I recently underwent a 2 hour overview of K2 workflow software that integrates with SharePoint to provide, IMHO, some impressive benefits. Although K2 can be used independently of SharePoint, when used in conjunction with SharePoint it packs a punch, especially when compared to Nintex which is a rival software. My blog post is not a direct comparison between K2 and Nintex, but an overview of K2 software capabilities. I do know that Nintex is an impressive workflow software, but it is limited to working within the confines and framework of SharePoint, while K2 does not have such limitations. K2 can work completely independent of SharePoint. Another note to mention is the price points between K2 and Nintex is negligible. Their price tags are fairly identical, give or take a few bucks.
My goal in this blog post is to share my experiences with the community-at-large. I am not affiliated nor do I have any connection with K2 or Nintex and the following overview are my personal notes about K2 software.
K2 headquarters located in Seattle, WA
All technical support for customers based in USA come from headquarters in USA which means there are no crazy time zone differences or native-speaking foreign language barriers.
There is an online community for K2 users at www.k2underground.com which has a free registration
While there is documentation available to re-program an Adobe Livecycle form into a K2 form, there is no auto-convert utility. K2 can integrate with InfoPath and SP Designer Forms as the platform is form agnostic.
Workflow Management
When creating a workflow in SharePoint and after starting the process the workflow breaks you need to restart the entire workflow process. This is not true for the K2 workflows as you can do the following:
- Debug the workflow
- Isolate an error at run-time
- Dashboard reporting on any errors, processes, users
- Auto-versioning of workflow processes
- Able to cannibalize an existing workflow process and use portions of it in a new workflow
- Display the entire workflow process in a real-time flow chart that is interactive.
K2 workflow engine is built on Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and the .Net Framework. K2 SmartForms is built on HTML 5 technology and has a large number of out of the box controls, with the ability to build custom controls using .Net C#, JQuery, etc… and they give you the source code to modify to create your own customer widgets
Integration capabilities
- Active Directory, LDAP, SQL Server, Oracle, Salesforce.com, SP Users + Groups, CRM, and wildcard searching, also Exchange, O365, Microsoft Stack
- SAP integration has an extra fee
- Able to pull from a SharePoint list
- Use any RESTful services (i.e. WebServices)
- Includes form validation
Other capabilities
- Visibility of form participants and their respective activity or inactivity within the process flow
- Ability to send HTML formatted email within the workflow
- Can create batch processes
- Able to delegate tasks in workflow process or redirect process entirely from a context menu
- Can export the form as a PDF including any source formatting and layout
Workflow templates
- Can be created to facilitate reusability
- Able to extend an existing template workflow
- Able to reuse subset portions of a workflow keeping intact all logic to use in a new workflow to the creation of a new template
K2 user interface
The K2 SharePoint application icon is available for use within the App Store (if made available to users). Once the K2 application is activated, a custom K2 icon is created in the ribbon.
The K2 SmartForms interface uses HTML5 so it is a browser-based application and can be rendered on mobile devices.
Security
It inherits all the SharePoint security trimmings that you already use in SharePoint.
Reporting
The reporting tools that come with K2 include:
- Status
- Health
- Process
- Start/End Date
- Duration
The reporting tools also work with SSRS and Visio Services.
Here are some links to K2’s website which include brochure info and video clips for you to learn more about K2 software.
I hope you’ve found my blog post interesting. Thanks for reading 🙂
Alex Dove