Easily Import Visio Flowcharts as SharePoint Designer Workflows

So here is a another feature that makes you happier when you are using the SharePoint Designer 2010. The integration with Visio 2010 has been improved quite-a-bit. Now you can create your companies workflows diagrams as flowcharts in Visio 2010 and export the file, to consume/import it back in SPD 2010. Awesome! I like that.

So you must be thinking to get started right away……. but wait !!!

There are some pre-reqs to this. You need to have the Premium edition for Visio 2010. With this edition, you can find the specific “SharePoint Workflow” templates to start creating the flowcharts.

So buckle up – and lets start the tour.

#1. Open Visio 2010 Premium edition.

#2. Select “Flowchart” and then “Microsoft SharePoint Workflow” from “Choose a Template”. Select your own Units, I selected [US Units] and click Create.

#3. You will get to choose from a list of SharePoint Workflow Actions, Conditions and Terminators.

This can then be very easily exported as a .vwi (visio workflow interchange) file which can be imported in your SharePoint Designer workflows and vice-versa too.

So have fun with SPD 2010 workflows.

Technorati Tags: SharePoint,Designer,2010,Visio,Workflows,Import,Export

Configure Reporting Services with SharePoint 2010

This post is in continuation from this post, where we saw how to proceed with this install and configuration when we already have the DBEngine, Analysis Services, etc installed on a SQL Box except for the Reporting Services.
Here, I proceed from where we select the Reporting Services Configuration Manager from the Configuration Tools.

Start the Reporting Services Configuration Manager and find your server/instance.

Click connect and you will see the next screen:

Follow the screens depicted as below to complete the rest of configurations.











I skipped the Report Manager URL, Email Settings and Executive Account as it is not mandatory at this step.

Take the encryption key backup.
Scale-out Deployment was disabled.
Now go back to the Web Service URL and Click Apply.

Next, you need to configure the Central Admin.
Go to CA –> General Application Settings –> Reporting Services Integration

And that should be all.

Update: Dec 23, 2011
If you need to read more about some of the requirements for running SSRS in SharePoint Integrated mode, visit this MSDN article.

And this Technet details much about SSRS Integration in SP 2010.

Technorati Tags: SharePoint,2010,Reporting,Services,Configure