Update SharePoint Progress Bar with Flow

Most people prefer to see graphic representations instead of figures, so a progress bar in a SharePoint Tasks list is probably a welcome addition. In a new article in the kalmstrom.com Tips section, I describe how a flow can maintain such a progress bar. The same technique can of course be used for other conditional formatting.

% Complete
The SharePoint Tasks list template has a "% Complete" column, but users don't always fill it out. I think they will be more inclined to do that if the figure is visualized in a progress bar. A flow can pick up the value in the "% Complete" column and show it graphically, like in the image below.

HTML code
The progress bar will be placed in a custom multiple lines of text column with Enhance rich text enabled, and for my example bar I have used a simple table with one row and two columns – one green and one red. The red column has a minimum height, so that it will be visible even if there is no content in it.

The trick is to let the flow read the value in the "% Complete" column and set the width of the green part of the bar according to that value. The red column will be adjusted automatically, as the table has a fixed width.

kalmstrom.com article
The article about the progress bar flow in the Tips section of our website has step-by-step instructions for the flow. Especially detailed are the steps for the most difficult part: the expression that reads the"% Complete" value and from that calculates how many pixels are needed for the green part of the progress bar.

The article also has the HTML code for the progress bar and information on how to hide the column with the progress bar in the task item form. And of course it also contains the demo above!

Kanban Task Manager
For more advanced tasks management I recommend Kanban Task Manager. This kalmstrom.com product visualizes tasks as color coded cards on a kanban board in SharePoint, and of course each card has a progress bar!

A Kanban Task Manager subscription allows an unlimited number of installations, so each team can have their own kanban board. It is easy for managers to navigate between the boards and supervise the progress.

By Peter Kalmström
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

Get Forms Data into SharePoint

As SharePoint has excellent capabilities for sharing and working with data, it is often convenient to fetch data from other online platforms and add it to SharePoint Online lists. In a new article in the kalmstrom.com Tips section, I create a survey in Microsoft Forms and build a flow that adds the responses to two SharePoint lists.

Microsoft Forms
Forms is an app for creation of surveys, quizzes, and polls that is included in most Office 365 commercial and educational subscriptions. It is quick to create a questionnaire in Forms, even if the customization possibilities are limited, and Microsoft has also made it easy to share the form and analyze the responses.

SharePoint Online
As Forms is included in Office 365, you can of course let colleagues access to your forms responses and analyze them in place, but you will have more possibilities if you let a flow copy the answers to a SharePoint list. If you are logged in with the same account when you create the form and the flow, such a flow is not very complicated.

Pivot Explorer
Excel is excellent for analyses, but a new kalmstrom.com SharePoint add-in makes it possible to work in an Excel-like way directly in SharePoint lists. It is called Pivot Explorer and supports a range of different charts and tables, that you can modify by just moving the dimensions around. Pivot Explorer can be used for business intelligence and data visualization with both SharePoint Online and SharePoint on-premises.

Flow
The Forms-Flow-SharePoint article has two demos. In the first one, I create a survey to be used by an imaginary bicycle company. It has a number of questions to be answered, and nearly all responses will be copied to a "Leads" SharePoint list by the flow I show in the second demo.

The last question, "Do you want to receive our newsletter?" does not require analysis, so the "Yes" responses to that question will be copied to a separate list, "Newsletters", together with the respondent's name and e-mail address. Then you can of course let another flow pick up those details and send the newsletters automatically.

In the demo above I describe how the flow is built, and in the Tips article you can also find step-by-step-instructions. The process is similar when you want to fetch data from other online services to SharePoint, so I hope you will consider my survey example as an inspiration for further exploration of Microsoft Flow!

By Peter Kalmström
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

kalmstrom.com Developer Fascinated by Games and Boxing

Many of you have had contact with the kalmstrom.com sales or support staff, but today I want to introduce one of the team members who works "behind the scene": a developer. Here he will tell you about himself:

First of all I want to say Alhamdulillah (Praise be to Allah) as Allah gave me a lot of things. This is Faheem Ansari, developer in the kalmstrom.com team since 2016. I am born and raised in Indore, and I love challenges, ideas and versatility.

When I was 5, I saw something that changed my mind and thinking: a video game. That fascinated me so much that it led me to become a software professional. To me, video games are interactive media that are highly technical and yet creative products.

