Episode 4: Install and Configure Workflow Manager Client

1. Open Remote Desktop, navigate to SharePoint Server 2013 and login as the SharePoint Administrator
2. Once logged in, open a browser session and visit the Microsoft Resource Center. Install the Workflow Manager Client. Be sure to qualify your search by noting Workflow Manager running on a separate server and SSL encrypted traffic to obtain the correct client. For this procedure you will download the client and install using a local “run” command
3. Once the “Run” request has been authenticated for your login as SharePoint Administrator, the Web Platform Installer 4.5 process will begun to install the Workflow Manager client on SharePoint Server 2013
4. On the client has been installed on the SharePoint 2013 Server, return to the Microsoft Resource Center and check for any updates. Download and run the most recent updates available

Episode 5: Configure the SharePoint Farm with the Workflow Farm (Pair the SharePoint Farm to Work With the Workflow Farm)

1. Log into the SharePoint Server as the SharePoint Administrator
2. Open a browser and visit the Microsoft Resource Center visited earlier, on several occasions, in this procedure comprising 6 episodes
3. Select the Configuration scenario where Workflow Manager is running on a separate server from SharePoint 2013 and the data communications traffic uses HTTP (for SSL, encrypted sessions) and copy the specific SharePoint Administrative Shell Commandlet provided to configure (pair) the SharePoint Farm and the Workflow Manager Farm for this architecture
4. Verify there are no problems accessing either the SharePoint 2013 Server, or the Workflow Manager Server using an SSL URL with a browser (you will need to add the Workflow Manager site as a “trusted site” for the browser to successfully complete this step
5. Next run the “Pairing Commandlet” from the SharePoint Administrative Shell (be sure to right click the icon for this tool and select to “run as an administrator”) (the video includes the correct shell syntax to run the Commandlet)

Ira Michael Blonder

© Rehmani Consulting, Inc. & Ira Michael Blonder, 2013 All Rights Reserved

Episode 2, Pre-install steps

1. Create Workflow Set Up and Service Accounts in Active Directory
2. Create the Workflow Administrators Group in Active Directory
3. Add the Service Account to the Workflow Administrator Group
4. Add the Set Up Account, with Administrator Privileges, to SQL Server with SQL Server Management Studio
5. and, finally, add the Set Up Account to the Workflow Administrator Group on the Workflow Server

Episode 3, Install and Configure Workflow Manager

1. Log into the Workflow Server using the Workflow Set Up Account
2. With a web browser, install Workflow Manager as a Web Platform Installer (PI) Link from the SharePoint 2013 Resource Center
3. Install the Cumulative Patch, dated March, 2013 Update for Workflow Manager 1.0 and the Workflow Manager Client from the Microsoft Download Center. Be sure to include the cumulative updates for the Client as well.
4. Install the latest patch for the Service Bus from the Microsoft Download Center. This step requires a separate query for “Service Bus” with the Search Box for the Download Center.
5. Configure Workflow Manager over an encrypted Secure Socket Layer (SSL) browser session between Workflow Manager and SQL Server 20123. Be sure to use the Certificate Snap In from the Microsoft Management Console to request a new certificate (for a fully qualified domain name) from the certificate authority. Click “Start” and type in “mmc” to access the Microsoft Management Console from one’s local system. The video demonstrates the steps required to request the new certificate from the certificate authority
6. Once the new certificate has been located, return to the Workflow Manager Configuration Program to configure the service.
7. Enter the name address for SQL Server 2012
8. Set SSL for type of communication between Workflow Manager and SQL Server
9. Specify the user account as the Workflow Service Account set up earlier in the process
10. Uncheck the box for “auto generate” certificates and enter the certificate requested earlier
11. Set the user group as the Workflow Admins Group created earlier in the process
12. Test the Connection to verify communication with SQL Server. The narrator recommends checking to make sure the Firewall settings permit SQL Server SSL encrypted traffic
13. Once communication has been verified with SQL Server, proceed to the Service Bus configuration, which should also be conducted with the newly generated SSL certificates
14. Once the Service Bus has also been configured, Visit the Configuration Summary page to verify everything has been correctly set for Workflow Manager and the Service Bus

Ira Michael Blonder

© Rehmani Consulting, Inc. & Ira Michael Blonder, 2013 All Rights Reserved

• The organization already has an extensive set of workflows in use, which were developed with the Workflow engine included with SharePoint Server 2010. As we noted in our last post, these workflows will continue to work fine with SharePoint Server 2013.
• The organization requires workflows to be developed in accordance with the SharePoint Client Object Model. Workflow Manager 1.0 does not conform to the SharePoint Client Object Model, neither will workflows built to run over Workflow Manager 1.0
• SharePoint Server 2013 Farm architecture does not conform to a high density, multi-tenant cloud profile. Workflow Manager 1.0 is intended to optimize performance of workflows for the likelihood an organization will implement a high density, multi-tenant cloud profile

If, given the above it still looks to be a sensible approach to install Workflow Manager 1.0, this series of videos from Microsoft can be helpful.

The set of 6 videos on this topic, Video series: Install and configure Workflow in SharePoint Server 2013, can be accessed on one page of Microsoft’s SharePoint site on TechNet.

The first video, “Installing and Configuring Workflow in SharePoint Server 2013, Part 1, and Introduction” is approximately 1 minute in length. The video presents the supporting infrastructure, which includes dedicated servers for SharePoint Server 2013, Workflow Manager, Active Directory, and SQL Server 2012. Windows Server 2012 runs on each of the 4 servers. The Domain Controller is Active Directory. The Active Directory server also performs the role of Certificate Authority for the example, Contoso domain. SharePoint Server 2013 should already be running for the example scenario to work.

Workflow Manager 1.0 implements a client server model. The client will run on SharePoint Server 2013. The server runs on the Workflow Manager server included in the infrastructure plan. A PowerShell commandlet will be run from the client to the Workflow Manager server. The client and server will be paired to complete the installation.

Ira Michael Blonder

© Rehmani Consulting, Inc. & Ira Michael Blonder, 2013 All Rights Reserved

This presentation will likely leave the viewer with a clear impression of a planned separate product path for the new Workflow Manager available for SharePoint 2013. As the narrator explains, ” . . . SharePoint 2013 is merely the first customer for Workflow Manager. There will be others.” (quoted from this video, a link is provided in this post to the entire video” Workflow Manager must be downloaded separately and ” . . . scales separately . . . ” (ibid) from SharePoint. It has its own content and configuration data, which is stored in a separate SQL Server database.

A third application has been built to work with SharePoint 2013 and Workflow Manager, a component called Service Bus, which, in turn we are told, has its own configuration data, stored in yet another SQL Server database. The method of communication between SharePoint 2013 and Workflow Manager runs over TCP/IP, “named pipes” (ibid).

But the same Workflow Engine included with SharePoint Server 2010 (automatically installed at the same time the server is implemented) is also included with SharePoint Server 2013. The narrator assures the audience workflows built with SharePoint Server 2010 will run fine with SharePoint Server 2013. They can be edited with SharePoint Designer 2013 as long as the workflow type is set to “SharePoint 2010 Workflow”. The narrator notes the option for “SharePoint 2013 Workflow” will not show up in SharePoint Designer 2013 if the Workflow Manager has not been separately installed.

The narrator acknowledges the possibility of confusion as users consider why two different workflow platforms were offered with SharePoint 2013. The answer, he explains, is important. In fact, Workflow Manager was built for Cloud characterized by “high density, multi-tenant environments” (ibid). We think this makes a lot of sense.

But users planning how to plan new workflows may want to stick with SharePoint Server 2010′s Workflow Engine as the supporting system. The narrator cautions the fact Workflow Manager is a separate application ” . . . is great for scalability, but the new platform lacks the deep integration with the SharePoint Object Model which was provided when workflow was baked right into SharePoint.

Ira Michael Blonder

© Rehmani Consulting, Inc. & Ira Michael Blonder, 2013 All Rights Reserved

In the opening scene of this video Mr. Peschka presents a new feature of analytics for SharePoint 2013: it’s built on “Request Management” (not defined in this video). The analytics feature has been completely rewritten for SharePoint 2013. The rationale for the rewrite was a need to better equip SharePoint 2013 analytics to contribute, meaningfully, to collaboration objectives, foremost of these being the need for a method of demonstrating the popularity of specific assets stored in SharePoint in terms of user visits, pageviews, etc.

Usage of items included in SharePoint 2013 lists can now be measured, which was not possible with the analytics feature included with SharePoint 2010. The service has also been made more efficient, so smaller servers can be successfully implemented to run the analytics service. There is even an option to use a “Content by Search” web part, presumably to display visits in a manner consistent with the kind of visit counters seen in the early days of the web.

Metrics on usage, and item popularity can also be used in an analysis of return on investment in SharePoint 2013. We prefer this type of application of the data. In this video Mr. Peschka also speaks of reorganizing SharePoint 2013 search results based upon the historic popularity of specific items. This option is not attractive to us. We think the main purpose of SharePoint search is to expose the most relevant content stored in SharePoint when the search service is used for queries, and not the most popular.

The new analytics service can also be applied to specific SharePoint 2013 site collections. We tested the feature with our SharePoint Online, Office 365 implementation. The descriptive information included in this video presentation is entirely consistent with SharePoint Online.

Ira Michael Blonder

© Rehmani Consulting, Inc. & Ira Michael Blonder, 2013 All Rights Reserved

The safest way to copy a master page, and its matching HTML file, is with SharePoint Designer, 2013. With a simply “ctrl C” and “ctrl V” procedure a master page can be copied into a local file suitable for customization. As Yaroslav notes in this video, inadvertently saving changes to the same file name for a master page is a very risky procedure. Once changed, the master page will no longer be accessible in its out of the box condition. Important features may be lost. Better to work with a copy when the objective is to create a new custom version of a master page.

The Master Page gallery can be accessed directly from SharePoint Designer 2013, with a click on the “Master Pages” link exposed in the “Site Objects” section of the left hand “Navigation” bar. SharePoint Designer 2013 will filter the master pages and layouts included in the “Master Pages and Layouts” gallery, providing a fast method of getting right to the master pages.

As we noted in the previous post to this blog, any customization needs to be effected through the .html version of the master page. SharePoint Designer 2013 will not permit users to modify the .master version of the master page. It’s fine working with the .html page. If a new .html page is saved, SharePoint Designer 2013 will automatically create a .master version of the page.

The “preview in the browser” feature of SharePoint Designer 2013 can be used to study the way a master page actually appears. As Yaroslav demonstrates, a benefit of using this feature for the Firefox browser is the access it will provide to Firebug as a method of identifying structural elements of the page requiring customization. In the next post to this blog we will continue our commentary on this tutorial.

Ira Michael Blonder

© Rehmani Consulting, Inc. & Ira Michael Blonder, 2013 All Rights Reserved

Yaroslav defines 5 scenarios where it makes sense to customize master pages:

1. You need to either add or remove structural components (for example, a search box) to a site page template
2. Custom controls (breadcrumbs, a custom navigation scheme) are required for site pages
3. Key components of the user interface (the Suitebar, for example) need to be modified
4. Custom JavaScript must be added to page templates
5. or, finally, your customizations will be used across a number of other pages throughout the site

If the customization required doesn’t require one of the above types of customization a better approach is to use the point and click customization capability presented by the “Looks” feature of the “Look and Feel” menu for publishing sites. So viewers should conclude industry best practices call for modifying master pages ONLY when necessary, when one of the above mentioned activities is required.

In SharePoint 2013 (and SharePoint Online, Office 365), each master page is accompanied with a matching .html page. Any work on master pages should be accomplished with the .html page, as Yaroslav points out.

The master pages and page layouts are accessed through the Site Settings page in the Web Designer Galleries section. Each master page is identified with a .master file name suffix.

As Yaroslav points out, the preferred tool to use to customize master pages is SharePoint Designer 2013. Note: SharePoint Designer 2013 no longer includes “Design View”. Any customization will require working with HTML code. In the next post to this blog we’ll continue our commentary as Yaroslav creates a custom CSS for a master page, creating a new custom master page and uploads it to SharePoint Online.

Ira Michael Blonder

© Rehmani Consulting, Inc. & Ira Michael Blonder, 2013 All Rights Reserved

“Navigation” presents the navigation settings for a site. As Yaroslav Pentsarskyy explains “In SharePoint 2013 there are two types of navigation. There is a “managed” and a “structured” navigation. The structured navigation will be built out as you create your pages. So as sites and sub sites arebeing created, the navigation links are being added up and sub navigation links are being added up to it. The managed navigation is a new type of navigation . . . ”

Yaroslav goes on to explain some of the power of this new managed navigation feature. New pages will automatically receive search engine friendly URLs (meaning no .aspx suffix to page titles, though the .aspx suffix will show up under “Site Contents” and then “Pages”), which Yaroslav notes as being ” . . . really useful for public sites”.

We followed Yaroslav’s steps in this video tutorial with our own SharePoint Online site. Our “Look and Feel” set included the “Navigation” feature. When we clicked on the “managed” navigation option, we landed on a page where we could specify the Term Set to be used for navigation. This is a powerful feature. Administrators and developers who choose the “managed” option can use SharePoint Online (or SharePoint 2013) to build a site structure in complete conformance to a term set, which, in turn, can be defined by the specific taxonomy for an organizations. We think this feature will be very attractive for heavily regulated businesses. An added benefit for designers opting for a managed navigation for a site, as Yaroslav explains, is elimination of “404 Page Not Found” messages as pages change overtime. In contrast, with structural navigation this error message can still occur.

The final feature of the “Look and Feel” section, “Image Renditions” provides designers and administrators with a method of providing users with a limitless number of preconfigured renditions of the same image, thereby minimizing chances of errors occurring as users work with pages. These different renditions are based on size. So different sizes for the same image can be made available as unique objects available for user selection. Out of the box, SharePoint Online and SharePoint 2013 ship with 4 renditions:

1. Display Template Picture 3 Lines (100px Width, 100px Height)
2. Display Template Picture On Top (304px Width, 100px Height)
3. Display Template Large Picture (468px Width, 220px Height)
4. Display Template Video (120px Width, 68px Height)

Administrators can control how images appear on pages, to ensure uniformity of visual presentation, by directing users to choose one of the above options when working with different layouts.

Ira Michael Blonder

© Rehmani Consulting, Inc. & Ira Michael Blonder, 2013 All Rights Reserved

The “Title, Description and Logo” feature provides publishing sites and team sites with the capability of adding unique page titles, descriptions and even logos by completing a form box and selecting, or uploading a logo.

The “Welcome Page” feature can be used to specify the landing page for a publishing site. The Page Gallery feature can also be used to choose this page with simply a click on a page icon in the gallery, and then a click on the “Page” ribbon to make the page the homepage for a site.

“Device Channels” permits the selection of a specific rendering type for tablets, and/or smartphones.

The “Tree View” feature can be used to disable the “Quick Launch” menu in order to use a “Tree View” user navigation system through the pages of a publishing site. Opting for this change, as Yaroslav points our in our video, opens up the left hand side of a master page to be used for some other purpose.

“Change the Look” provides administrators and designers with a method of choosing a “look” from a predefined set of options, or even to create a custom “look” based upon one of the predefined “looks” in the set. Color schemes and even page layouts can be changed with merely a set of clicks of a mouse. A background image can be uploaded and added to a custom “look” through this feature. Working with the “Change the Look” feature may be a safer option for administrators than choosing to empower users to modify the actual code of either the Oslo or Seattle master pages, which ship with out of the box SharePoint 2013.

In the next post to this blog we will finish up our commentary on this new video with a few words on the “Navigation” and the “Image Renditions” features of the “Look and Feel” section.

Ira Michael Blonder

© Rehmani Consulting, Inc. & Ira Michael Blonder, 2013 All Rights Reserved

The purpose of the “Look and Feel” section of the Site Settings page for SharePoint 2013 is to present a series of capabilities to SharePoint administrators and designers. The capabilities include:

1. Design Manager
2. Master Page
3. Page Layouts and Site Templates
4. Welcome Page
5. Title, Description and Logo
6. Device Channels
7. Tree view
8. Change the Look
9. Import Design Package
10. Navigation
11. and Image Renditions

Our video tutorial explores these capabilities as they can be applied to Publishing Sites in SharePoint 2013. The wide range of capabilities presented in the “Look and Feel” section is appropriate for publishing sites, as Yaroslav Pentsarskyy notes, as ” . . . they are more complex sites and there is a bigger team usually involved contributing to a publishing site, which is usually a public site, or a news site or the intranet landing site.” (quoted from Yaroslav Pentsarskyy’s video tutorial. A link to this video tutorial has been provided earlier in this post).

“Design Manager” and “Import Design Package” are ” . . . two separate links tied to the same function.” (ibid) “Design Manager” allows SharePoint site designers to ” . . . create the whole set of artifacts, the Master Pages, the JavaScript files, the rendering templates, the layouts . . . ” (ibid) and send them to a set of users as a package, which in turn, they will import with the “Import Design Package” capability.

“Master Page” provides administrators and designers with an interface useful for modifying Master Pages for publishing sites, only. This capability is not available for collaboration (team) sites. We’ve written about this capability in earlier posts to this blog. Two versions of a Master Page are provided, “Oslo” and “Seattle”. Administrators and designers can copy either version, or both, download them and customize as required. Once customized the new branded Master Page can be uploaded as a new Master Page.

The “Master Page” capability includes a “Site” and a “System” master page. Yaroslav Pentsarskyy explains the ” . . site master page will appear for visitors, so a home page is using a site master page. Any pages you create through the gear menu are using the site master page. The system master pages work when you click on settings and navigate to other administrative pages [in other words, all of the pages in the administrative menu of pages are built with the "system" master page].” (ibid)

In the next post we’ll continue this exploration of the capabilities presented by the SharePoint 2013 “Look and Feel” section of “Site Settings” for publishing sites.

Ira Michael Blonder

© Rehmani Consulting, Inc. & Ira Michael Blonder, 2013 All Rights Reserved