EndUserSharePoint.com: Content Types and Workflow
For the past month I’ve been spending a lot of time working with Content Types, trying to get the final installment done for the SharePoint 101 Tricks and Traps ebook. I was working on something this morning that might turn out to be useful for a basic End User just starting to get their hands dirty with Content Types.
In addition to carrying around metadata structure, a Content Type can also carry a default workflow with it. This means that when the Content Type is used, a workflow can be attached to it and applied to any documents using that Content Type.
As an example, let’s say I’m working on a project that is spread over multiple sites in a single Site Collection. Within that Site Collection that are multiple sites that have libraries needing to use the Activities Data content type that was customized for that Site Collection. The same Approval workflow process is used for each of those libraries. By attaching the workflow to the Content Type, every library has a consistent metadata structure as well as a default workflow.
Pretty simple… pretty useful… very cool.
But how can i limit a workflow to only a partivular content type?
I have one docuemnt library with 5 content types. There are 5 different workflows defined for each of these content types. All these workflows are built-in workflows of MOSS (approval & collect feedback).
What i need simply is when a user clicks the workflow button of a docuemnt it should show only the relevant workflow item out of the 5 items.
When you setup a basic approval workflow on a site content type, the Update the Approval Status option is grayed out. Can you explain why that is and a workaround if any? We are using the content type workflow to direct approval from a specific group for a content type regardless of where the content type is used and I dont understand why that functionality is disabled.
Thanks.
E.