I’ve spent some time over the past few days diving deep into the new Project Server 2010 Workflows which replace the Portfolio Server workflow from 2007, and so I thought that a post on my experiences was definitely in order.
First the not so good news:
- Workflow in Project Server 2010 is driven by SharePoint Workflow, and it replaces the Portfolio Server workflow entirely. This second point makes it one of the features that everyone will want!
- All workflow for Project Server 2010 must be created in Visual Studio, also AFAIK VS2010 will be the only fully supported version, although it does apparently work with VS2008. (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee767686(office.14).aspx)
- Excluding some 3rd Party tool, there unfortunately is no easy way about creating even a simple workflow! This could be seen as a step backwards as in Portfolio Server very complex workflow could be created using the web interface.
- At present the included “Sample Proposal Workflow” does not and will not have source code released, I have spoken in the beta forums with some from MS who have “taken the idea under advisement“..
The better news:
- Project Detail Pages (the pages containing all project information, etc) are fully customisable without VS or Designer. Meaning the capture of custom fields for new projects is very slick.
- If the Sample Proposal Workflow fits (three levels of approval plus portfolio selection) then it can be fully customised to include all of your required custom fields, detail pages, and other information. However you just can’t change the workflow order without the code.
I can see this as being a really great feature for 2010, however the steep learning curve will be a problem for certain! Unfortunately this is a bit of a step backwards, as in Portfolio Server 2007 you could create quire complex workflow within the UI.