Approval and Routing of Documents via Outlook Voting:
SharePoint workflows are being recommended for the Business process and under the assumption that such a recommendation will not be timely in its implementation, a contingency method for routing and approval of documents has been developed. This method involves the use of Outlook as a means to transport the document with the addition of “voting buttons” to indicate the approval of different parties involved in the transaction.
Pros:
- Easy to configure and retrieve the results
- Request a delivery receipt for the message
- Request a Read receipt for the message
- Set an expiration date for the message
Cons:
- Outlook voting involves manual process for each and every document approval configuration
- The voting results are only available in Outlook of a specific user
- User has to verify the results manually and take a decision to Approve or Reject the document
- Not possible to set remainder or due date for response.
SharePoint Approval Workflow:
A SharePoint workflow is the automated movement of documents or items through a sequence of actions or tasks that are related to a business process. I would define a workflow as a business process, a chain of steps that need to be performed in order to accomplish a goal. Out of the box SharePoint has the below mentioned workflow availability.
MOSS 2007 Workflow Availability:
- Approval (Serial\Parallel)
- Collect Feedback
- Collect Signatures (Serial\Parallel)
- Disposition Approval
Approval Workflow:
The Approval workflow routes a document or item that is saved to a list or library to a group of people for approval. By default, the Serial Approval workflow is associated with Document Content Types.
Pros:
- Possible to configure the workflow to a Content Types, Lists or Document Libraries
- Reuse the same workflow configuration for all documents or list items
- Start an Approval workflow directly from a document or item in a list or library
- Have an option to Stat an Approval workflow when a new item is created or changed in the list or document library
- The server assigns tasks to all individual participants or a group.
- Easy to track the task status and available on the server
- The server sends e-mail alerts to all participants and remainders after the due date
- Participants can click a link in the e-mail task alert to open the document or item to be approved
- Participants can choose to approve, reject, or reassign their approval tasks
- While the workflow is in progress, the workflow owner or the workflow participants can view the Workflow Status page to see which participants have completed their workflow tasks
- When the workflow participants complete their workflow tasks, the workflow ends, and the workflow owner is automatically notified that the workflow is complete
Cons:
- Not possible to request a delivery receipt for the message
- Not possible to request a Read receipt for the message
2 comments:
Hello,
Nice article. Can you tell me how to use Outlook voting buttons to approve tasks in SharePoint tasks List?
Hi,
You cannot use Outlook voting buttons to approve tasks. However, you have two options to approve the tasks from Outlook.
1. Connect your task list to Outlook. You can find this option on your Task list -> Actions -> Connect to Outlook.
Once the Task list got connected to your Outlook, you can see different options on the ribbon like New Task, Mark as Complete and Remove from list etc. You can create new tasks, delete and approve the tasks from Outlook.
To approve the task, open the task item in the Outlook, In the Item ribbon, you can find a button called "Open this Task" to approve the workflow task or any other tasks.
2. You can see "Open this Task" in the workflow approval email ribbon itself. You do not need to connect to outlook to approve the task. Click on "Open this Task" and approve the task from email itself.
Hope this helps..
Thanks,
Veera Reddy
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