Ramble On

Changing the 'Created By' user in SharePoint

2010-02-19T10:39:00Z

This is something that comes up quite often. You write a document to a list or library using the K2 ‘SharePoint Documents’ wizard and the default ‘Created By’ and ‘Modified’ by will show as the user running the K2HostServer Windows service. This is because essentially the workflow created the document and not the user.

See image above, the document is shown as uploaded by the system account, that is not very helpful to the end user.

If you would like to show that in fact the workflow originator is the creator of the document, it can be done in many ways other than the approach explained below. But in certain instances it may be what you require.

In your workflow you will need to add a reference to the CreatedByUpdater.dll in the solution below.

Note, this code is by no means production ready; it is just an illustration of what is possible and a good starting point if you would like to extend the functionality. The class has two methods, one to update all documents in a document library/custom list and another to update a specific item in a document library or list.

Before the ‘SharePoint Documents’ event wizard use a datamapper and set a datafield with the originators details in the format [DOMAIN]\[USERNAME]. After the ‘SharePoint Documents’ use a K2 reference event and call the relevant constructor.

In this instance I want to update a specific document. Now set the required parameters.

Note don't have any spaces in fields such as ‘listorlibrary’ name. Your process will now look something like this.

And now when a document gets created it will be more visible who the document owner is for that document. See the difference between the first document and the second? Much better!!!

Things to note:

- It is not the easiest thing to get the document Id for the newly created document. There are many ways to do it which can be discussed with your regional K2 contacts.
-Code is not production ready and K2 takes no responsibility for use of this code in production. I am not even sure if this would be considered best practise, the idea is to show what is possible.

Adding colon separated sting value of users to a SharePoint group

2010-02-16T14:18:00Z

The code attached does work, but doesn’t take into account any exception handling, so use at own risk. The main objective is for your developer to see how to create a reference event in blackpoint to do custom functionality.

Steps to register if you would like to use the service:

1. Extract the zip file attached.

2. In K2 studio in the process designer add a Reference to the .dll found in the solution attached. .dll located at CreateSharePointGroupUsers\CreatedBy\bin\Debug\ called ‘CreateSharePointGroupUser.dll’. You will see References at the top menu bar.

3. Use the ‘Reference Event’ wizard and a reference to the constructor located under ‘CreateSharePointUser’

4. Add the relevant parameters(it takes the users datafield representing users only from a multi-value SharePoint column, groupname – the name of the group you want to add the users to in SharePoint and SharePoint URL – in the format http://[yoursitename]:[portnumberifapplicable]

The sourcecode for the full solution is available as an attachment below.

K2 blackpearl and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 Integration - Chapter 3

2010-02-10T19:46:03Z

In this chapter of our CRM series we are going to be building an end to end K2 blackpearl process that integrates with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

The scenario that we are building is a simple lead validation process where for each lead that is captured in CRM we would like to have a process that ensures that a sales person is assigned the a task to review the lead and choose whether to accept the lead or assign to the global sales team to review and reallocate.

The key technical areas that we will be looking to demonstrate are:

Starting a K2 process on an event within Dynamics CRM
Assigning a task to a CRM user and using the native CRM forms as the client pages for that K2 task.
Adding and modifying CRM information via K2 SmartObjects

Step 0 – Installing the Prerequisites

Before we can start building our solution we must ensure that we have the necessary components installed. Obviously we need an environment with K2 blackpearl and Dynamics CRM 4 as a bare minimum. Additionally we need to;

Install the custom workflow activity for K2 that we discussed in Chapter 1
Install the Dynamics CRM 4 Service Broker that is available on blackmarket
Download the K2 CRM web services from blackmarket.

Firstly let’s start by installing the K2 CRM web service that you downloaded from blackmarket. Create a website (mine is localhost:9993) and ensure that the K2CRMService.asmx service is available. Six methods should be exposed.

We’ll use these services later when using the CRM forms as client pages in our process.

Secondly we need to install the Dynamics CRM 4 Service Broker.

Once you have downloaded the Service Broker and extracted its contents you will need to copy the following two files to the ServiceBroker directory in K2 (usually found at C:\Program Files (x86)\K2 blackpearl\ServiceBroker)

K2.GlobalAlliances.Prototypes.DynamicsCRMServices.dll
K2.GlobalAlliances.Prototypes.DynamicsCRMServices.dll.config

Once there edit the config file and include the details of your CRM administration user or similar. This user is the default user under which the service broker will execute. The reason that it is defined in the service is to eliminate the need give the K2 service account permissions to Dynamics CRM. In future versions of the broker this configuration information will moved out of the configuration file and into the service instance.

The service broker is built atop of the CRM web services and as such has the ability to do impersonation (CRM SDK on impersonation). If you wish to use the impersonation feature you will need to ensure that the user specified in the config file is a member of the PrivUsersGroup.

Now it’s time to register an instance of the service type. I’m going to use the SmartObject Service Tester application to do this. You can find this application in the ServiceBroker directory or if you are using 4.5 in the ..\K2 blackpearl\bin directory.

Click on the Register ServiceType button at the top of the screen. In the dialog select the DynamicsCRMServices namespace in the dropdown. Define a System Name and a Display Name then click Add.

Now that our Service Type is in place we can create an instance of it that points at our CRM organisation.

Click the Register ServiceInstance button at the top of screen. Select the newly defined Service Type from the Service Types dropdown.

In the Service Keys section define the following:

CRM Server – the base URL to your CRM website e.g. http://localhost:6666
Organisation – the name of your organisation the system name, not the friendly name e.g. K2Demo

NOTE: If you leave the impersonation box ticked the service will use the user details specified in the config file to conduct the discovery of CRM. If you want to use a different user to do the service instance discovery then uncheck the Impersonate checkbox and in the User Name text box enter a domain\user and the user’s password in the password text box.

The service instance will then go and discover the entity structure in the selected CRM Organisation. Once complete you will be able to expand the tree under the newly created Service Instance to see a list of the entities (both OOB and custom) in CRM.

