How do I create workflows with SharePoint Designer?

SharePoint Designer 2010 is an easy to use, free tool available from Microsoft.  It has the ability, among other things, to build workflows on SharePoint lists.  With U-LINC, you can populate a list with the information that is critical to your business process, then using a tool like Designer, put a workflow on that list.

Download link - 32 Bit
Download link - 64 Bit
(Note: If you have Microsoft Office 32-Bit installed, you will need to use the 32-Bit version of Designer.)

SharePoint Designer 2010 can be installed and run from the SharePoint Server or a client machine.

Once installed, simply launch the application and connect to the SharePoint site where your target was created by U-LINC.  Navigate to "Lists and Libraries" and select your target list.  Select to create a "New..." workflow, give your workflow a descriptive name and OK.  The workflow editor will open and you are ready to start defining your Steps, Conditions and Actions.

Below are some links to help you learn how to build your workflows:

SharePoint Designer Workflow - office.com (reference guides, tutorials, video's)
Google Search

Remember, you can extend the functionality of your SharePoint site by deploying extensiblity tools, some of which are free.  The "How does U-LINC work?" post talks about some of the tools available.  The most often asked for feature, is the ability to interact with the ERP data from the workflow.  For example, they may want to inactivate a record until an approval process is complete.  There are two common methods for accomplishing this, both utilize the free iLoveSharePoint custom workflow actions.  One workflow action is "Execute SQL".  This workflow action allows you to build a dynamic T-SQL statement that you can execute within the workflow.  The other action is "Call a Web Service".  Depending on how complex your data interaction is and whether or not there is existing business logic you can utilize will determine which action you want to use.  The "down and dirty" approach is to do a simple table update from the "Execute SQL" action.  A more elaborate implementation would be to use eOne's SmartConnect tool to build a map, then call into their web service referring to the map ID.

Now ... go build a workflow, it's really not that difficult!  And have some fun learning something new in the process ...