How We Did It Tracking and Reporting on a NonLinear Process with InfoPath and PowerPivot

Sadie Van Buren

Presented to SharePoint Saturday Boston, 28 April 2012

4/28/12 #SPSBOS @sadalit

Sadie Van Buren Content Architect

Working with SharePoint since beta 2003 version

50+ SharePoint implementations

Creator of the SharePoint Maturity Model

Microsoft Certified IT Pro

About

BlueMetal Architects Experts at building solutions that exactly meet the

needs of our customers by apply the right people, processes and platforms.

Focus on modernizing applications through expertise in

Creative, Social, Development and Data.

Offices in Boston, New York and Chicago.

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Linear and Nonlinear Processes

The Challenge

The Solution

Demo

Agenda

Submit request

Approve Request

Process Request

Send Materials

Submiter Signoff

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Recruiting

Cost containment

Innovation

Building a brand

Developing business strategy

Ensuring happy customers

Creating buzz

“Going Green”

Encouraging diversity

Seeking business opportunities

Increasing market share

What is a nonlinear process?

Request

Review

Graphics

Copyedit

Deliver

Request

Review

Graphics

Copyedit

COMPLIANCE

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Capture our process

Get us off Excel

Unify our global offices

And do it using NO CODE.

It has to look really nice,

be intuitive to use,

provide secured views by role,

send automated notifications,

and deliver powerful reporting.

The Challenge

And you can’t access the servers or Central Administration!

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Improve efficiency by reducing manual effort

Standardize the process across global offices

Speed up response time with automated notifications

Facilitate handoff among resources

Surface request status to the requestor as well as the working team

Respond to questions with “paper trail”

Track metrics of the process

The ROI

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SP 2010 Enterprise

with Infopath Services and PowerPivot configured.

The Prereqs

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SP 2010 Site

InfoPath form template, site content type, site columns, & form library

SP Designer workflow

Audit list

PowerPivot data feed

Excel Services reporting

Solution Design

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The Site

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The Form

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The Workflow

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The Audit List

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The Reports

Demo

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Maturity of This Solution - 350

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User Profile service data connection – a.k.a. “the dreaded 5566 error”

Kerberos

Managed Metadata

File interaction – attachments can’t be shown via the icon in the form library, no easy way to transfer them to a document library

No data feed from InfoPath Form Library

File attachment upload limit – 4 MB by default

Gotchas

And potentially many more!

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Color-coding (seen in request status on the site):

http://blog.pathtosharepoint.com/2010/04/06/tutorial-add-color-coding-to-your-sharepoint-2007-calendar-in-15-minutes/

PowerPivot add-in for Excel:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/bi/powerpivot.aspx

Resources

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Follow Up

@sadalit

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