Jul 08 2008
VS2008 SharePoint Workflow Projects
I’ve only recently been working SharePoint and I’m still trying to get my head around the line that separates Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) from Microsoft Office SharePoint Services (MOSS). Yesterday I was able to clarify a bit more of my uncertainty.
I have been trying to create a Workflow solution for a client but I just couldn’t get it to work on my machine – Windows 2008 Server, WSS 3, VS2008 with extensions for SharePoint v1.2 and WPSBuilder addin. The problem was being caused by the SharePoint Sequential Workflow having a reference to Microsoft.Office.Workflow.Tasks. Removing the reference fixed the compilation errors, however the workflow still didn’t want to play ball with WSS. The workflow would install and I could associate it with a document library however, whenever I started the workflow I would get a failed on startup message.
The only thing I have been able to do to get the VS2008 SharePoint extensions workflow project to compile and run on my machine – given my time constraints – is to install MOSS on my development machine – which is what the client is running anyway.
Workflow is built into WSS, however, it doesn’t seem to be readily supported with a project type in VS2008. My advice for those that don’t have the resources to upgrade to MOSS is to not bother with the SharePoint extensions for VS but to take a look at Andrew Connell’s SharePoint Project Utility Tool.
Interesting – one of the things that used to frustrate me as a developer when working with MS server products was how so many things were interdependent – you just want X but to do that you need to buy Y and Z, and before you knew it you’d spent a ton of money licensing 5 server products (+ support) for what was actually a small boutique system. Much of it is by design I’m sure, the ‘chain buying’ effect is obviously a winner as a business model. Frustration with that snowball model is one of the reasons I originally started investigating open source in the first place.
It is true that Microsoft does have a history of trying to tie customers into their products. However, in the 5 short years that I have been working in the industry I have noticed a slight shift in the way they’re doing things. They seem to be acknowledging that small businesses out there aren’t wanting to pay enterprise prices for enterprise features.
Unfortunately the pace of development of Mircosoft seems to result in the free or cheaper products being lacking in documentation which is why I got into the problems I did. I guess you could say that leaves small businesses with a choice between more expensive licenses or high R&D costs.
My problem with open source systems is that there is almost too much choice and that there is far too much configuration and (in the case of linux) far too much compiling to be done. I’m sure that gives the user much more flexibility but (at this stage in my learning) I’d rather give up some of that flexibility if the system does 80% of what I need straight out of the box.
To their credit MS have always been good at undercutting costs in business environments – Oracle for example have the exact same chain-buying model but their stuff is usually more expensive (although also a little more capable at times, although you have to go pretty big or specialised to notice, and the lead is eroded each year). But as a business they can’t help but encourage the chain-buying still, it just makes sense – although it appears they’re now trying to do it more on convenience than lock-in, ie it’s just easier to use all MS stuff than mix & match. Or at least it is until you hit the limit of what they’ve designed for.
I’ve always had to work in a heterogenous environment so I guess I’ve had the idea of having to make different manufacturers stuff work together for most of the 15 years I’ve been doing this. It’s definitely trickier not having a single company to blame, but it’s also more liberating. I’ve hit brick walls with all manufacturers products at various times in my career, because they hadn’t envisaged using their products a certain way, or in certain environments, and working around that is always a nightmare – reverse engineering, bolt-ons, or just jumping products entirely eats a ton of time and that remaining 20% can be very top heavy in terms of resources. I’ve found open source ‘takes the lid off’ so to speak and those barriers don’t exist. It’s more investment up front, but I feel my investment is worth more long term because I have more control over it, and can take it where I want without one company telling me what can and cannot be done, and what tools & server products I have to use.
There’s definitely pros and cons to both models.
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