can, but you need to read this stuff.