With this in place you can now create SmartObjects from your CRM entities.

If you have multiple organisations you can create an instance of the service for each organisation.

Step 1 – Create CRM SmartObjects

With the prerequisites in place we can now start building our solution. For this simple solution we are going to create two SmartObjects, one for our Lead entity and another for our Note entity.

Entities in CRM tend to have a large number of attributes some well in excess of 150. For example the Lead entity has 163 attributes exposed by the service. When creating CRM SmartObjects I tend to remove those attributes that I know I will not use. For example when creating a Lead SmartObject I don’t map the any of the Address 2 : xxx fields.

The service exposes 6 methods for each SmartObject. The names for these methods are self-explanatory except for perhaps Query List. This is a list method that takes a FetchXML string as an input parameter and will return a list of entity instances matching the criteria.

Each service method has two optional input properties, CRM Read Type and Impersonate CRM User.

· CRM Read Type – Due to the complex nature of CRM data and its interrelationships a field can often have both a display and reference value. For example the Modified By column can return both the display name of the user who last modified the entity e.g. Jonathan King, as well as the Guid that represents that user in the systemuser entity in CRM. The CRM Read Type property determines the type of information returned from the read of list method. Accepted values are: complex, reference & values (default)

values – returns the display value e.g. Jonathan King
reference – return the reference value e.g. {172B60F4-E8DC-DE11-9B83-00155D010709}
complex – will return a # separated values e.g. {172B60F4-E8DC-DE11-9B83-00155D010709}#Jonathan King

Impersonate CRM User – this input property takes a Guid that represents a user in the CRM systemuser entity. By passing in the Guid that represents a user the service will impersonate as that user when executing the method.

With our SmartObjects created we can now start building our process.

Step 2 – Create the K2 Process

We’ll start by creating a new process called K2 Lead Review.

The first thing we’ll do with our process is create two data fields. These two data fields are important when designing processes that are started from events in CRM as they will hold the Guid of the entity instance that started the process, in this case the ID of the Lead, and the name of the type of entity it is e.g. lead.

Entity Id (string)
Entity Name (string)

Once created you can build out the rest of the process until it looks like the following.

For the remainder of this blog post we will be completing the Sales Person Review & Lead Accepted activities.

Step 3 – Preparing CRM for the Sales Person Review Activity

The Sales Person Review activity will hold a single Client Event that will assign a task to a user and provide them a user experience to action the task. In our example today that user experience will be the native CRM form for our Lead.

There are many benefits to using the forms experience provided by CRM as our client page. For an end user who is comfortable with CRM and perhaps spends a large portion of their day working in CRM we shouldn’t force them into a new user experience simply to complete a task assigned to them from a K2 process. We want to ensure their can work in an environment they know and are comfortable with.

From a technical standpoint, Dynamics CRM provides a fantastic platform on which to build solutions. One element of that platform is an easy to use, browser based forms experience that can be customised very quickly with a minimum of effort. Why build an ASP.NET form when we have this tremendous asset already in place.

That being said, in future posts we will look at using custom forms such as Silverlight, ASP.NET & InfoPath.

In order to use the native CRM form for our lead we have to make a few changes to the Lead entity to accommodate our integration.

Open a browser and go into Dynamics CRM. Head to the Settings tab and Customizations. Select the Customize Entities.

From the list of entities find Lead and double click on it.

In customising the Lead entity we are going to:

Add two new attributes.

new_k2actions – will hold the available actions for a give client event
Display Name: K2 Actions
Type: picklist
Items: 1 – Not Applicable (these will be dynamically loaded by the web service)
new_k2serialnumber – will hold the serial number of the client event
Display Name: K2 Serial Number
Type: nvarchar

Then modify the main application form.

Add the K2 Actions attribute to the Name section of the General tab. Really you can place it where you like on the form.

With the attribute added to the form we now need to add some plumbing.

What we want to happen is that when a user opens a worklist item for Sales Person Review task is that this form opens and displays the related actions in the K2 Actions picklist. To action the worklist item they will select a suitable action and save the form.

In order to achieve this we need:

pass the form the serial number (SN) that represents the K2 worklist item
retrieve the list of available actions for that worklist item
send the selected action back to the K2 server when the Lead is saved

Serial Number

As you would be aware, in a normal K2 client event the serial number (SN) is added as a query string property to the URL. The same approach can be used when working with native CRM forms as they are after all just ASP.NET pages. There is one caveat. For security reason CRM doesn’t allow you to pass arbitrary query string values to a form. Any query string property must have a matching field defined in the entity. The field doesn’t necessarily have to be displayed on the form however. This is why we have added the K2 Serial Number attribute to our Lead but do not display it on the form.

We will go into how we get the serial number to the form in Step 4.

Retrieving Actions

Now when the form opens we want to retrieve the client event actions relevant to the current user. To do this we use a web service call (K2CRMService.asmx – see Step 0 - Installing Prerequisites) that passes the serial number to the K2 server that in turn returns a list of actions.

Click on Form Properties and edit the OnLoad event.

The Onload event is going a number of things that I’ll outline in bullet points. You can go through source code in your own time. Download the JavaScript here.

Retrieve the query string value of new_k2serialnumber (we’ll set this later on in Step 4)
If you are using pre 4.5 it will extract the superfluous SN=
It will then call the web service "/K2CRMService.asmx/GetWorklistItem” passing in serial number and the entityid
Using the result of the web service populate the K2 Actions picklist.

Actioning the Worklist Item

In order to action the worklist item when the user saves the form we need to add some JavaScript to the OnSave event.

Click on Form Properties and edit the OnSave event.

What happens in this event is:

We check that an action has been selected in K2 Actions picklist
We call the web service "/K2CRMService.asmx/ ActionClientEvent” passing in serial number, the action the entityid and entity name
The K2 Actions picklist and K2 Serial Number attribute are cleared

We have now configured the Lead entity so save and close the form and the entity customization.

Publish the customizations.

Retrieve the Lead Form URL

The last step we need to do before going back to design the remainder of our K2 process is to get the URL of our Lead form. Return to the Sales section and Leads. Select and open a Lead. To get the URL press F11 to go to full screen then place your mouse at the top of the screen to reveal the address bar. The URL will look very similar to the one below.

http://localhost:6666/K2Demo/sfa/leads/edit.aspx?id={852B60F4-E8DC-DE11-9B83-00155D010709}

Copy and paste the URL to Notepad as we’ll need it very shortly.

Step 4 – Implementing Sales Person Review Activity

Return to K2 Designer for Visual Studio and our K2 Lead Review process.

There’s every chance we’ll build multiple processes against our Lead entity so let’s create a configuration variable for our Lead form URL. Go to the Object Browser and the Environment tab and create a new field.

Field Name – CRM Form – Lead
Item Type – Miscellaneous Field
Field Value - http://localhost:6666/K2Demo/sfa/leads/edit.aspx?id=
Remove the Guid from the URL you copied in the previous sections. We’ll add that later.

Creating the Client Event

From the Toolbox drag a Default Client Event onto the Sales Person Review Activity.

In the second page of the Client Event wizard provide a business friendly Event Name. In our case this will be Sales Person Review.

Tick the Web Page checkbox.

In the Web Page URL do the following:

add the CRM Form – Lead environment variable
add the Entity ID data field directly after it (no space)
the add the string &new_k2serialnumber=

At this point our URL should look like the following.

I’m going to do the following steps twice. Once for blackpearl pre the 4.5 release and one for blackpearl 4.5 Both result in the same outcome it’s just slightly easier to achieve in 4.5.

Select the one that is relevant to you.

Defining the Client Event Form Pre 4.5

Ensure that the Append serial number to URL (s) is ticked
Click the Next button on the Wizard
On the Event Notification Settings page click the back button to return to the previous page
You will notice in the URL that there is an & between new_k2serialnumber= and the wizard added serial number. Delete this rogue &.

Your Web Page URL should now look like this

Defining the Client Event Form in 4.5

Remember these instructions are only if you are running blackpearl 4.5.

Open the K2 Object Browser by clicking the ellipsis button
After new_k2serialnumber= you want to add the Process Instance ID
Then add an underscore _
Then open the K2 Object Browser again and add the Activity Destination Instance Id
Make sure the Append serial number to URL (s) checkbox is NOT ticked.

This way we create the K2 serial number ourselves and don’t rely upon the wizard doing it for us. Unfortunately this option isn’t available to us pre blackpearl 4.5.

The end of the Web Page URL should now look like the following.

Defining the Remainder of the Client Event

We can configure the remainder of the client event like any other.

In Configure Actions wizard page add two actions.

Accept Lead
Redirect to Global Sales

Finally, add a suitable destination user. In my case I’ve added Administrator to keep things nice and simple. In future posts we can look at retrieving the most suitable user from CRM based upon certain criteria.

Complete the Client Event wizard and return to the design canvas.

Drag the Accept Lead line so that it connects with the Lead Accepted activity.

Drag the Redirect to Global Sales line so that it connects to the Assign to Global Sales activity.

At this point your process should look like this.

Step 5 – Implementing Lead Accepted

To complete our process we want to create a Note that is related with our Lead so we can track actions that have taken place against our Lead. To do this we will use our Demo CRM Note SmartObject that we created in Step 1.

From the Toolbox drag the SmartObject Event wizard onto the Lead Accepted Activity.

On page two of the wizard define the Event Name as Create Note and the SmartObject Method open the K2 Object Browser and select the Create method of Demo CRM Note.

On the Input Mapping page map the following values to the Properties.

Title – “The assigned Sales person has accepted this lead.”
Description – “The assigned Sales person has accepted this lead as part of the [ProcessName]* process”
* [ProcessName] is a value from the Workflow Context Browser
Object Type – [Entity Name]*
* the data field we created in Step 2
Regarding - [Entity Id]#[Entity Name]*
* the data fields we created in Step 2

The Object Type and Regarding fields ensure that the relationship between the Lead and the Note are established.

Complete the SmartObject wizard and we’re done building our process.

Deploy the process and then configure you Process Rights.

Step 6 – Starting the Process from CRM

Our process is now in place and ready to run. All we need to do now is to configure CRM so that an event in CRM starts our K2 process.

Remember this scenario is only one approach to how you can achieve K2 blackpearl and Dynamisc CRM integration. For this scenario we have chosen a CRM only environment. It is just as easy to build K2 solutions that start outside of CRM and then move into CRM and vice versa.

Dynamics CRM gives us two options for starting a K2 process based upon an event, CRM workflow or plug-ins.

In our example we are going to be using a simple CRM workflow to start our K2 process.

In Dynamics CRM we go to the Settings and then Workflow. We’ll create a new workflow that is called K2 Lead Review and is associated with the Lead entity.

We’ll have the workflow start when a Records is Created and well make it available On demand. The workflow itself will only have one step so click on Add Step and you should see the following if you have successfully registered the K2 custom workflow activity from Step 0.

Provide a nice description, something along the lines of Start K2 Process and then select the Set Properties button. We can now configure the properties of the K2 process we wish to start.

Process Folder – CRM Demo
This is the name of your project in K2 Designer for VS
Process Name – K2 Lead Review
The name of your K2 process, the kprx file
Process Datafields – [not required in this example]
Entity ID Datafield – Entity Id
The name of the datafield you created in the process to hold the entity Id.
Entity Name Datafield – Entity Name
The name of the datafield you created in the process to hold the entity name

Save and close the configuration window.

When your CRM workflow looks like the following you can publish it.

Now that everything is in place we can test out our K2 + Dynamics CRM solution.

Step 6 – K2 + Dynamics CRM in Action

So let’s see the end result.

I’m going to go to my Sales area and view my Open Leads and open an existing Lead. You’ll notice that the K2 Actions field is disabled as this Lead is not involved in a K2 process.

