designer

290 Chapter 9 Using Reusable Workflows and Workflow Forms
page in SharePoint Designer an ideal starting point for custom workflows, which might
or might not evolve into Visual Studio workflows.
In this chapter, you will learn how to create reusable workflows; how to reuse out-ofthe-box
workflows; and how to create and modify initiation, association, and task forms.
You’ll also learn how workflows created by SharePoint Designer can be used in various
integration and deployment scenarios. When you finish reading this chapter, you’ll be
ready to create sophisticated workflows without writing a single line of code.
Practice Files Before you can use the practice file in this chapter, you need to copy
the book’s practice files to your computer. The practice file you’ll use to complete
the exercises in this chapter is in the Chapter09 practice file folder. A complete list of
practice files is provided in “Using the Practice Files” at the beginning of this book.
Creating and Using Reusable Workflows
The biggest problem with the previous version of SharePoint Designer was that you
could only create workflows that were attached to a specific list or library. SharePoint
Designer 2010 allows you to create reusable workflows. You can attach a reusable workflow
to a specific content type, which makes the workflow available to any list or library
associated with that content type.
On the Workflow Settings page, you can specify whether you want the reusable workflow
to use workflow visualization, and in the Start Options area, you can specify which
start options cannot be used when the reusable workflow is associated with a list or
library.
In this exercise, you create a reusable workflow and then use the browser to associate it
with a list.
SET UP Using SharePoint Designer, open the team site you created and modified in
earlier chapters. If you did not yet create a team site, follow the steps in Chapter 1.
Reusable
Workflows
1. In the Navigation pane, click Workflows, and then on the Workflow tab, click
Reusable Workflow in the New group.
The Create Reusable Workflow dialog box opens.
2. In the Name box, type SPD SBS Job Application, and in the Description box,
type Use this SPD reusable workflow to create a workflow that will log job
application information to the History Log.