Overview

The CorasWorks Action Framework and our approach to Workstreams have been designed for seamless integration with the new Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) of SharePoint 2007. The WWF is a workflow engine that is part of Windows SharePoint Services v3, so it is available to all users on the next platform.

CorasWorks has designed its Action Framework and its Workstream approach to leverage WWF to provide an incredibly simple to use, yet very powerful and sophisticated system for business processes. There are no additional technologies necessary to integrate CorasWorks with WWF. Just install CorasWorks for SharePoint 2007 onto SharePoint 2007 - and light it up.

How CorasWorks and WWF Work together

CorasWorks' approach to the design is that users will work in a CorasWorks Workplace using the interface to do their work. Users will use actions to automate their tasks and drive information from place to place in the workplace. Using actions they can act on multiple items of information in one step that are coming from multiple locations throughout the workplace.  Behind the scenes as users take certain actions, structured workflows using WWF will be kicked off to automate the back end.

Accordingly, the way it works is:

• CorasWorks Actions automate the user experience
• WWF automates backend processes

Demonstration

	Expense Report Review		View Demo
	See a demonstration that highlights a workstream-based Expense Report Review scenario which integrates the CorasWorks actions framework with the Windows Workflow Foundation.

Scenario: New Lead Processes

In the Actions Showroom and the Actions Demonstration, we cover a business scenario where a new lead is entered and then run through a sales process.  This entire scenario is driven by CorasWorks Actions.  The main steps, all performed using CorasWorks actions, are:

• A marketing representative enters a new lead.
• A sales manager assigns the lead to a sales representative.
• The salesperson contacts the prospect and then moves the lead into their pipeline.

In the above process, there are three separate actions with a form-based user interface. The lead is going into a list (call it the lead list). Then, when it is added to the pipeline, some of the information is copied from the lead list, and the salesperson adds some more information. The resulting entry goes into a second list (call it the pipeline list). This process is a good example of how information "moves" and gets transformed in the inter-connected workplace.

Now, let's introduce WWF. WWF allows you to pre-set structured events on the back end. Thus, imagine that when a new lead is entered, you want it to alert the appropriate salesperson based upon the state of the prospect. 

• You would thus create a WWF event on the lead list. 
• When the CorasWorks actions is run to enter the new lead, this event is triggered and an email is automatically sent to the salesperson.

Similarly, when the salesperson decides to "move" the lead into the prospect list, you could have a WWF event on that list that will alert the Sales Manager if the quoted amount is greater than $100,000. 

• Thus, when the Salesperson performs their action to move and enter the lead, a WWF workflow notification is triggered on the back end. 
• For larger sales, you could have a structured multi-step approval process. This would be configured in WWF and would run in the background.