Since 2016 I have worked on multiple and versatile projects in the kalmstrom.com Indore office and achieved success with a wonderful team. My area of development includes custom SharePoint apps, sandboxed solutions and SharePoint PowerShell scripts as well as our standard SharePoint products, like Kanban Task Manager and Pivot Explorer.

                      

I am passionate to enhance myself, as I strongly believe that I could be better than who I am. Therefore, I always love to find out new stuff and try my hands on it. I truly believe that you learn when you fail. You never learn when you succeed, so I am always eager for growth, to take risks and embrace failures. In return, I am learning and getting better. YouTube is my greatest source of information.

In the future, I would like to see myself as a “Digital Consultant”, but right now I am excited to work with Microsoft Power BI, Azure, Flow and Outlook add-ons.

Before working with kalmstrom.com, I was a freelancer. We were a small team working remotely, delivering CMS based websites and graphics to US and UK based clients. I spent two years with that, and it was a great experience.

In my life I have come across a few people that inspired me so much that my thinking and approach has changed. These inspiring people are the boxing legend Muhammad Ali, the Russian MMA champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and the Japanese video game designer Hideo Kojima.

More than just amazing sport personalities, both Khabib and Ali teach me that you must have faith and be on it, while Kojima’s creative ideas are extremely innovative and fascinating.

I’m a fitness lover and have a great affection for boxing. I spend every weekend working on heavy bags trying to strengthen the basics. Before I started my career I studied about games, specifically Game Mechanics and Level Progression. I have been into game development as well and submitted a 3D video game as my major project in college.

My life's greatest treasure is my parents. I learned from my dad how important it is to work hard in any situation. We were not upscale, but he worked very hard to raise me as a software professional.

My mom, well I simply don't have words to describe her role in my life. She is the most supportive and motivated person I have ever found. She has given me a gift: “Nasrum Minallahi Wa Fathun Qareeb” (Quran 61:13) which means “Help from Allah and a near victory”. I would like to give credits for all the success of my life to my parents.

I also have close ties to the rest of my family, and in the image to the right I spend time with my niece.

I would like to thank Kalmstrom Software Pvt.Ltd. for providing me a platform to unlock my potential and grow very quickly. I will keep working hard and render my services to the company.

Faheem Ansari
Junior Developer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

SharePoint Contracts Management with Reminder Flow

I continue writing articles with demos about SharePoint and Microsoft Flow, and in a new kalmstrom.com Tip I describe a model for Contracts Management in SharePoint.

Library content type
I recommend that you use a specific Contracts content type for SharePoint document libraries that contain contracts. That way you can make sure that they will contain the desired content and is managed in a consistent way.

A content type is a reusable collection of metadata columns and settings that describe the shared attributes and behaviors for a specific kind of content. By default, SharePoint has many predefined content types, such as Document. All document libraries are built on top of that content type. In the reminder flow I create in the article, I am using the Name property that the Document content type uses to store the name of the file.

You can also create your own custom content types. These build on the predefined content types, and when you create a custom content type for a Contracts document library you should create it from Documents. In the Tips article I show how to create such a content type.

Reminder Flow
All contracts have an expiry date, and someone has to keep track of them. If a flow sends an e-mail message to the responsible person one week before a contract expires, the chances increase that it will not be forgotten.

The flow I build sends such a message. It has a Schedule trigger and is rather straight-forward, except for the crucial point: the formula that decides when the e-mail should be sent.

That formula is a bit complicated, but you can find it in the article's step-by-step instruction. I actually made a mistake when I recorded the demo. I let it stay, because trouble-shooting is an important part when you learn how to automate SharePoint processes, and here I had a chance to demonstrate it.

I hope the Flow demo above will be useful. It builds on the content type I show in the Tips article, but you can of course also use the flow for a standard document library. Just make sure that it has columns for Responsible person and Expiry date.

By Peter Kalmström
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

Let a Flow Set "Assigned To" in Tickets

When people report a problem, ask a question or order something via a SharePoint form, they probably don't know who will take care of their ticket. The responsible person must be set by someone else – or you can let a flow set a default responsible depending on issue category. That is what I show in the latest kalmstrom.com Tips article.

