How To K2 : How To K2

Advanced Task Allocation

k2eric — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 23:02:00 GMT

K2 blackpearl has two main out of the box SmartObjects for doing advanced task allocation. One for working with K2 Roles and the other is for working with Active Directory. Here are the methods for each object.

Role Methods
- Get Least Work – gets the user in a role with the least number of task items
- Get Most Work – gets the user in a role with the most number of task items
- Get Round Robin – gets the next user in a round robin role
- Get Fastest User – gets the user in a role with the smallest average task duration
- Get Slowest User – gets the user in a role with the largest average task duration
- Get Role Peers – gets the users in a role with one defined user excluded
Active Directory Methods
- Get Manager – gets the manager of the supplied user from Active Directory
- Get Direct Reports – gets the direct report users for a supplied user from Active Directory

As you can see these methods provide some interesting possibilities for dynamically assigning tasks as part of a K2 process. The “Least Work” and “Round Robin” methods are great for balancing load across a particular role of users. The “Get Direct Reports” method is handy for things like performance review processes.

To see these methods in action check out the video below.

Building a K2 Process with InfoPath and SmartObjects

k2eric — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 23:04:00 GMT

InfoPath is a powerful forms technology that allows users to build rich forms without having to write code. In the videos below I show you how you can use an InfoPath form as the user interface for both initiating a K2 process and delivering tasks within that process. I also show you how you can externalize your form data into a SQL database, without writing any code, using K2 SmartObjects. Externalizing data is important when capturing business data that needs to be securely stored and easily reported on. A K2 InfoPath process does not require that you externalize your data. A standard InfoPath form using data stored in the main data source is also supported along with a combination of the two where some data is in the form and some data is external. It is also important to note that you can have multiple InfoPath forms associated to a single K2 process. You can even have tasks within an InfoPath integrated K2 process that use other form technologies like for example ASP.net.

In the first video I take you through building the InfoPath form and the basic K2 process.

How to K2: Building a K2 Process with InfoPath and SmartObjects Part 1

In the second video I show you how to extend the process to save a read-only copy of the InfoPath form into SharePoint. I also deploy the process and show you the end user experience of final solution.

How to K2: Building a K2 Process with InfoPath and SmartObjects Part 2

The third video shows an alternate approach to designing an InfoPath process using the K2 designer for SharePoint which is hosted with in the browser.

Using the Workflow Client Services

k2eric — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 18:58:00 GMT

The K2 Workflow Client Services provide platform free access to Process and Worklist objects for use in building powerful integrated process driven applications. Previously if you wanted to build a process initiation page, a task page, a custom worklist, or any other application that integrated with a K2 process at runtime it required a direct reference to the workflow.client API. This approach can work well with .net based applications but in today’s world of Service Oriented Architecture there is a need to be able to provide a set of standardized services for consuming and interacting with K2 processes. The Workflow Client Services have recently been introduced to address this need.

There are 3 main service endpoints that are provided in the Workflow Client Services:

WS.asmx – Standard Web Service endpoint
WCF.svc – Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) endpoint
REST.svc – Representational State Transfer (REST) endpoint. Supports XML, ATOM, and JSON data formats

Each of these endpoints provides worklist and process instance interactivity similar to the worklist.client API. They also support SSL for secure communication.

There is a lot of good information in the help files on how to use these services but I have put together a bit of example code for the REST and WCF endpoints and attached it to this post as well as providing a brief overview video (below)

The REST example uses javascript, Jquery and the REST service to provide a completely client side html K2 worklist.

The WCF example provides very basic workflow initiation and task pages using ASP.net.

Check out the video below for an overview of the example code.

How to K2: Workflow Client Services

Video 7 registering your new service

chrisg — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 02:28:00 GMT

Video 7 is now availiable.

Video 7 will be covering registering your new Service Type through the use of the Broker Management console as well as registering the first Service Instance through the use of the K2 workspace.

As always the video has been published in a variety of format. I hope you find it usefull.

As always if you have any suggestions, feedback, or questions please let us know.

Till next time happy downloading.

http://k2underground.com/files/folders/howtok2/default.aspx

Video 6 is live

chrisg — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:21:00 GMT

Video 6 on the basics of building a service is now live.

It is difficult to really get into some of the depths in a video so as some additional learning aides check out the Dynamic SQL service on blackmarket located here

http://k2underground.com/k2/ProjectHome.aspx?ProjectID=20

Also check out the attached document for some additional information.

Another possible help in learning may be

http://k2underground.com/k2/ProjectHome.aspx?ProjectID=17

Once again the video is posted in the how to k2 file area in multiple formats. Check it out now.

http://k2underground.com/files/folders/howtok2/default.aspx

Interfacing with SmartObjects

chrisg — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 03:56:00 GMT

The 5th video in our series on SmartObjects is now availiable. This video will be covering using the SmartObject API as connecting to SmartObjects as well as with ADO.Net

Once again it is availiable in a variety of formats.

http://k2underground.com/files/folders/howtok2/default.aspx

Integrating SmartObjects with InfoPath

chrisg — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 16:31:00 GMT

Video 3 is here and now in 2 formats per the feedback I have gotten.

You can get the WMV version here

http://k2underground.com/files/folders/howtok2/entry19780.aspx

or if you want to download and play on your video IPOD download that here

http://k2underground.com/files/folders/howtok2/entry19781.aspx

Just in case you have issues with playing the WMV file try downloading the Techsmith Camtasia Codec here

http://www.techsmith.com/download/codecs.asp

**Note if you are running vista you may need to right click on the installer and run as admin.

We have gotten some feedback that the WMV file is having issues playing on some machines. If you are experiencing this please download the packaged version of the video located here

http://k2underground.com/files/folders/howtok2/entry19801.aspx

As always please give us your feedback and let us know how we are doing or if you have a reqeusted topic.

How To K2 Video Series on SmartObjects

chrisg — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 21:06:00 GMT

Thanks for reading glad you could find me. This is the place where you can dig into K2 blackpearl. We will regularly be posting new videos on a variety of topics. Our first series will be on SmartObjects. Through this SmartObject series we will take you through from the basics through using, and creating new SmartObjects. If you have suggestions as to topics to cover, please suggest and we will work on adding it to the list. For now check out our first 2 videos

Video 1: An Introduction to SmartObjects.

Video 2: Building your first SmartObject.

These videos were created and "packaged" with the needed codec in order to prevent any playback issues. Because of this they are in an Exe format.