To start our process I select the Run Workflow button at the top of the Lead, select K2 Lead Review and click OK. Our K2 Lead Review process has now begun. When it reaches the Sales Person Review activity it will assign our destination user a worklist item and wait for their decision.

I can open my K2 worklist to see this task.

Clicking on the worklist item will open a new window that contains the CRM Lead form. When we open the Lead this time however we see that K2 Actions field is now enabled and contains the available actions for this user as defined by the process.

NOTE: If you are the destination user and you open the Lead directly through CRM you will get the same result. You do not have to open the item via the K2 worklist. If you are not the destination user and you open the Lead then the K2 actions field will be disabled.

I can now select my action which in this case will be Accept Lead and click Save & Close. This will result in saving any changes that I have made to the Lead and actioning my worklist item. In this example I have included an alert to indicate that the worklist item has been completed.

Finally we’ll go back to our Lead and to the Notes section to see that the K2 process has completed successfully and that it’s added a Note against our Lead.

Conclusion

So there you have it. We’ve created a solution that combines Dynamics CRM and K2 blackpearl. This is just one example of a solution you could build with K2 blackpearl and CRM. In future posts we’ll look at;

working with different CRM entities through K2 SmartObjects
surfacing CRM information in other solutions and processes via K2 SmartObject
using other forms technologies to action client both in and out of CRM

Jonno

blackpoint error - Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.Analytics.UI.ReportViewerMessages... does not implement IReportViewerMessages

2010-02-02T12:36:00Z

If you get the following error when trying to run a k2 blackpoint report for the first time:

'Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.Analytics.UI.ReportViewerMessages, Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c' does not implement IReportViewerMessages'

Please add the following line to the system.web/httpHandlers section of the Reporting Sites’ web.config file :

<add verb="*" path="Reserved.ReportViewerWebControl.axd" type = "Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.HttpHandler, Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" />

And remove the following line from the web.config:

<add key="ReportViewerMessages" value="Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.Analytics.UI.ReportViewerMessages, Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

blackpoint - SourceCode.SmartObjects.Client.SmartObjectException

2010-02-02T12:09:00Z

Hi Guys

When running blackpoint reports and you get the above error message in SharePoint.

This will happen when your machine's Regional Settings is set to one format, and your SharePoint Site where you want to view the reports are set to a different format.

Example:

The K2Server machine has regional settings to English(UK) that has a short date of dd/mm/yyyy.
The regional setting of the MOSS site is set to English(US) and it has a short date as mm/dd/yyyy.

This is already logged as a bug and is fixed for K2 blackpoint 4.5

Adding an Attachment to a List Item - blackpoint

2009-11-18T15:56:13Z

In K2 blackpoint you can attach one or more documents to a list item in SharePoint.

What you need to do is the following.

1) In your list go to Advanced settings and confirm that Attachments are enabled.

2) In site that your list resides go to Site Actions and select the K2 Site Settings menu option

3) Select SmartObject Service Management from the Integration Management list.

4) Select the checkbox next to the list that you want to attach a file to. In this example I am using the Approved Leave Requests custom list.

Check the Use dynamic URLs if you are moving between environments.

Then click the Create button.

This will create a K2 SmartObject for this list.

5) In the Object Browser in K2 Studio when you expand the SmartObject Servers node you will now see your new SmartObject for the list.

The SmartObject will have a number of methods listed including Add Attachment.

6) To use this method go to the Event Wizards panel and drag the SmartObject Event wizard onto the design canvas.

7) Provide an Event Name and select the Add Attachment method for your SmartObject from the Context Browser.

8) On the Input Mapping page of the wizard add the necessary information.

Attachment.Content – the file you wish to attach to the list item (must be Base64)

Attachment.FileName – The filename you wish to give to the file

ID – The ID of the list item you are attaching the document to

SharePoint URL – the SharePoint site that the list resides in. You should be able to select this from your Environment Library. This field will only appear if you selected the Use dynamic URLs option in Step 4.

In K2 blackpearl the same functionality is available you just need to create the SmartObject slightly differently.

Enjoy

Jonno

Infopath Administrator-Approved Forms and K2 processes

2009-11-12T09:01:00Z

... or what is behind the "Publish to: Local or Network Location" in the Infopath Integration Wizard.

In some cases (forms with code behind, or TimeOut on deployement...), it can be interesting to be able to deploy Infopath Forms for a K2 process as Administrator-approved forms in Sharepoint. Here you will find the steps you need to do (or check) in K2 designer, MOSS central administration and in your MOSS site collection to ensure the compliance of your K2 Infopath Form for an execution in your web browser. This article is an additional reading ressource for the excellent HOW TO video on "Using 'code behind' with InfoPath forms, SharePoint and K2" published on the HOW TO K2 blog.

[Using the K2 designer]
- Change the template deployment location to be on the file system, by loading the Infopath Integration Process Wizard and editing configuration of your attached form:
- The preceding step allows the K2 Designer to prepare the URL to access worklistitem from your K2 Worklist component. And as we now use a local path, all MOSS configuration needed to access the worklistitem using the web-browser will disappear, so we need to do some updates in each Infopath Client events of the process. To perform this, we need to update the code behind each Infopath Client configuration:
  - First I propose to create 3 environnements fields (1 Sharepoint Server URL for registering the site you will use, and 2 miscellaneous: one to store the name of the Form Library and the other to store if you want to open the form with the web-browser), as per as the screenshot bellow:
    
    In my example: Infopath FormLib=test, Infopath OpenAsWebPage=True, Sharepoint HR Site URL=http://portal.denallix.com/sites/hr
  - Second, you need to update the code of each client event. To do this, right click on your Infopath Client event >> View Code >> Event Item, then in the code, browse to the SetWorklistUrl method and adapt the following code to your own configuration (see bellow an example):
  - You can re-launch your Infopath Client Event wizards without any fear, your updated code will not be deleted.

[Using the Infopath Designer] Then, enable your form to be filled out by the browser. To achieve this, still using the Infopath Integration Process Wizard, launch the “Design” feature and:
- Go to the “Tools” menu and select “Form options…”, make some changes in the categories “Compatibility” and “Browser” as per the screenshots below:
  Ensure your form is browser compatible:
  
  Ensure, you will have some menu buttons (optional if you create your own one):
- Once this is finished, you can close your form, then you can close the K2 Infopath Integration Process Wizard, and you can deploy your K2 process.
[Using the Infopath Designer] Now, you must deploy your local Infopath form with correct data connections:
- Browse to the deployment location selected in step 1
- Find your XSN file, righ-click and then select “Design”
- To convert all the K2 Data Connections to Universal Data Connection files (your K2 designer do this on its own when it deploys the form to a Sharepoint Library, but here you need to do this manually).
  - In the “tools” menu, select “Data Connections…”
  - Then for each data connections in the list, click on “Convert…”
  - And create your UDCX files in the site collection you want to deploy your form. You will obtain something like:
- Now you can publish your form:
  - In the “file” menu, select “publish…”
  - When asked where you want to publish your form, choose “To a SharePoint Server with or without InfoPath Forms Services” and click Next.
  - Paste the URL of the document library that you created and click Next.
  - In the following page you must select the “enable this form to be filled out by using a browser” box and the “Administrator Approved form template”. Click Next.
  - Browse to the location you saved your file to and select it. Click Next twice.
  - Click “publish”
  - You will see a message that confirms your form has been published successfully and remind you to give your SharePoint Administrator the information listed on the screen.
  - Click “close”
- Close Infopath.

[Using MOSS Central Administration] If you are a SharePoint Administrator with access to SharePoint Central Administration, navigate to the Central Administration web site:
- Choose “Application Management”
- Under InfoPath Forms Services, choose “Manage form templates”.
- On the Manage form templates page, click “Upload form template”.
- On the “Upload Form Template” page, browse to the location where the template has been saved to (in step 3. before publishing) and select it.
- Click “Upload”
- On the following screen, check that it uploaded successfully, then click “OK”
- On the “Manage form templates” page, locate your xsn form and wait for the “ready” status (if the status is still “installing”, be sure the SPTimer service is running – you can perform a “net start SPTimerV3” cmd to launch it, and if necessary a “net start SPAdmin” cmd).
- When it’s “ready” on the template that you just uploaded, click the drop-down box and select “activate to a site collection”.
- On the Activate Form Template, choose the correct Site Collection to activate it to and click OK.
- You can now close Central Administration.

[Using Settings of your site collection] Navigate to your Sharepoint site:
- Browse to your form library.
- Then click on “form library settings”.
- In the “Customize” page of your library under “General Settings”, click “Advanced Settings”.
- In the Advanced Settings Page, select “Yes” under “Allow management of content types”, check if the “Display as Web page” option is checked, and click OK.
- Back on the Library Settings Page, you should now see a section called “Content Types”. Choose the link “Add from existing site content types”.
- On the Add Content Types page, change the selection on the Select site content types from drop-down menu to Microsoft Office InfoPath.
- Select the Content Type of your new Administrator Approved form and click the “Add” button, then click OK.
- You should now see your new content type listed in the content types list. Optionally you can delete the other content type(s) in the list to avoid confusion regarding what form should be stored there.

Now when users click the “New” button in the document library, your Administrator-Enabled form will launch in browser mode and when you will submit it the K2 process will be executed.

I hope this will help you to create better K2 web applications ;-).

-- by Jean Cadeau

How to access to standard K2 reports in your web application?

2009-10-14T15:32:00Z

Let’s assume you want to display a standard K2 report (for example “Activity Statistics”) in your web application without doing any redirection to the K2 Workspace.

SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) has many great built-in features, but accessing them from external components can be tricky. What if you want to pass reports parameters directly within a URL? Wouldn't it be great if you could, from a website or an email, point to a URL that renders a report directly in PDF? You may also need to display a K2 report without the reporting toolbar. Let's take a look at these items as well as a few others. Here are the steps:

Find the URL of your report. Browse your reportserver web application (e.g. on Denallix: http://www.denallix.com/reportserver), then click on “Standard Reports >> Hidden”, here you have all the out-of-the-box K2 reports. Nota: replace www.denallix.com by your own SSRS web server DNS address.

Select your report (e.g.: “Activity Statitics Column3D”) to display the parameters you can play with. Copy the current URL (here http://www.denallix.com/reportserver/?%2fStandard+Reports%2fHidden%2fActivity+Statistics+Column3D&rs:Commande=Render)

Build your URL using the K2 parameters:
a. FullName: <Folder>\<ProcessName>
b. Version: <int_Version>
c. ValueType: 0 to have average duration, 1 to have the instance numbers
d. FromDate: start date for the report <YYYY/MM/DD>
e. ToDate: end date for the report <YYYY/MM/DD>
f. Status: 2 for Active, 4 for Completed
g. EventType: 0 for all events, 1 to exclude Server Events

Thus, assuming we want to display the average completion duration of the activities from the last version of the Purchase Request instances in the last 2 years, we will add the following string to our URL: &FullName=DenallixBP\PurchaseRequest&Version=20&ValueType=0
&FromDate=2007/10/14&ToDate=2009/10/14&Status=4&EventType=1.

Add some SSRS options to your URL :
a. To hide the parameter bar, append this string to the URL: &rc:Parameters=false
b. To hide the toolbar, append this string to the URL: &rc:Toolbar=false
c. To control the report format, you can append the following string to directly save the report to your local file system in the specified file format to: &rs:Format=Excel or &rs:Format=PDF

The complete, final URL can be something like http://www.denallix.com/reportserver/?%2fStandard+Reports%2fHidden%2fActivity+Statistics+Column3D&rs:Commande=Render&FullName=DenallixBP\PurchaseRequest
&Version=20&ValueType=0&FromDate=2007/10/14&ToDate=2009/10/14&Status=4&EventType=1
&rc:Parameters=false&rc:Toolbar=false and will generate this:

I hope this will help you to create better K2 web applications ;-).

-- by Jean Cadeau

K2 blackpearl and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 Integration - Chapter 2

2009-06-29T13:12:28Z

Adding the K2 Worklist to Dynamics CRM

In this chapter of our ongoing (read: drawn out) series on K2 blackpearl integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM we are going to integrate the K2 Worklist into the CRM user experience so that users can access their K2 tasks directly from CRM.

This article assumes that you have a basic understanding of CRM and CRM customisations in particular modifying the Site Map entity. In this example I will be editing it by hand though if you are interested you can check out the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Demonstration Tools (for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0) for a visual editor.

Step 0 – The Necessary Pieces

There are a couple of prerequisites for this chapter and as per usual they can be downloaded from Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 - blackpearl Integration project in blackmarket on K2Underground.com.

The prerequisites are as follows:

K2 icons for the site menu
K2 Worklist web application

In this example we are going to use the out of the box K2 Worklist control hosted in a simple web solution. I am doing this for the sake of simplicity. In a production quality solution I would strongly recommend that you look at developing your own custom K2 Worklist rather than reusing this control.

Step 1 – Setup

Once you have downloaded the components from K2Underground.com you will need to copy the two image files K2_28.gif and K2_16.gif to the CRM directory e.g. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server\CRMWeb\_imgs

You will then need to setup a new web site or virtual directory to host the K2 Worklist. In our example my worklist is hosted at http://localhost/K2%20OOB%20Worklist.

Step 2 – Export Customisations

Now that the necessary prerequisites are in place it is time to start customising Dynamics CRM to include the K2 Worklist. The first step is to go to the Settings tab in CRM and select Customizations.

Select Export Customizations. Scroll down and select the Site Map entity. Once selected click on the Export Selected Customizations from the menu bar.

Save the customizations.zip file to a location of your choice. Once saved you will need to extract the customizations.xml file. It is the customizations.xml that we will modify to include the K2 Worklist.

We are going to make two additions to the CRM Site Map. We are going to include a new group in the Workplace area and a new Process Management area that will include a link to the K2 Worklist and some custom process reports to demonstrate that we can include not only the worklist but other key process related information as well.

Open the customizations.xml file in your XML editor of choice. Find the Workspace area node and add the following Group node to where you wish the K2 Worklist menu option to area.

        <Group Id="K2" ResourceId="K2Resource" Title="My Processes">
          <SubArea Id="K2Worklist" Url="http://localhost/K2%20OOB%20Worklist/Default.aspx" Icon="/_imgs/K2_16.gif" Title="K2 Worklist" />
        </Group>

After the Workspace area we are going to add the Process Management area. Between the Workplace and Sales areas (assuming you have a vanilla CRM installation) add the code below. Remember I have included an additional link to some custom K2 reports that you can exclude from your example.

      <Area Id="K2" Title="Process Management" Icon="/_imgs/K2_28.gif">
        <Group Id="K2">
          <SubArea Id="K2Worklist" Url="http://localhost/K2%20OOB%20Worklist/Default.aspx" Icon="/_imgs/K2_16.gif" Title="K2 Worklist" />
          <SubArea Id="K2OOBReports" Url="http://localhost:9999/ChartingExamplesTestPage.aspx" Icon="/_imgs/ico_16_1038.gif" Title="Performance Reports" />
        </Group>
      </Area>

Now that you have modified the customizations.xml file it is time to import it back into CRM. Open Dynamics CRM and go to Customizations in the Settings area and select Import Customizations. Browse to your newly modified customizations.xml file and upload it. Once it has been uploaded you will see an screen like the one below.

Click the Import Selected Customizations on the menu bar and click OK on the prompt. Now that the customizations have been imported successfully we can refresh your browser and see the changes are now live or if you have Outlook integration enabled you can see the new menu options there too.

Things to Consider

So in this example we have see a very simple way of introducing the K2 Worklist into CRM and making it available in both the browser and Outlook user experiences. There are obviously a number of limitations with this approach some of which include;

No offline access to tasks
Duplicate task lists – one for CRM and the other for K2
Theme inconsistencies

To take this solution further I would start by looking at creating a CMR themed custom K2 Worklist rather than simply using the OOB worklist control. Beyond that I would then start looking at integrating the tasks with the Tasks activity type so that you can get a single view of all your CRM and K2 related tasks. We may have a look at both of these topics in future posts.

Next Up

In the next post we are going to create a K2 blackpearl process that integrates with Dynamics CRM, that uses the CRM user experience for client events and much more.

If you have any questions or comments please send me a message through K2Underground.com.

Jonno

K2 blackpearl and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 Integration - Chapter 1

2009-02-04T17:00:05Z

Initiating K2 blackpearl Processes

In this first chapter of our series on integrating K2 blackpearl and Microsoft Dynamic CRM 4 we will be looking at ways in which you can initiate, or start, a K2 blackpearl process based upon a user interacting with a Dynamics CRM 4.

During the course of this series we will be developing a solution based upon the creation, review and approval of a new lead. The scenario will see:

a inside sales staffer identifies and capture a new lead in CRM 4
a K2 blackpearl is process initiated
the process will provision a SharePoint site to manage all documents and collaboration concerning the lead
it will assign a task to the Sales Team to review the lead in CRM and make a decision on it's potential
based upon the Sales Team decision the process will conduct some further integration with CRM & SharePoint.

It is intentionally a simple scenario to begin with aimed at demonstrating the ability to drive a K2 blackpearl process through Dynamics CRM 4 and having such a process span multiple line of business systems and people within the organisation. Over the course of the series we may look to evolve the scenario further.

Where to Start

Dynamics CRM 4 provides two key mechanisms to add additional business logic and functionality to the platform, Plug-ins and Workflow. The description of these and when and where to use one versus the other is beyond the scope of this post. If you do need some information on the topic I recommend that you have a look at the following:

For our example we will be using Workflows and in particular developing a custom workflow activity specifically for initiating our K2 blackpearl process. It is worth pointing out that you could use either approach, Plug-ins or Workflows, to start a K2 process. I have chosen to use Workflows in this example to allow users to have greater control as to when a process is started and to demonstrate how we can leverage and extend the existing workflow platform in CRM 4.

