12.5. Creating Custom Workflows for SharePoint Publishing Sites
While the Approval workflow template is very useful within Publishing sites, at times business requirements dictate a more complex solution than what is provided in MOSS 2007. In these cases, developers are free to create custom workflow templates for use within Publishing sites. Developers have two options when it comes to creating workflows in SharePoint sites (not just Publishing sites): creating workflows using Office SharePoint Designer (SPD) 2007 or Visual Studio 2005/2008. Each tool has advantages and disadvantages associated with it.
12.5.1. Creating Workflows with SharePoint Designer
As far as workflow development is concerned, SPD is targeted to information workers or those creating simple, one-off workflows. Workflows created with SPD are not templates; they are associated with a SharePoint list at design time. The first thing the user must do when creating a new workflow in SPD is to select the list it is associated with. SPD doesn't provide a way to either save the workflow to another list or copy it for use in another list. The workflow wizard SPD is very much like the Rules wizard Outlook offers when creating rules for e-mail. While workflows can be created fairly quickly and easily, in many ways they are limited when compared to those created using Visual Studio.
Workflows created in SPD are bound to a specific list at design time. This means that the workflows cannot be duplicated without manually ...
