First look at Nintex Workflow for Project Server 2010

By blurg64

imageArguably one of the most exciting features in Project Server 2010 was demand management or project lifecycle management (PLM). What PLM provides is a set of tools within a Project Server 2010 instance to manage the whole project lifecycle, from the concept of project phases and stages, a mechanism to collect and display data as you move through the project and best of all, a workflow engine. Out of the box, the development of workflows for use in PLM can be quite arduous. Unlike the rest of SharePoint, workflows for PS2010 cannot be built with SharePoint Designer, instead organisations have two options:

  • Leverage the Dynamic Workflow Solution Starter, a Microsoft released tool that enables simple approval type linear workflows to be built from within a web page without any code; or
  • Get a .net developer to use Visual Studio 2010 to design, develop and test a bespoke workflow that meets all the organisational requirements.

However, there is a third option, enter Nintex Workflow for Project Server 2010 (NW4PS), an extension of the popular Nintex Workflow 2010 (NW2010) which brings a simplified drag and drop interface for building workflows and integration into the Project Server workflow components to users via the web browser.

So how does NW4PS stack up?

Installation

The installation of NW4PS is relatively painless and well documented. NW4PS requires two components to be installed, NW2010 which provides the base workflow functionality and NW4PS which provides the Project Server integration. Once installed and activated, two sections will be added to Central Administration where the various components of NW2010 and NW4PS can be configured.

Nintex Workflow - Central Admin

Additionally two new options will be added to the Site Actions menu to provide end user access into NW2010 and NW4PS features.

Nintex Workflow - Site Actions

Creating a Workflow

The true power of Nintex Workflow for Project Server is in the simplicity of creating workflows and this is evident in the workflow designer that uses a web based drag and drop interface to create workflows.

Nintex Workflow for Project Server - Design Surface

The left hand side of the screen provides a menu of actions that can be used within the workflow, each logically grouped and searchable. To use an action, simply drag and drop it onto the design surface.

Nintex Workflow for Project Server - Drag and Drop

Once on the design surface, each workflow action needs to be configured, allowing the user to set the various parameters using simple dialog boxes. As you can see in the diagram below, setting the project stage is as simple as selecting it from a combo box, instead of having to dig around for a stage GUID like you have to do with Visual Studio. In addition, if as you are building the workflow you realise you have forgotten a stage, a handy link is provided to enable you to create a new stage from within the tool.

Nintex Workflow - Set Project Stage

For the purpose of this post, I decided to develop a simple branching workflow that collected some information for a proposal, then performed a validation and either approved or rejected the proposal based on the a predefined value, the exact same branching workflow described in this MSDN article.

Nintex Workflow for Project Server - Branching Workflow

The whole process of creating the workflow by dragging and dropping the workflow actions on to the design surface, configuring each action and then saving the workflow took a little under five minutes to complete.

Deploying a workflow

imageWith Project Server workflows that are developed in Visual Studio, it is necessary to create a workflow solution package within VS2010 and then deploy the solution into Project Server. With Nintex, the process of deploying is as simple as clicking on the Publish button.

Once published, the workflow will be available in the EPT configuration screen to associate it with a specific Enterprise Project Type.

Nintex Workflow for Project Server - Site Workflow Association

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Running a workflow

Running a NW4PS workflow is exactly the same as you would expect for a traditional Project Server workflow, simply create a new project of the configured EPT and the workflow will kick off. As you would expect, the Project Detail Page (PDP) infrastructure of Project Server will kick in and the various pages will be displayed as configured for the current stage. Similarly, the normal PDP workflow overview page will continue to show the status of the workflow in a table, however Nintex also provides a handy visualisation for the workflow which makes it simple to see where a particular project is in the workflow process.

Nintex Workflow for Project Server - Workflow Status

Ok, so what else can you do?

The true benefit of NW4PS other than the reduced time to develop and ease of deployment is the sheer number of preconfigured workflow actions you can draw onto make the workflow as functional as possible. Such scenarios as:

  • Sending weekly reminders to Project Managers to complete their status reports whilst the project is in execution;
  • Creating tasks within the project by using a workflow controlled PSI call;
  • Alerting stakeholders that are not users of PS via an email of upcoming tasks / milestones;
  • Performing queries against the PS Reporting Database and use the data returned within the workflow; and
  • Link document approval workflows into PS workflows, ensuring that documents are approved before the PS workflow progresses are all possible, really taking Project Server Project Lifecycle Management capabilities to the next level.

Disclosure: I am an employee of OBS, a member of the Nintex group. However, this did not inform this post, I really do think it’s a great product Smile