A great new feature that comes with SharePoint 2010 is the ability to leverage Visio diagrams to show business data and/or workflow statuses. As you may have heard, you can create a SharePoint Workflow from within Visio 2010, and thereafter import that workflow into SharePoint designer. It's a pretty neat way to empower your business users to model their OWN process, and then hand them off to people who are more technical who can deploy them and do other dirty work.

Beyond this ease of use factor, there's another great advantage that comes with building workflows in Visio first. This other advantage is you can leverage that diagram to convey where in the process the workflow is currently executing. For example:

In SharePoint 2007, all you could do is "Log to history list":

Now this is a great way to log information, but the trouble is it takes a while to read and draw conclusions, as well as it is dependent on the individual building the workflow to actually log stuff – which one may forget or not know how to do. A cooler approach is to use a Visio 2010 diagram:

With this diagram, it is very intuitive to see both what the workflow is doing, as well as where in the process the workflow is currently executing. SWEEEEET!!!!

Continue reading to see how to import a Visio SharePoint Workflow into SharePoint Designer, and thereafter enable Visio Web Access on that workflow...

Leveraging Visio Web Access within SharePoint Workflows in 10 Easy Steps!

STEP 1) Build a Visio SharePoint Workflow. Build a visio workflow that maps to your business process. Mine is very simple: first logging to history list, then a condition, if "Yes", log something, and if "No", log something else. Then complete.

STEP 2) Click the "Check Diagram" ribbon button to validate that the workflow will properly import into SharePoint Designer:

STEP 3) Export the Visio diagram:

STEP 4) Import that Visio diagram into SharePoint Designer. Open your SharePoint site in Designer, click "Workflows", then click "Import from Visio":

Browse to the file you exported, specify a name for your workflow, and choose a deployment target (List, Reusable, etc)

STEP 5) Add specific logic into the imported workflow. Notice how my workflow created in Visio looks after being imported into SharePoint Designer:

I still have the 3 "Logs" activities, as well as the Condition activity. Now simply add the values you need:

STEP 6) Click Save, and re-open the workflow through the left navigation in SharePoint Designer.

Control "S"

Click "Workflows" on left navigation and double click the workflow you just created:

STEP 7) Check the "Show workflow visualization on status page" check box in the "Settings" box:

STEP 8) Publish the workflow and Verify the necessary features are active. Publish:

Under Site Actions, Site Settings, Manage Site Collection Features, verify the Visio Web Access feature is active:

Also necessary, verify the Visio Graphics Service is active in Central Administration:

STEP 9) Add the workflow to a list or library (List settings, Workflow Settings, Select the workflow, Next, Save)

STEP 10) Initiate a workflow instance, and view the status!

Notice you get a green arrow next to each activity that has completed:

Cheers!

Phil