K2 Workflow Designer - Introduction
K2 Workflow Designer is surfaced in SmartForms and provides the tools to build, modify and share workflows in SmartForms.
Why use the K2 Workflow Designer?
K2 provides many approaches for creating and working with workflows. K2 Studio or K2 Designer for Visual Studio can be used by developers that have installed it on their computers.The K2 Workflow Designer can be used by business users who have access to a web browser.
The major advantage to hosting the workflow designer within the browser is a broad reach to users in an organization. This allows users who do not want or need K2 Studio to participate in K2 Workflow design. However, the browser experience is not the same as a traditional Windows-based development environment. There are many differences between the workflow environments, but the core features are supported in all environments.
The functional differences
The K2 Workflow Designer is hosted inside a browser. There is no equivalent of a solution or project as in K2 Studio or K2 Designer for Visual Studio, as the user is working with a particular workflow and everything relates to that workflow. However, everything that happens inside the browser for a particular workflow is maintained in the same project structure as a project designed in K2 Studio or K2 Designer for Visual Studio.
Integration with K2 Studio
K2 Workflows designed in the K2 Workflow Designer can be exported, this compiles the workflow and saves the K2 Workflow Designer project files to a self extracting file that the user can download from the Workflow Designer site. The workflow can then be opened in K2 Studio for further development.
In order to make K2 Studio and K2 Designer for Visual Studio SmartObjects available for use in the K2 Workflow Designer, the option Allow the SmartObject to be used in Workflows need to be selected in the SmartObject Designer on the Details Form. The SmartObject can be edited from the category tree in the K2 Designer
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