Resources:
SharePoint's OOB Workflows do not meet my organisation's needs at all. Building custom workflows is possible (using SharePoint Designer or Visual Studio) but you'll probably get frustrated along the way (Debugging is painful!).
Limitations of SP Workflow:
- Workflows are document-centric. You can only attach one document to a workflow. Attaching a workflow to a folder could be more useful if you are looking at a bunch of references + main document.
- One document can only be bound to one workflow.
- Reporting is clearly inadequate.
- No centralised view of all tasks in environment. You can only see your tasks for that particular site. Not very useful.
- Non-scalable. When SharePoint goes, your workflows go with it.
- Requires you to manually grant read/edit permissions for "visitors", e.g. you would like to collect feedback from users outside your department concerning a particular document but they have no prior permissions.
- On the other hand, you also cannot restrict the document access to workflow participants only.
SharePoint workflows are useful when you have simple workflows and the requirements for reporting and auditing are minimal. If your requirements start to exceed this, you may want to consider third-party workflow tools or hire a contract workflow developer.
Coming soon: Review of some of the workflow tools in the market.
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