Microsoft Developer Roadmap Documentation

On Saturday Microsoft released documentation outlining step-by-step roadmaps for some common SharePoint tasks. So far these include the following activities:

• Setting up SharePoint servers
• Deploying code and customizations
• Creating sites and subsites
• Page designs
• Document management
• InfoPath forms
• workflows
• Business Intelligence
• Records Management

Each section is a detailed, matter-of-fact outline of the tasks that should be undertaken and the order in which they should occur. The sections frequently reference content which already exists on MSDN, Technet, Microsoft team blogs or third party bloggers.

The SharePoint team hopes to fine-tune the content over time if the community marks these sections as helpful or submits suggestions or comments on them.

Full details are at http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/01/25/announcing-design-and-build-sites-for-office-sharepoint-server-2007.aspx and the documentation itself can be found at the Technet site at http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/df6a8515-f49a-4792-8d51-dec4648415541033.mspx?mfr=true

So far in the last year we've seen the release of a mass of content, ranging from

• Microsoft's Interactive Development Map WPF desktop tool;
• End user training via desktop install or the SharePoint Learning Kit;
• SharePointPedia;
• The SharePoint and WSS SDKs;
• this latest MSDN and Technet documentation;
• and of course a multitude of blogs.

It's a full-time job to keep up on the platform, but I guess it keeps us out of trouble!

Today I was creating a workflow in Visual Studio so I could repackage it with content types and lists, rather than using SharePoint Designer where the workflow has to be applied to a specific list.

Whenever I tried to create a new SharePoint Sequential Workflow Library project, I got the error: "The project type is not supported by this installation". Turns out I had a pre-release version of the Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for .Net Framework 3.0 (Windows Workflow Foundation) - beta 1.2 to be precise. After uninstalling and reinstalling the release version, available here, I could create the workflow project.

I'm currently following Nick Swan's excellent blog postings about how to create and deploy SharePoint workflows in Visual Studio: SharePoint 2007 Workflow with Visual Studio 2005 + InfoPath 2007 (RTM VERSION!) and Deploying our SharePoint 2007 Workflow with Visual Studio 2005 + InfoPath 2007 (RTM VERSION!) .

K2 has announced a release date for blackpearl! The date will be August 6. From the press release:

K2 blackpearl gives business and technical users the ability to collaboratively design, assemble, execute, monitor and optimize dynamic business applications. K2 blackpearl includes business process management capabilities. Although blackpearl's capabilities far exceed those of K2's previous offering, K2.net
2003, existing customers can upgrade easily.

I'm not sure if pricing and licensing information is currently available somewhere or will be published on their website; as I recall for the previous version you had to inquire about it.

K2 will present information and product demos this week at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2007 in Denver, Colorado.

You can view the full press release here.

K2 has a new community-driven website, K2 Underground, which replaces the existing forum.k2workflow.com site. The new community area allows registered users to participate in forums, blogs, groups, and file shares, although unregistered users can browse the site. It's a good idea and looks well built; it'll be interesting to see if the K2 community coalesces around it.

You can access K2 Underground here.

Yesterday I saw a great webcast about K2 [Blackpearl] given by Adriaan Van Wyk, CEO of SourceCode Technology Holdings. For those of you who haven’t tried it, K2 is a Business Process Management (BPM) or “workflow engine”. BlackPearl is pretty exciting stuff because it is built directly on Windows Workflow (WF), Microsoft’s new workflow framework.
K2 has just released a public Beta 2 version of their engine. Beta participants will receive a 25% discount on all Blackpearl software if they order it before 30th June 2007 (but licencing info won’t be made available for a few more days!). RTM is expected within a few months.
Key points brought up from the webcast:

• BlackPearl is heavily integrated with the Office 2007 stack, including SharePoint. K2 workflows are hosted in SharePoint libraries just like the out-of-the box MOSS workflows are; the appropriate workflow actions are easily available from the Actions menu; workflow tasks appear in Office 2007; and so on.
• Workflow development “scales” according to technical ability and need. A Business Analyst can draw up a general business process using Visio and deploy to SharePoint. A developer can import that workflow into Visual Studio, add more complex logic, and then re-export the changes.
• Related to that last point….the K2 Studio is now fully integrated into Visual Studio – so no mucking around in a separate IDE!
• All K2 BlackPearl workflows are xoml files (the WF format).
• All workflow actions are fully surfaceable using an API, which means you can easily incorporate them into your other applications.
• K2 provides the source code for its templates, allowing you to poke around and customize as required (although whether they will support any template changes you make remains to be seen!).
• Exporting K2 2003 workflows to a target server was a bit difficult. Now you can publish your workflow as a CAB file, which combined with an XML configuration file for each environment means you can deploy K2 workflows with no K2 software installations required at all on the target servers! This will really please server administrators. During the webcast Adriaan demonstrated how you can extract a K2 workflow CAB file using a command line on the server.

Some other nice features:

• There is a Forms Generator tool to autogenerate .aspx pages from K2 workflows. Autogenerating InfoPath 2007 Forms will not be possible at RTM but hopefully shortly thereafter.
• Workflow process information can be surfaced in SharePoint using the Business Data Catalog.
• Smart Objects allow you to keep your BPM data outside of K2. This is a great feature because you can reference the Smart Object’s unique ID in the workflow, but update the rest of the SmartObject’s properties over time, and all workflows using that SmartObject will still work. This simplifies maintenance of data structures.
• Reports are generated using Report Definition Language, which means you can create and customize them using Reporting Services technology.
• A Context Grid allows K2 to make decisions based on the runtime environment, such as rerouting tasks or messages based on a user’s availability (perhaps determined by Live Communications Server).
• Black Point is an AJAX designer which is hosted in MOSS. This component allows business users to generate and modify workflows without even leaving their browser window.

Workflow is a vital component of the SharePoint story – enabling customizable, real-value business solutions in a reasonable timeframe. You can already develop workflow using Visual Studio or SharePoint Designer, but a sophisticated product like K2 really takes much of the pain away, allowing you to focus on the business requirements. K2 continues the trend towards declarative software development.

With SharePoint 2007 and workflow forming a solid platform, I think we’ll soon see a new kind of Extreme Programming: one developer and one business analyst paired together at a computer, happily rolling out business solutions.