New Product Development Form & Processes

we are going to look at the processes a client needed streamlined. This process however is a bit more complicated than the previous two case studies we've done so far as not only does it involve SharePoint and InfoPath but SharePoint Designer too. As always, I will explain th...

In today's case study, we are going to look at the processes a client needed streamlined. This process however is a bit more complicated than the previous two case studies we've done so far as not only does it involve SharePoint and InfoPath but SharePoint Designer too. As always, I will explain the process they were using before SharePoint just so you can get the idea of what needed to be done to simplify the process.

Pre-SharePoint: New Product Development & Processes

The client was using a paper based form (such as the last two case studies) that had to go through to their Technical Department for approval. Once approved, the Quality Manager would then need to print the form and keep a copy in a file. I don't think I need to explain again as to what the cons are about using paper anymore. To the left is a screenshot of the form they use to use:

Pro-SharePoint: New Product Development & Processes

Now here's where it got interesting. The client wanted to be able pull information from that form (only once it had been approved), and create a document folder that had prepopulated templates (word, Excel etc.) documents in. That folder would need a unique identifier too so this is what we decided on. I had just learnt how to create a Document Set, which allows the user to add his/her own templates (Word, Excel etc.) to any newly created folder. This took a bit of thought on my behalf as I needed to make sure this could be done once the Product Development Request Form had been approved. Once I was convinced that it would work I went ahead and created the document set and added all the relevant templates. Next was to recreate the old form into an InfoPath form which can be seen on the left:

Now once the form had been created, once submitted it would notify the Quality Manager via email of a pending approval. Once he approved it, it would notify the user that submitted the form, that the form had been approved. Next was to create a workflow using SharePoint Designer (SPD) to automatically create a New Document Folder in the Document Set I had created earlier. Once done, we tested the form, once approved we needed it to create a new document set with the appropriate templates already inside and low and behold we had done it as seen in the screenshot to the left.

Overall, we used a range of products from SharePoint to InfoPath to SharePoint Designer in order to achieve what our client required. It really was a wonderful experience from a developers point of view, showing how each application worked hand in hand with each other.