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Is there a way of maintaining a log history of all activities performed by a K2 Blackpoint workflow?


I looked at the workflow history in Sharepoint, but it does not seems to have all activities included when the K2 is integrated with Sharepoint. an example: I have a workflow registering a leave request in a Sharepoint List. Next activity is an email notification to Originator that the request has been registered. After this, is the approval process.


The start of the workflow and the approval activity is registered in Workflow History, but the email notification is not. 


Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.


Thanks

Here's what I did:

1. Add a ListItemEvent

2. Action = "Create List Items"

3. List Name = Manually type in "Workflow History" (if that's the name of your history list)

4. List Item Metadata:

  • Event type = 11 (see http://www.imaginets.com/cs/blogs/juanl/archive/2008/07/14/decoding-workflow-event-types-in-workflow-history.aspx for a list of choices)
  • Workflow History Parent Instance =  Add the SPIntegrationData_WorkflowId field and surround it with { }.
  • Workflow Association ID = Manually type this in, surrounded by { }. To get this ID, go to the workflow history list (usually http://domain/pages/workflow history) and change the view to show this field. Find any item that is from the same List/Library and Workflow that you are using, and use that Workflow Association ID.
  • Workflow Template ID = Do the same thing as Workflow Association ID
  • List ID = Add the SPIntegrationData_ListId field and surround it with { }.
  • Primary Item ID = SPIntegrationData_ItemId
  • User ID = Whatever you want. I used DOMAINadmin
  • Date Occurred = Today's date
  • Description = type the message you want to appear on the workflow status form

 

Voilà.

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Also, for the record, this brings up the bigger issue of the purpose and
function of the Workflow Status page (WrkStat.aspx). It seems to me that Source
Code (the K2 folks) either ignored this page or didn't quite know how to handle
it, and they want us to use the K2 Worklist and the Process Portal instead. I
say this for a couple reasons. First, logging to the workflow history would have
been a lot easier than what I mentioned on my previous post. Second, the
Workflow Status page doesn't properly deal with redirecting tasks, because it
keeps the "assigned to" name of the original destination instead of
the destination that it has been redirected to. (Why, when a task is
redirected, doesn't Blackpoint just close the original task with a comment like
"redirected" and generate a new task? That would help when you
manually redirect or when you use Out of Office, as well as the more general
fact that you cannot use the SharePoint Task List at all, because who knows if
it's really assigned to the user it says it is or if it was reassigned by K2?!)



Blackpoint gives us sooo much more functionality and flexibility than OOTB.
But while I can sort of tolerate a more complicated job designing the
workflows, the goal of creating a user experience is to make it as simple and
easy as is humanly possible. We have all experienced the user who has a nervous
breakdown because some "enhancement" we made now causes them to have
to perform one more click in their process. I don't want my users to have to go
to the Process Portal or even really the dropdowns on the K2 Worklist. They
should be able to see everything they need by making the ONE CLICK on the
Workflow Status column in the list/library. One of the reasons the Worklist is
insufficient is because you can only see data on what's currently assigned to
you. I've mentioned this to people at Source Code before and they seem to say
it's "by design" (my second favorite phrase, right after "oh,
that's a feature") for security. But I don't get that, because that would
mean that they want K2 to have much tighter security than SP. My users (and I,
for that matter) constantly want to see the workflow data (like comments)
on workflow instances that have already been completed and, frankly, it's a
pain in the neck to get to the data through the PP.



Sorry for the rant, but all this soapboxing is meant as constructive
criticism. Going from SharePoint OOTB workflows to Blackpoint was like going
from a 2-person row boat to a huge yacht. Just make sure all the bells and
whistles don't make the ride bumpier. Thanks for listening!

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