1,804 articles and 14,753 comments as of Sunday, April 3rd, 2011

EndUserSharePoint has combined resources with NothingButSharePoint.com. You can now find End User (Mark Miller), Developer (Jeremy Thake) and IT Pro SharePoint (Joel Oleson) content all in one place!

This site is a historical archive and is no longer being updated. Please update your favorites, bookmarks and RSS feeds.

NothingButSharePoint.com
Friday, September 25, 2009

Document Tracking System in SharePoint: First Discussions

Conference Call for Document Tracking SystemI’m working on a project to develop a document tracking system for a client. After the initial interviews for discovery, I started sketching out a few ideas. When I had a mental image of what needed to be done, I called Pat Iovanella and Paul Galvin of SharePoint Shop Talk to ask for some input.

What you hear in the recording below is our phone conversation to talk about the functionality and process flow for the first beta of the system. This is raw, off the cuff thought processing, especially from Paul since it is the first time he has heard about the project.

I am posting this because I hope it will help you when you are discussing and investigating the possible solutions for working on a sticky problem.

We would appreciate your feedback on the conversation, not just from an observer standpoint, but if you have other ideas on how we might solve this problem. SharePoint Designer is available, but not Visual Studio. It is a MOSS Enterprise platform.

I hope you find the conversation interesting and stimulating. I look forward to your feedback.
Mark

 

Please Join the Discussion

6 Responses to “Document Tracking System in SharePoint: First Discussions”
  1. IMHO I would advise against InfoPath. It might look cool and everything but for your scenario it could get very very problematic (I had a project like this and InfoPath was the greatest obstacle for us).

    However your initial approach is right. Have one form (just not Infpath) for staring and uploading the package. Then store these data and documents to a document library(es) and start workflows. Instead of InfoPath I would use custom form (I know custom it is not allowed but maybe you could influence your customer and change that?)

  2. I would have an “extract” workflow (developed in Visual Studio) placed on a document library that when triggered by a package (.zip, .rar, etc.) upload, extracts the artifacts to an extracted document library with a field that maintains the source package (This could be source package name itself to have a self describing reference). Views can be placed in the extracted document library allowing users to view artifacts of a particular package, or type (across multiple packages). You could then place normal approval workflow, and monitoring bits in place to complete the business automation process.

  3. Wael says:

    I have a similar project for building a document tracking system on SharePoint , but there is no workflow for approvals. I just want to track the document.

    document came from distination-1 and sent to distination 2,3, and 4. distination 2 modified it and sent it to distination 6. distination 3 sent it to distination 1, distination-6 sent it to … and so on

    I almost need to develope somthing like Organice:

    http://www.organice.com/software/document-distribution-and-tracking-in-sharepoint.asp

    How can I store this information on SharePoint? it is a relational data!!! and how you will do that in your system?

    Thanks in advance.

  4. shiva says:

    HI,
    I ve created a Project (Document) Approval Multilevel Workflow. In the end, if the document uploaded has been approved by everyone concerned, I need to create a new Website for the Project, which is essentially a Team Site, with a Document Library and Task and History List. I also need to create a Project Tracking system for the Project. Now I dont really have a clear picture of what a Project Tracking system actually does. I mean, if i could get all the details on how it functions, maybe I ll know how to create it. Kindly help on this account.

    Thank you,

    Best regards,

    Shiva

    • John Guilbert says:

      If anyone comes up with a good solution then please let me know. The suggestion Toni makes on Infopath not being suitable is possibly very valid. You could just link documents using a a key and display in a custom DataView by joining – I know – you do lose a lot of functionality – but it’s an option. Searching is just a case of adding search properties in Enterprise Server Search or better still Roxority’s FilterZen (speak to Kent) really useful web part.

      Thanks.

      John.

  5. Martin Green says:

    Good Afternoon,

    Was wondering if this project ever went anywhere and what the outcome was. My own thoughts..
    I like using Infopath for gathering data, with web services and code behind, there are quite a bit of things you can do.

    In this case, I am thinking – Collect data – including documents, workflow participants, identifying (ie customer data) information – post to a form library. Paul (and Ed Hild) both have good ideas on site provisioning workflows – so If we can promote some of the data from the form, we can create a document workspace (with some built in workflows?) from a custom template.

    Additional SPD workflow (http://www.deviantpoint.com/post/2009/06/06/Custom-SharePoint-Designer-workflow-for-extracting-InfoPath-attachment-fields.aspx) could extract the attachments to the Document Library.

    Approval Tasks could be generated on each document for each named person in the Infopath form – but do not automatically email tasks. Have a separate workflow email each person- one time with a Doc Library link and instructions to review and approve documents. You would then need another Workflow to know when all approvals are 100%. This is where you may run into limitations in SPD.


Notify me of comments to this article:


Speak and you will be heard.

We check comments hourly.
If you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!