Implementing Approval Workflow
Although you can use versioning to require approval of new
or updated content, notifying users that approval is required
doesn’t happen without some additional upfront configuration.
First, open the Shared Services Administration page in
SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration, add a new shared
services provider (SSP) if you haven’t already, and restart
IIS to implement the session state settings. Open your
Reports document library, open the Document Library Settings
from the Settings menu, and then in the Permissions
and Management section, click Workflow Settings. MOSS
provides an Approval workflow template that you can easily
implement. Just assign a unique name to the workflow and
select one or more triggers, such as the addition of a new
report or a change to an existing report.
As part of the workflow configuration, you define
whether users work on their assigned task in parallel or
sequentially and whether they can reassign their task or
request a change before completing the task. You also
define which users are designated as approvers and the
sequence in which they will receive notification of their
task if you’ve set up a sequential workflow. As an optional
setting, you can notify other users about the workflow
assignment for informational purposes.
You can define a due date as a specific date if you created
a parallel workflow or as a specific number of days or weeks
if you created a sequential workflow. Either way, if you’ve
enabled email on the server on the Outgoing E-mail Settings
page of Central Administration, users will receive reminders
if their assigned task isn’t complete by the due date.
When you’ve configured the workflow for a document
library, any subsequent activity that triggers the workflow
generates an email to all assigned users for a parallel
workflow or to the first user in a sequential workflow. The
email contains a link to the report to review and an Edit
This Task button to open the task page in MOSS and let
the user approve or reject the report.
The workflow is complete when all users have finished
their assigned tasks, and you can have the workflow
automatically update the status of the report to approved.
When circumstances (such as rejection of the report or a
change to the report after the workflow started) prevent
users from completing their tasks, you can configure the
workflow to cancel itself. And you can always manually
terminate the workflow by opening the report’s context
menu, selecting Workflows, and navigating to the workflow
you want to cancel.
Workflow notifications let users collaborate on the
quality assurance process before making reports available
to everyone. But what about users who want to know
when a new report is available or when a favorite report
has changed? Fortunately, you don’t have to set up a
notification system for this group of users because MOSS
includes a self-service alert system, but you should try
out the system so you can show others how it works. For
information about setting up alerts, see the Web-exclusive
sidebar “Creating Alerts,” InstantDoc ID 97070.
Using Dashboards to Integrate
Information
The simplest way to get started with information integration
is to add a new dashboard page to the Reports document
library. You then configure the Web Parts provided
by the dashboard template, delete any Web Parts you don’t
want to use, and add new Web Parts to bring together
information from disparate sources, such as SSRS reports,
Microsoft Excel workbooks, and other related content
and links. You can rearrange the Web Parts on the page
to achieve just the right layout for your business information.
Let’s look at some of the key information-integration
features available with MOSS.
SQL Server Reporting Services Report Viewer Web
Part. For your SSRS reports, use the SQL Server
Reporting Services Report Viewer Web Part. This new
Web Part, included in MOSS, features different capabilities
than the Web Parts packaged with SSRS for use in
previous versions of SharePoint. Like all Web Parts, the
Report Viewer Web Part includes an Edit menu that you
use to configure settings. Your first task is to select Modify
Shared Web Part on the Edit menu to open the tool pane
for the Web Part. In the Report Viewer tool pane, you
provide the full URL for the report, such as http://your_
server/ReportsLibrary/Your Report.rdl if your report is
in the standard Reports document library. You can use a
Browse button to navigate through the document libraries
in your site and locate the desired report.
(see associated figure)
You use the View section of the tool pane to control
the appearance of SSRS features. For example, you can
use the Toolbar drop-down list to display the full toolbar
in the report, enable only the navigation features of the
toolbar to support moving from page to page, or hide the
toolbar altogether. The Prompt Area drop-down list lets
you display parameters when the report opens, require the
user to open the parameter area of the report, or hide the
parameters completely. Similarly, you can use the Document
Map drop-down list to display, collapse, or hide a
document map for the report.
You can override the report’s parameter values in the Web
Part by expanding the Parameters section of the tool pane.
Click Load Parameters, select Override Report Default,
and select a new parameter value. This has no effect on the
report’s parameter settings in the document library.
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