Various factors must be considered to enable
workflows within SharePoint, as you know. In the following sections, you
learn how to employ specific configuration settings to control your
SharePoint 2010 environment for workflow deployment.
1. Web Application Configurations
At the Web application level, you can control two important settings: one that enables user-defined workflows and one that provides task notifications for unauthorized users.
1.1. Enabling or Disabling User-Defined Workflows
You can specify whether you
want users to be able to deploy declarative workflows, such as those
that are created by using Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010, on sites
in a particular Web application. The default setting enables deployment
of declarative workflows. When this setting is enabled, users who have
been granted Design permission level on the site at minimum can create
and deploy workflows using the Workflow Editor in Microsoft SharePoint
Designer 2010. To adjust this setting, perform the following steps.
Open a browser and go to the SharePoint Central Administration website.
Under Application Management, click Manage Web Applications.
On the Web Applications Management page, click the Web application that you want to configure.
In
the Manage group of the Web Applications tab of the Ribbon, click
General Settings and then select Workflow from the list that appears.
In the Workflow Settings dialog box (Figure 1), in the User-Defined Workflows section, perform one of the following steps.
To enable declarative workflows for sites in this Web application, click Yes. This is the default option.
To disable declarative workflows for this Web application, click No.
Click OK to close the Workflow Settings dialog box.
1.2. Configuring Task Notification for Unauthorized Users
You can allow either or both of the following kinds of unauthorized users to participate in workflows:
internal users who do not have access to the site and external users
who do not have access to internal network resources. For internal
users, an e-mail message that explains how to request access to the site
(subject to administrator approval) is sent to users. For external
users, an e-mail message that includes an attached document or list item
for the participant to review or sign is sent to users.
Note:
When you enable access to
the external users to receive the documents, the workflow might expose
sensitive information to the external users.
To configure this setting, perform the following steps.
Open a browser and go to the SharePoint Central Administration website.
Under Application Management, click Manage Web Applications.
In the Name column on the Web Applications Management page, click the Web application that you want to configure.
On
the Manage group of the Web Applications tab of the Ribbon, click
General Settings and then select Workflow in the list that appears.
In the Workflow Task Notifications section of the Workflow Settings dialog box (refer back to Figure 23-9), perform the following steps.
In
the Alert Internal Users Who Do Not Have Site Access When They Are
Assigned A Workflow Task option, select one of the following options.
Yes—Use
this option to send to send an e-mail message to internal users who do
not have access to the site. This is the default option.
No—Use this option if you do not want to send an e-mail message to internal users who do not have access to the site.
In
the Allow External Users To Participate In Workflow By Sending Them A
Copy Of The Document option, select one of the following options.
Yes—Use this option to allow external users to participate in a workflow by sending them a copy of the document.
No—Use
this option if you do not want to send a copy of the document to
external users to participate in workflow. This is the default option.
Click OK to close the Workflow Settings dialog box.
2. Preserving Workflow History
A workflow is made up of a
sequence of events such as workflow initiation, task creation, and task
completion. When you add a workflow, you specify a task and history list
that workflow instances of that workflow association will use to track
the events for the workflow. The workflow history contains key
information about each event including date, status, participant, and
description.
SharePoint 2010 runs a
daily Workflow Auto Cleanup job to remove workflow instances and related
task entries 60 days after a workflow is completed or canceled. You can
disable the Workflow Auto Cleanup job if you want to keep workflow data
available longer. However, as with any SharePoint list, site
performance may be affected as your workflow history and task lists grow
in size. If you are concerned about the size of these lists, you can
enable the Workflow Auto Cleanup job. As an alternative, you can create a
separate history and task list for each workflow association.
To adjust the Workflow Auto Cleanup job and its settings, perform the following steps.
Open a browser and go to the SharePoint Central Administration website.
On the Quick Launch, click Monitoring.
In the Timer Jobs section of the Monitoring page, click Review Job Definitions.
In
the Title column of the Job Definitions page, click the Workflow Auto
Cleanup link that is associated with the Web application for which you
want to disable automatic workflow cleanup.
On the Edit Timer Job page, perform one of the following steps.