SharePoint lists
The flow uses two SharePoint lists, one for the default assignee settings and one for the tickets. The 'Assigned To' column in the tickets list should have a description that says that its value is set by a flow, and it should not allow multiple choices. At present, a flow cannot handle that.

Both lists have a column called "Ticket Category" with the same choice options. I have created it as a site column to be able to re-use it and have its values automatically indexed by the SharePoint search engine.

Please visit the Tips article about this "Set Assigned" flow if you want to see how I create those two lists.

SharePoint flow
The flow runs when a new item has been created in the reports list. It reads the value of the "Ticket Category" column in the new item and picks the default assignee for that value from the settings list.

The default assignee for a category should of course be the person who most often takes care of that kind of issues or orders, but he/she can also easily assign the ticket to another person. The flow just means that the assigning does not have to be done each time.

If a person needs to be replaced as default assignee, just edit the settings list and set a new default assignee. The flow will not be affected. It will continue to run as before and just show the new person as responsible in the tickets.

This demo is yet another one that I have created for my upcoming book SharePoint Flows from Scratch, and there will be more of them. Keep a lookout!

By Peter Kalmström
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

Diwali Celebration in New Indore Office

The Indian members of the kalmstrom.com team work hard together, but we also celebrate together! Right now, it is the Diwali holiday, and this Diwali was special for all of us as it was celebrated at our new office in India.

New kalmstrom.com office in India
The kalmstrom.com business is growing, and to keep up the good progress we need a bigger workplace. In 2018 several new people have joined the Indian team, and we are planning to hire more SharePoint Developers and QA testers. Therefore, the Indian staff has shifted to a bigger office in Indore.

Inauguration
Recently the team gathered in the new office for an inauguration ceremony. Puja, an Indian prayer ritual, was conducted to celebrate this auspicious event.

 In the picture above Jayant Rimza, kalmstrom.com Lead Developer and Director of the Indore office, is leading the prayer along with his wife Sushma. After the Puja, the whole team went out for a celebration lunch. (The little boy in the middle belongs to the next generation: Jayant's and Sushma's son Atiksh.)

Spacious office
The new office is spacious and very well furnished, and each employee has a separate cubical for him/herself. The office is located near Vijaynagar, one of the main and fast developing areas of Indore.

Diwali celebration
The kalmstrom.com team celebrates every festival with utmost energy and cheer. This was our first Diwali in the new office, and that gave us double cause for celebration.

‘Diwali’, or ‘Deepawali’, is one of the biggest Indian festivals. It celebrates the homecoming of Lord Rama and his wife Sita after 14 years of exile and his victory over the demon Ravan. People rejoice the victory of good over evil by decorating their homes, lighting earthen lamps, also called ‘diyas’, burning fire crackers and giving delicious sweets.

We also make ‘Rangoli’, not just for decoration but also as a symbol of good luck. Like every year, the Indore staff made a Rangoli this year as well. The image above shows my colleague Rituka Rimza and me at the Rangoli made by the team members.

Days Off and Support
Every year the kalmstrom.com team gets two days off for Diwali. This year, Peter and Jayant decided to extend the leave to three days, so that team members from outside Indore would get enough time to celebrate the festival with their family and friends.

                     

Another reason for the extended leave was that the team worked really hard this year to release some new kalmstrom.com products: Pivot Explorer and E-mail Converter for Azure and SharePoint. The managers thought that we deserved a break!

Even though the team is on leave, our lead developer Jayant and senior developer Jitu will be available to answer support e-mails and online chats. Due to the festive season they might not be able to answer as promptly as they normally do, but they will surely get back to you as soon as they can.

From all of us at kalmstrom.com, we wish you a very Happy & Prosperous Diwali. We hope that the divine festival brightens up your lives and fills it with never ending happiness!

By Dipti Francis
Executive Assistant
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

SharePoint Automation with Flow or Workflow?

In my previous blog post I showed how to create both flows and workflows that achieve the same thing: automatic SharePoint tasks creation. That was an example on how flows and workflows can be used for the same kind of SharePoint automation, even if they are created in different ways.

There are however important differences between flows and workflows, and you have to consider them when deciding which tool to use for each process automation. Here I will discuss some of these differences.

