Note: You are supposed to have SharePoint Designer 2013 (free of charge). Visio (licensed) is a nice to have tool when your workflow is complicated.
B - PROBLEMS :
Several scenarios will be described in section C but the default workflow functionality is quite limited in terms of utilities for large-scale & complicated workflows.
Considerations in workflow design:
1. For workflow at list or library items, try to finish the workflow whenever it is possible ; i.e. not keep the workflow in the standby mode because it will consume resources immensively.
2. For site workflow, try to run it once a day
3. At the end of each stage, the section "Transition to stage" only allow you to go to two other stages including "End of Workflow" stage (i.e. an IF clause with only 2 branches).
4. Workflow Task List & History List should be newly created for each workflow because of the default limitation of 5,000 items per list.
5. Permission to run workflow: if you try sending emails to some SharePoint groups in the workflow but you do not have permission to view the Group, the workflow will be suspended.
If you are keen to build a more complicated process at Office 365, a third-party product called Nintex for Office 365 can be considered with a separate cost http://www.nintex.com/workflow-platform/nintex-workflow/workflow-for-office-365
C - SOLUTION:
Scenario 1: to build a review & approval process
Step 1: admin group will be notified whenever there is a new document added into the library.
Step 2: after assessed (i.e. Status is not Submitted anymore), check if the document is rejected
Step 3: if the admin approves the documents for being reviewed
Step 4: to set the all reviewers to local variables
Step 5: to email to all reviewers when there is a review added to the document
Step 6: when all reviews are added (which is 3 in this case), the admin will be notified
Scenario 2: to build a daily reminder process
At line 2 of the scenario 2, mouse over the whole action, click Properties. In the RequestHeaders box, choose the variable dictionary
D - SOURCE CODE:
To provide source code
Topic Coverage in this blog:
1. SharePoint
2. Enterprise Content Management
3. Database
Recommendation Foci:
1. Best Practices
2. Safeguarding Measures against future error re-occurrennces.
