Let's Talk about .. K2 Blackpearl

Last Thursday, there was a product presentation in my office. It's K2
Blackpearl. I've never use the product of K2 before, but since my works are
involving with SharePoint, thus I was assigned to listen this presentation.
K2 Blackpearl comes with the concept "It's Simple" and "Workflow was just the
Beginning".

In the past, K2 2003 is known as the workflow engine, but the new version,
Blackpearl, is the Platform. By default, its port is 5555.

The new concept that is used in the Blackpearl is "Building Blocks". The
concept that comes to serve the end users. Blackpearl separates the users into
3 types:

1. Users of SharePoint or the business end users: it provides the simplest
   method. The users can draw diagram if they has permission. If we compare it with the using of SharePoint Designer, it easier since it's just drag-and-drop
   to make workflow.


2. Users of Visio: Users can use Visio to draw the diagram. The new object can be assigned the value to make Blackpearl know what that object is before
   creating the workflow.


3. Users of Visual Studio or developers: Users can use Visual Studio 2005 to
   develop the workflow. K2 can be kept in Visual SourceSafe.
   

Anyway, by creating workflow with Blackpearl, whatever method you use, you can get the source code of it to further develop by Visual Studio 2005.

Users are suggested to create the "Smart Object" Server with the concept of
the Building Block. By this concept, it's simply since all items that are
created can be reused. The Smart Object is the abstract class for representing
the business entity for entire Blackpearl. It consists of Properties and
Method.

K2 Blackpearl is easy to execute since it conceals into MOSS. The users do not
feel different when using Blackpearl.

In Blackpearl's workflow, it provides function Delegate. It makes us be able
to decentralize our work. For example, when the Executive approver receives
the task to approve a lot of documents, he can assign some works to other
people. And he is able to set the permission of that people, too.

We can set the number of slot of the approvers. For example, some documents
may need only 50% of approvers to approve.

Blackpearl provides the K2 Web Designer for users to create and modify
workflow on web, i.e., only web browser is the requirement. However, this
function works for only MOSS2007.

Creating workflow with Blackpearl extends the concept of workflows that are
created by SharePoint Designer that the workflow does not only set
specifically to only one library, but it can be shared to many library but
upon to the user who has been set the permission to use.

When the workflow starts, the task of approve will be kept in 2 place: K2 Work
Space and (MOSS) Task.

In this new version, K2 Rom is SourceCode.Workflow.Client

For the Service Object, the users have to programe themselves, however, K2
provides the SDK to develop it.

The advantage of the K2 Blackpearl Smart Object

1. You have to create once.


2. It can be used to generate report via Report Designer.


3. It's based on ADO.net.


4. It provides Microsoft InfoPath 2007 Integration to allow access Smart
   Object without coding. For MOSS2007, it uses Business Data Catalog to access the Smart Object.