Pre-installation and configuration overview

Before you can design and create processes, your work environment must be configured to work with Winshuttle Designer and Workflow.

1. Make sure your system meets the minimum system requirements.
2. Install the Winshuttle Workflow Server 10.x software. See the Winshuttle Foundation home page for instructions. Or, if applicable, refer your System Administrator to the Foundation site if they need to perform the installation.
3. Create one or more SharePoint sites (as needed) for your environment. Refer to your SharePoint documentation for instructions.

   NOTE: In some work environments, a System Administrator is responsible for creating the SharePoint site(s). If this is the case, contact your System Administrator to obtain the names (URLs) of the SharePoint sites you will be working with.

4. Create Document and/or Form Workflow SharePoint sites (as needed). Document and Form Workflow sites are SharePoint sites that are sub sites of another SharePoint site.
   • If your users will be routingdocuments, then one or more Document Workflow sites are needed.
   • If your users will be routing forms, then one or more Form Workflow sites are needed.
   • Depending on your environment and work practices, you may need only one Document Workflow site that contains all documents that will be routed, and only one Form Workflow site that contains all forms that will be routed.

   Alternately, you can create multiple Document and Form Workflow sites based on department, project team, document type or content, or any other criteria you choose. See the next section for instructions for creating Document Workflow and Form Workflow sites.

5. Make sure that Microsoft InfoPath is installed. If you route forms, Microsoft InfoPath must be on the client machine where you will be using the Designer.

Planning your Designer environment

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Before continuing, we recommend that you do some advance planning as follows:

• If you are responsible for creating a SharePoint site hierarchy, think about how your SharePoint sites are structured. For example, you can organize them by department or by project team.
• Consider the different processes you will need for your environment, and determine the steps required for each of them. You may want to write notes or draw a rough sketch of each process.
• Choose a standard convention for naming your processes. For example, you could begin all human resources-related processes with "HR" such as HRVacationRequest, HRTutionReimbursement, and HRSalaryAdjustment. Processes related to a project called Matrix could be named MatrixScheduleChange, MatrixQAChecklist, and MatrixDocReview.

If you find later that your initial decisions do not meet the needs of your environment, you can easily make changes later. Winshuttle Designer is flexible and allows for making frequent changes to suit the needs of your work environment.

Recommendation: Use a Development Server

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To minimize the risk of disruption and data loss, we strongly recommend installing SharePoint and Winshuttle Designer on a development (non-production) server first. The development sever simulates a server in a real work environment, but it operates in isolation, so that it does not affect other users. You can then create, test, and refine your processes on the development server before moving them onto a production sever in your real work environment. When you are ready to move to the production server, specify the URL of the production server within Winshuttle Designer, and publish your workflows and forms to that server.