Sunday, November 22, 2009

Lotus Notes to SharePoint Migration Estimation template

My earlier blog post regarding estimating Notes to SharePoint migration project was a very basic method, in fact is was Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) in real-sense. It didn't capture all the parameters required to successfully estimate a notes to sharepoint migration project.

This time after a lot of analysis, I have come up with a new Estimation template. This template effectively captures all the key parameters required to estimate both Data migration and Application migration effectively and leaves little scope of missing out on critical things.

I have come up with the Application Quadrant approach where we analyze Lotus Notes applications based on the 4 Application quadrants. See the diagram below:


I hope it will benefit all.
Click here to download the Notes to SharePoint Migration estimation template

I frequently blog at www.sharepointinsights.com You can also follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Mehul_Bhuva

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Nintex My Workflow Tasks webpart for InfoPath forms

There is a problem with the OOTB Nintex My Workflow Tasks webpart. In the case of InfoPath forms, the Item column of the webpart, takes me to the Workflow Tasks List where I can directly edit my tasks as Approve or Reject bypassing my custom InfoPath Task form. This can be a problem, if my InfoPath task form has some other fields, that I want users to fill or if my custom form determines my next level of workflow.

In this case, I want my workflow application users to use my custom InfoPath form as their Task form and not want users to edit tasks directly.

Solution:
I created a custom page in the /_layouts directory based on Nintex provided ApproveReject.aspx, lets name it InfoPathApproveReject.aspx and removed the Task update actions like Approve/Reject radio buttons and Comments, here I only have a read only view of the Task item.
For the webpart to redirect users from My Workflow Tasks Webpart to my custom InfoPathApproveReject.aspx page, I used the following NWAdmin command:

Command Syntax:
NWAdmin.exe -o SetTaskForm -siteUrl teamsiteurl -contentType contenttypename -taskformUrl taskformurl [-formType Edit|View|All] [-updatechildren Yes|No]

Actual Usage:
a. Download the custom InfoPathApproveReject.aspx form from here or the link given below.

b.Paste this form under the following folder: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\NINTEXWORKFLOW

c. Then run the following NWAdmin command:
NWAdmin.exe -o SetTaskForm -siteUrl "http://nintex/sites/myteamsite" -contentType "Nintex Workflow Task" -taskformUrl "/sites/myteamsite/_layouts/InfoPathApproveReject.aspx" -formType View

So now when users click on the My Workflow Tasks Item column, my custom Task form opens up in the read only mode, now they can't update the task form directly without by-passing the InfoPath Task form.

This solves my problem, but What if my Site Collection contains a Nintex workflow bound to a standard SharePoint List form and another Nintex workflow bound to a Document Library/List with InfoPath form as
Content type.

What happens in this case?
Since, I have customized my Task Form URL to InfoPathApproveReject.aspx, it would redirect my standard SharePoint List workflow users to my custom page and does not allow them to use the OOTB ApproveReject.aspx task form. The above mentioned solution created another problem, we need a more generic solution, check the workaround for this problem in my new post.

Download: Click here to download the custom InfoPathApproveReject.aspx task form.

Feel free to share your comments and ask me in case of any doubts.

I frequently blog at www.sharepointinsights.com You can also follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Mehul_Bhuva