In this chapter the basics of building a custom workflow activity for CRM 4 is out of scope. If you'd like to learn how to build a custom workflow activity then have a look at the following tutorial - Developing Custom Workflow Activities for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. What we will be focusing is the key elements within that activity that enable it to start a K2 blackpearl process.

All source code for this post and all other posts in this series can be found in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 - blackpearl Integration blackmarket project on K2 Underground.

Step 0 – The Necessary Pieces

From this point forward I am going to assume that you have set up the base requirements for a custom workflow activity;

Created a new Workflow Activity Library project
Added a reference to Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.dll and Microsoft.Crm.SdkTypeProxy.dll
Renamed the generated class file (no spaces)
Annotated the class with the .NET attribute CrmWorkflowActivity and overriden the Execute method

Again, if you need assistance in this area a create reference is Developing Custom Workflow Activities for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.

Step 1 – Inputs and Outputs

Now we need to define the input and output properties for the Activity. For our simple demonstration activity we will have four input properties that will allow the user to configure which K2 blackpearl process to start and which data fields to pass key entity information. Our input properties are:

Process Folder – The folder or project name in which our K2 blackpearl process resides.
Process Name – The name of the K2 blackpearl process we wish to start.
Entity ID Datafield – The name of the data field in our process that will hold the ID of the CRM entity that started the process.
Entity Name Datafield - The name of the data field in our process that will hold the entity type name for the CRM entity that started the process.

The first two properties are obvious if you have worked with the K2 Workflow API before. You need to know the name of the process and its folder in which it resides to start an instance of that process. The second two properties, Entity ID Datafield and Entity Name Datafield, are less obvious. When we use this activity inside CRM they will take in the name of K2 blackpearl process data fields that will receive the ID and the type name (e.g. lead, account, etc) for the CRM entity against which the workflow has been initiated. By passing these two values to the K2 blackpearl process you can use the CRM web service or as we will see in later chapters the Dynamics CRM 4 Service Broker to access CRM entity information from within our process.

Our output property will simply be the the ID of the initiated K2 blackpearl process.

Defining an input property for Process Name.

public static DependencyProperty ProcessNameProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("ProcessName", typeof(String), typeof(DemoK2CRMStartActivity));

[CrmInput("Process Name")]
public string ProcessName
{
    get
    {
        return this.GetValue(ProcessNameProperty).ToString();
    }
    set { 
        this.SetValue(ProcessNameProperty, value); 
    }
}

Step 2 – Who Starts The Process

Now that we defined the input and output properties we can begin to flesh out the functionality of the Execute method. The first thing that we need to do is to get access to the CRM context and to the CRM web service.

// Get the context service.
IContextService contextService = (IContextService)executionContext.GetService(typeof(IContextService));
IWorkflowContext context = contextService.Context;

// Use the context service to create an instance of CrmService.
ICrmService crmService = context.CreateCrmService(true);

Using this context information we now need to retrieve the user who started the CRM workflow so that same user can start the K2 blackpearl process. We can do this easily using the CRM service and doing a look up on the systemuser entity. We get initiating user’s ID via context.UserId which returns a GUID which is the key value to the user’s instance of the systemuser entity. Using this GUID we can retrieve the systemuser entity instance and retrieve the user’s domain details. We will use the domain details in the next step.

// Retrieve the user who started the process
string[] cols = new string[] { "domainname", "yomifullname" };
Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.Query.ColumnSet myColumnSet = new Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.Query.ColumnSet(cols);

systemuser su = (systemuser)crmService.Retrieve(EntityName.systemuser.ToString(), context.UserId, myColumnSet);
string username = su.domainname;

Step 3 – Starting the K2 blackpearl Process

Now that we have the user who needs to start the K2 blackpearl process we can dive into the K2 Workflow API. Well before diving into coding we need to add a reference SourceCode.Workflow.Client which can be found in C:\Program Files\k2 blackpearl\Host Server\Bin.

// Using the K2 blackpearl API start a process
SourceCode.Workflow.Client.Connection k2Con = new SourceCode.Workflow.Client.Connection();
SourceCode.Workflow.Client.ProcessInstance k2Pi;

try
{
    // Open a connection to the K2 blackpearl server
    k2Con.Open(System.Configuration.ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["blackpearlServer"]);

    // Create a process instance based upon the input values of the WF Activity
    k2Pi = k2Con.CreateProcessInstance(this.ProcessFolder + @"\" + this.ProcessName);

    // Impersonate as the user who started the WF in CRM
    k2Con.ImpersonateUser(crmUser);

    
    // Assign CRM Entity GUID to the process datafield
    if (this.EntityIDDatafield.Trim().Length > 0)
    {
        k2Pi.DataFields[this.EntityIDDatafield].Value = context.PrimaryEntityId.ToString();
    }

    // Assign CRM Entity Name to the process datafield
    if (this.EntityNameDatafield.Trim().Length > 0)
    {
        k2Pi.DataFields[this.EntityNameDatafield].Value = context.PrimaryEntityName;
    }                

    // Start K2 blackpearl process
    k2Con.StartProcessInstance(k2Pi);

    // set the WF Activity Output paramater
    this.ProcessInstanceId = k2Pi.ID.ToString();

}
catch (Exception ex)
{
    throw;
}
finally
{
    if (k2Con != null)
        k2Con.Close();
}

The code here is standard Workflow API code using the Connection object to get a connection to the K2 blackpearl server and the ProcessInstance object to start a new instance of the process. There are a couple of interesting elements to this code.

We use the ImpersonateUser method in combination of the user’s domain name that we retrieved from CRM so that we can start the process as the same user who initiated the CRM workflow. We use ImpersonateUser rather Connection.Open because we know who the user is but do not have access to their password so we connect to the blackpearl server as the service account and then impersonate as the respective CRM user.