Why automate at all?
Before we go into the two major Microsoft tools for SharePoint automation, I want to point out why you should automate business processes in the first place. I explain that in more detail in the demo below, but the main reasons are:

• Accuracy – a flow or workflow always works in the same way.
• Tracking – process documentation is boring to do manually but easy with a flow/workflow.
• Speed – even if you include the delay before it runs, the flow/workflow is quicker than humans.

Traditional workflow
During the last ten years, workflows have been the traditional way of automating business processes in all kinds of SharePoint editions, both online and on-premises. Microsoft has given us a few built-in workflows, but other SharePoint workflows are created from scratch in a free designer tool, SharePoint Designer.

Workflows cannot easily connect to apps or services outside the SharePoint site where it is running. There are two versions of SharePoint workflows, 2010 and 2013, but there will not be a 2016 update.

New flow
At the beginning of 2016, Microsoft introduced a new service for workflow creation: Flow. This is a cloud based service, and a flow can connect to many other online services. Flows are created on a website, and the SharePoint Online modern interface also gives a possibility to create a flow directly from inside the list or library that you want it to manage.

Storage
If you use a flow for a business process, you must be aware that flows are stored in the personal account of the user who created them. Therefore, organizations who want to use Microsoft Flow should use a dedicated account for all flows. Then you can continue using and editing the flow even if a user leaves the organization, and you can also manage potential costs in cases of high volume flows.

In workflows the storage is not a problem, as workflows are stored in SharePoint and not in a user account.

Triggers
Workflows can start automatically when an item is created or changed, but flows have many more available triggers. This is partly depending on the multitude of services that flows can be used with, but also if you look at SharePoint only there are many more triggers than for workflows.

Templates
Microsoft wants Flow to be simple, easy to use automation tool so they offer a multitude of flow templates. Workflows, on the other hand, has no templates at all. Using templates can of course be a good way to start creating flows, but I actually prefer to start with a blank flow. Then I will have a clean flow that does not contain anything but the parameters I add to it.

	Flow	Workflow
Storage	User account	SharePoint
Services	Many cloud based	Only SharePoint
Creation	Web	SP Designer
Triggers	Many	Few
Templates	Yes	No
Works after change of list/column name	No	Yes
MS Development	Yes	No

Name changes
I also want to mention a less obvious issue with flows: if you change the name of a list or column that is monitored by a flow, you must change the name in the flow also. Workflows don't use the names you give to lists or columns. Instead they use the internal name, a GUID, and therefore workflows are not affected by any name changes.

Both flows and workflows have their benefits, and ideally you should learn both to be able to select the best option for each occasion. Flow is the future, but inside SharePoint the workflows are still very useful. In the kalmstrom.com Tips section you can learn much more about both flows and workflows.

By Peter Kalmström
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

Automate Tasks for New Employee Equipment

This week, I have published two new Tips articles on automatic task creation with flows and with workflows. Each article has two demos, as I describe an easier flow/workflow as well as a more advanced one that gives many benefits in the long run.

Equipment for new staff
When new staff joins an organization, there are certain things that always have to be done. The new employees will for example need some equipment, and the people responsible for arranging the equipment needs to be informed. This is a situation I have chosen to automate in my new articles.

Below I have included the two video demonstrations from the Flow article about automating tasks for new employee equipment, but if you prefer using a workflow, please study the Workflow article about  automatic task creation instead.

Hard-coded or dynamic?
You need some practice before you can create a really good flow or workflow, but it is of course better to automate business processes in a basic way than to not automate them at all. One common issue is how much you should hard-code.

It is often easier to hard-code data than to use dynamic content, and that is what I do with the equipment items in the first demo.

With dynamic content the flow/workflow will be much more flexible and user friendly. In the second demo, the equipment items are entered in a SharePoint settings list, from where the flow/workflow fetches the values as dynamic content.

The benefit of using dynamic content from a settings list, is that data can be changed without affecting the automation. This means that users can change values in the settings list when needed without problems. The flow/workflow will continue to run as before. That is not possible with hard-coded values. If they are changed, the flow or workflow must be modified too.

Flow or workflow?
As I use the same scenario of new staff equipment for both a flow and a workflow, I will soon follow up this blog post with a post about SharePoint automation in general, where I also mention some advantages and drawbacks of these two automation tools. Stay tuned!

By Peter Kalmström
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions