Sean Wallbridge
I’m often amazed how few people realize that if you have SharePoint 2010 Server (or 2007) Standard, you have a couple of really useful workflows, out of the box, available to you that are very easy to implement and empower your staff.
It’s shocking actually…
Ensure the Site Collection “Workflows” feature is activated
If the feature is not activated, you’ll find you are missing several workflows. The image below illustrates a site that has the publishing feature enabled (thus the Publishing Approval workflow is there) but it does not have the SharePoint 2010 Approval, Collect Feedback or Collect Signatures workflows available.
To activate the feature, go into site settings in your site collection and choose “Site Collection Features”. Activate the “Workflows” Feature.
Once activated, you should see your available (out of the box) workflows available to your library:
Create a Collect Feedback Workflow (or several, based on any specific requirements) for your Document Library
In your library settings, choose Workflow Settings, Add a workflow
This post won’t be about all the available settings you can define but rather seeks to help you get a simple process up and going quickly. So for now, I want a manually started (started by a person) workflow that will collect feedback from the colleagues that I choose. So the following screens outline my choices.
For the reviewers section, I’ve opted not to set who it is assigned to in my workflow, as I can do that when each workflow is initiated. But sometimes I like to have these fields predefined, if it should be the same people involved in the process.
Note, the “order choices are Serial or Parallel”.
- Serial – this means a task is assigned to the first person and when they complete their task, the document workflow will be forwarded to the next person. This is almost always my preference.
- Parallel – if you hate your colleagues, use this option. Nothing better than 4 of you getting sent a task to open and comment on a document, only to find out that only one of you can work on it (unless of course you have Office 2010 and coauthoring … but that is for a different post).
Ok, I’ve got a Collect Feedback Workflow. How do I launch it?
Good stuff. You could launch it right now for a document… Simply click on the context menu of the document and choose “Workflows”.
Then choose your shiny new workflow and kick it off.
But Sean, that isn’t sexy enough…
Ok, buttercup, if I had a little more time today, I’d add a little more to this particular burrito (I think I’m also getting hungry). However, vacation kicks in shortly and I have a bunch to do. But I’d say the next step would be to define a Quick Step on your Ribbon Bar and possibly on the Context Menu as well, complete with a stylin’ icon.
Something like this maybe…
Note, you’ll do this by creating a “New Ribbon” Quick Step in SharePoint Designer:
And lookie here, Jennifer Mason has already covered the steps so I don’t need to 
Hello,
This really helped me. Though I’m taking over a sharepoint installation and figure out that on the sharepoint Site Collection, Workflow does not appears a feature in the list. Only the Three state worflow is present.
How can I make sure the sharepoint server have this workflow installed?
Thank you
Hi there, it sounds like the workflows feature isn’t activated in your site collection to make these available (also you need to have SharePoint Standard or Enterprise, not Foundation for these to be available).
Go into Site Settings, Site Collection Features (assuming you have permission to see this, you’ll need to be a site collection administrator), and activate the feature called “Workflows”.
Hope that helps.
Sean
Hi I wanted to use collect feedback option.
When users downloads the content inside the sharepoint , they should be reminded with feedback popup to rate the item. Can you please help.