In addition to providing the core Contract Approval Management application using SharePoint, the system was integrated to two external processes and systems: an existing Board Action Request SharePoint site, and OnBase.
The County had an existing SharePoint site to manage Board Action requests, with requests originating from an InfoPath form. The InfoPath form contained required fields for a board action request to be submitted, many of which also existed in the new contract approval management solution.
By utilizing the built-in Content Retention capabilities of SharePoint 2010 Enterprise, a workflow was designed to package contract information as an InfoPath form and submit it (across site collections) to the existing Board Action site as a new request. This eliminated the need to copy/paste or retype the information into a new form with the added benefit of being able to create cross-reference links between sites – making it easy to review the contract from the Board Action site.
Another integration was provided to an existing OnBase document scanning and archiving solution. This system was already being used to house completed, signed, and scanned copies of all the contract materials. OnBase was the system of record for archiving all contract documents.
A workflow was developed to run once the scanning process was complete in OnBase. The workflow provided a link from the Contract within SharePoint directly to the scanned documents in OnBase, allowing users to quickly view final signed and scanned versions of documents. This capability was integral to the process of amending and renewing contracts, or reviewing official signed versions of contracts including the iterations and workflow comments generated during the initial approval process.