Real World experience with

SharePoint and K2

Workflows

© 2015 Serial

24 March 2015

K2.COM

The biggest ongoing

challenges cited by

SharePoint

organizations are:

User adoption

Expanding

SharePoint use to

more business

processes

Source: AIIM Industry Watch Survey: SharePoint 2013,

conducted July 2013 n=538

K2.COM

73% of SharePoint

organizations cite they

need workflow driven

apps

But…

62% cite integration as a

challenge

30% say time & effort to build

business applications is a

challenge

21% End User interface is a

challenge

Source: MPS Partners SharePoint Adoption Survey 2012/2013,

n=143

K2.COM

A PLATFORM to BUILD AND RUN APPLICATIONS

< across multiple dimensions >

Apps across cloud and on-

premises

Apps de-coupled and fully

embedded in SharePoint

Apps that include reports,

forms, workflows and access

to information spanning

multiple LOB systems.

Apps you can access on your

Corp IT asset or BYOD, inside

and outside organizations

K2.COM

K2 BUILDING BLOCKS FOR APPS

K2.COM

- 6 -

BUILD AND RUN BUSINESS APPLICATIONS

+ + =

DATA

• Create business entities

• Connect to any system

• Leverage Existing Data

• Out-of-the box options

• SharePoint,

• SAP,

• Office 365,

• Dynamics CRM & more

- 7 -

SHAREPOINT

ORACLE

SAP

AD

OTHER

K2 PROCESS

INFO

WEB SERVICE

MS CRM

SQL

DATA IS NEVER IN A SINGLE PLACE

K2 PROVIDES A WAY

OF UNIFYING DATA ACCESS

- 8 -

SHAREPOINT SQL MS CRM AD OTHERK2 PROCESS

INFOWEB SERVICE

FORMS MOBILITY REPORTS PORTALS

Business Apps

WORKFLOW

K2 SMARTOBJECTS

First Name

Last Name

Email

Department

Employee

Department Name

Manager

HR Manager

Director

Department

Client Name

Email

Telephone

Web Address

Clients

IT F

OC

US

BU

SIN

ES

S F

OC

US

- 9 -

BUILD AND RUN BUSINESS APPLICATIONS

+ + =

FORMS

• Drag-and-Drop Design

• Build with rules

• Leverage Existing Data

• Tie to Workflow

Integration in K2 SmartForms

- 10 -

Re-use views in several forms

- 11 -

Manager approvalNew expense claim HR approval

FORMSVIEW

Employee details

K2 SmartForms are Responsive

- 12 -

Design forms in the browser

- 13 -

- 14 -

BUILD AND RUN BUSINESS APPLICATIONS

+ + =

WORKFLOW

• Deliver workflow to enterprise

• Stay flexible

• Scale to fit

• Intuitively design workflows

- 15 -

Workflows patterns

PRESCRIPTIVE ASSISTIVE

WORKFLOW BPM CASE

Document routing

Approvals

Simple forms

Business application

Complex routing

Dynamic logic

Integrated reporting

Core processes

Non-linear process

Visibility by stage

Performance metrics

Adhoc

Audit

Checklists

K2 BlackPearl workflow sample

- 16 -

A Process

Is composed of Activities

Containing

Tasks (or events)

Assigned to

Users (or actors)

Following Rules

Multiple workflow designers

- 17 -

- 18 -

BUILD AND RUN BUSINESS APPLICATIONS

+ + =

REPORTS

• Monitor Progress &

Performance

• Deliver Business Insight

• Create reports from both

Process & LOB Data

• Utilize industry reporting tools

- 19 -

OOTB reports

- 20 -

Build your own reports

- 21 -

K2 supports hybrid infrastructure and deployment scenarios

LOB & WEB DATA SOURCESCLOUD K2 SERVER

(ON-PREMISE OR CLOUD-HOSTED)

LOB DATA SOURCESON PREMISE

• Office 365

• MS CRM

• Salesforce.com

• …and more

MOBILE BROWSER API/TOOLS

Feature Parity

Demo

K2 - Architecture

Standalone farm

For development / Tests / Small Business

- 23 -

K2 - Architecture

Medium farm

- 24 -

- 25 -

Different kinds of projects

With or Without SharePoint

With SharePoint 2010 or with SharePoint 2013

Using SmartForms or not

Old projects with InfoPath

InfoPath 2013 is the last version

No replacement from Microsoft (FOSL has been canceled)

“K2 for SharePoint 2010” can generate ASP.Net forms

Be cautious if you have to upgrade to SP 2013

Also projects with other Web technologies (BootStrap, Jquery,

AngularJS)

Serial has developed a Toolbox on top of K2

- 26 -

Why our customers choose K2 ?

Error repairing

In case of error, a SP Workflow should be restarted

SP Workflows can impact the performance of SP pages

loading

SP workflows are running in the same IIS process

Simple to migrate from SP 2010 to SP 2013

K2 workflows and forms are loosely coupled to SP

Integration with other systems is easier

No usage of BCS

SmartObjects can be re-used across workflows

- 27 -

Feedback from our experience on K2

Complexity of workflows should be limited

Use « Sub-workflows » launched by the main one

Take care of the formatting of the workflow

Users can see it with the « View flow » feature

Add labels on each transition between activities

Use different colors…

It will be easier to maintain the workflow

To not forget the rules that have been implemented

Think reusability

On SmartObjects, on SmartForms views

- 28 -

Feedback from our experience on K2

On SmartForms

Only load tab if the user clicks on it

Use asynchronous loading for drop down lists

Difficult to localize labels in forms…

K2 just introduced language packs in 4.6.9

Deployment with Package and Deployment

Not necessary to check all dependances

You can use PowerShell

- 29 -

K2 AppIt

K2 as a service

Only in the cloud

App in SharePoint Online

Less features than K2 for SharePoint 2013 with K2 On Premises

Not yet available in Europa (in a few weeks)

Access to Worklist

Work on your tasks

Select an action

Redirect

Delegate

Available for

iOS

Android

BlackBerry

Offline forms in K2 4.6.9

- 30 -

K2 AppIt

Questions