How to customize Visio Services Workflow Visualization
I have been doing some work with the new workflow features in SharePoint Designer 2010 for a proof of concept for a customer.
I really like what I see, particularly the new task process, but we will talk about that in a latter post.
One thing that is new is the ability to visualize a workflow through Visio Services when creating a SPD 2010 workflow. To do this you simply need to create your workflow and then click on the ‘Show workflow visualization on status page’ in the settings for the workflow.
Now if you look at the running workflow within SharePoint 2010 we get a nice visual representation of the workflow. Nice in that we have a visualization available but really it won’t mean much to end users.
How ever we can customize the how the workflow appears and the labels to make more sense to users by clicking on the ‘Open in Visio’ button and doing some Visio magic. Keep in mind you can change the colors, shapes and labels but you cant actually change the workflow.
Click on Save and then see you your workflow in all its nicely formatted glory! Any future workflows will also have this Visio formatting as well which is great.
This really does open up a range of possibilities from having great branding, different visualizations for different workflows and a great user experience.
Swish!
Category: How To
great post ! though i open in visio in editing mode when i try to save it i get a message that the diagram is read-only and i had to choose “Save As” which does not save the updates to the server ! have you come across this before ?
Great idea – however I also get an error when trying to save the changes – indicating the original file is “read only” and forcing the choice of a new file.
Any ideas?
I have a problem with the Workflow Visualization. My workflow is quite large and complex so I have groups of activities segregated so that it is easier to understand exactly where you are at any given point in the workflow. When I export from Visio to SPD and back again, all appears as it was when I designed it in Visio. However, when I look at the Workflow Visualization, my organized diagram is blown to hell. How can I make the Workflow Visualization look like my organized diagram instead of this autoarranged mess?