Office 2010 Workflow: Developing Collaborative Solutions

Chapter 13. Using State Machine Workflows

Until now, you have used only sequential workflows. They are useful for fairly simple workflows and were adequate to demonstrate the features I have covered so far. If you're going to build any serious workflows, however, you will probably want to use a state machine workflow. They may take some getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, you'll find they can simplify your design and often more closely model the real-world scenarios.

The problem with sequential workflows is just that; they're sequential. They perform step A, then B, then C. You can use conditional branches and while loops, but you can't really step backward. For example, in the Three-state workflow you used in Chapter 4, the item ...