The other interesting element is the assignment of the entity name and entity ID to the process data fields. Here you see how we use the input properties to determine which data fields in the process these values will be stored in.

Step 4 – Deployment

Now that we’ve developed our custom workflow activity it is time to deploy it. I chose to use the Plugin Registration tool that is available with the CRM SDK (..\SDK\tools\pluginregistration)

Step 5 – Create a blackpearl Process

Now that we’ve got our custom workflow activity deployed into CRM we are all set to use it….. but before we can we need a K2 blackpearl process. I’m sure you are all well versed in building K2 blackpearl processes and building one for CRM is no different. The only prerequisite is the two process data fields that will ultimately hold the entity name and entity ID. As a rule I generally create data fields of type string called CRM Entity ID and CRM Entity Name.

In Chapter 3 we go into detail about how to use CRM forms as client event pages in processes.

Step 6 – Putting it to the Test

Now it’s time to dive in to CRM and configure a workflow that starts out K2 blackpearl process. Open CRM and go to the Settings tab and then Workflows. Click the New button and when prompted provide a name and select the CRM entity your workflow will be associated with. Now you can define your CRM workflow (nothing like the visual modelling experience you get with K2 blackpearl), when you click the Add Step button you will see a K2 blackpearl option and the Start K2 blackpearl Process activity.

Select this activity. Now provide a nice label for this step in the workflow and then click the Set Properties button. You will now be able to configure the input properties that we defined in our custom workflow activity.

Once you’re done save and publish the CRM workflow and we’re all done. You now have a CRM workflow that when it’s kicked off with initiate a K2 blackpearl process giving you the full benefits of an dedicated business process management platform.

Next Up

In the next chapter we’ll be adding the K2 Worklist to Dynamics CRM so that users can access all of their K2 blackpearl tasks straight from CRM.

As I mentioned, all source code for this post and all other posts in this series can be found in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 - blackpearl Integration blackmarket project on K2 Underground.

Jonno

The K2 Book: Professional K2 blackpearl

2009-01-25T15:00:00Z

Hi All,

Just to let you know that the K2 book is now officially available:

Professional K2 blackpearl

A brief description of Professional K2 blackpearl is below:

Built on Microsoft technologies including Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, SQL Server, Microsoft Office 2007, and Visual Studio 2005 and 2008, the latest K2 [blackpearl] release provides you with mature workflow management systems that can automate processes or pull together people, services, and systems. You’ll get an introduction to workflow and business processes management, planning and administering a K2 infrastructure, and building processes and workflow.

Get Your Copy Now

Click on the link below:

You can find more details on the below link:

http://www.k2.com/k2book

Enjoy!

Server was unable to process request. ---> Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

2009-01-16T14:34:00Z

Often you will find when working with InfoPath processes you will run into this error on deployment of the K2 process.

Before you tear your process apart to find the cause of the problem I suggest going into InfoPath (IP), run the Design Checker and make sure there are no IP errors.

If there are errors fix them before your next deploy. Hopefully that sorts you out!

K2 blackpearl French WebCast and LiveMeeting online

2008-12-11T18:08:00Z

English bellow

Bonjour à tous,

Une fois n'est pas coutume, je me permets de poster en français pour vous annoncer la mise en ligne de 2 courtes WebCast et 1 LiveMeeting en français sur K2 blackpearl sur le site des Microsoft Technet (Windows Live Id requis, si vous n'avez pas de compte, contactez-moi pour pouvoir les télécharger).

Présentation courte de K2 blackpearl. (8 minutes)
Démonstration courte de K2 blackpearl. (13 minutes)
Enregistrement du LiveMeeting du 20 Novembre 2008 (45 minutes)

English translation ;-)

Hello all,

Just for once, let me post in French to announce the launch of 2 short French WebCast and 1 LiveMeeting on K2 blackpearl on the Microsoft Technet site (Windows Live Id required, if you do not have an account, please contact me to download).

Quick K2 blackpearl presentation. (8 minutes)
Quick K2 blackpearl demonstration. (13 minutes)
20th November 2008, LiveMeeting Record. (45 minutes)

-- by Jean Cadeau

Email Enabling a Document Library in SharePoint

2008-12-03T11:36:00Z

This is quite a useful feature of SharePoint if you would like to start a K2 process based on the retrieval of an email. SharePoint even allows you to manage the attachments of the email with one of the following options:

Save all attachments in root folder
Save all attachments in folders grouped by e-mail subject
Save all attachments in folders grouped by e-mail sender

Follow these easy steps to email enable your SharePoint document library.

Ensure the Windows SharePoint Services Timer (owstimer.exe) Service is running

Open SharePoint Central Administration
Go to the Operations, Incoming E-mail Settings
Enable Incoming E-mail, Settings Mode: Advanced
Set E-mail Drop Folder to c:\inetpub\mailroot\drop

Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager
Right click on Default SMTP Virtual Server and select Properties
Go to the Access Tab
In both Connection Control and Relay Restrictions ensure that “All except the list below” is selected
Go to your List or Document library Settings, select Incoming e-mail settings

Allow this document library to receive e-mail? Yes
Specify e-mail address

It's true that email enabled lists is an option in WSS 3.0 not just MOSS 2007. But be cautious as to the limitations of SharePoint and do thorough research as to the reasons you want to email enable your list in SharePoint. Here are some sites to use as a starting point:

http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/10/23/email-enabled-lists-and-inbound-email.aspx

http://www.combined-knowledge.com/Downloads/How%20to%20configure%20Email%20Enabled%20Lists%20in%20Moss2007%20RTM%20using%20Exchange%202003.pdf

TechEd EMEA 2008 Competition Winners

2008-11-14T13:03:00Z

TechEd 2008 comes to an end and we wrapped up the final day by announcing the competition winner Anders Mikkelsen from Carlsberg IT. It was a great turn out with many of the delegates showing their support for K2 by wearing their K2 branded shirts.

It was a very successful event and we hope to see you at TechEd 2009 in Berlin.