To help kick off the K2 blackpoint Beta, K2 has started up a game of “collecting points” and winning some cool prizes. Search high and low in blog posts, web pages, web casts, conferences, advertisements, etc. and log your finds at the official K2 blackpoint site.
Clues for where to find the points are posted at the K2 Underground.
I’ll be on the hunt, hopefully gathering enough points for that 30″ monitor grand prize.
K2 will be announcing their new product offering, named K2 blackpoint, tomorrow at Microsoft TechEd. K2 blackpoint will be a new SKU, which is a subset of the K2 blackpearl offering. It will be targeted for Sharepoint developers who want to easily build more sophisticated workflows and process driven applications than what you can do with Sharepoint out-of-the-box workflows, Sharepoint Designer, and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). It will also be an entry point for those wanting to test the waters with K2, and will provide an upgrade path to the more complete K2 blackpearl product offering.
The components you get with K2 blackpoint:
K2 Studio
K2 will be reintroducing the standalone designer concept that K2.net 2003 had with the new K2 Studio (which was previously blogged about and previewed). There will be no dependency on having Visual Studio for constructing workflows. The new K2 Studio provides an Office 2007 like application (complete with ribbon like interface) for dragging, dropping, and clicking workflow processes.
K2 Studio is targeted towards less developer-focused individuals, and will have very similar wizard driven steps for configuring the processes as in K2 blackpearl, but will not have the ability to drop into code or modify WF schedules. Designing workflows will also include a set of stepwise Guides (which are extensible and customizable) for assisting the user in composing their workflows on the design surface.
Process Portals
K2 blackpoint will include Process Portal functionality (which was also previously previewed on K2 Underground). This will take the place of the Workspace for the K2 blackpoint product, and will provide a set of Sharepoint web parts for centrally managing/monitoring/reporting on workflow processes. You set up a Process Portal via Sharepoint Central Admin, and can either instantiate a new site, or extend an existing one.
Sharepoint Integration
As mentioned earlier, the primary drive behind K2 blackpoint is Sharepoint integration. While K2 Studio will not have a specific SmartObject designer, you will have the ability to create SmartObjects from Sharepoint libraries and lists via Sharepoint menus.
These Sharepoint SmartObjects can then be consumed within processes authored in K2 Studio. Other types of SmartObjects will not be accessbile, but you always have the option of integrating with line-of-business systems via web services.
Other points of Sharepoint integration include having all of the Sharepoint Event templates (e.g., Sharepoint Publishing, Sharepoint Lists Items, Sharepoint Search, etc.), integration with Sharepoint users and groups, integration with Sharepoint content types and workflows, and integration with Sharepoint events.
Other
Other functionality includes:
(*) Out-of-Office integration with Outlook/Exchange, allowing redirection of tasks
(*) Extensibility via ADO.NET data provider
(*) Extensibility of custom templates, wizards, etc.
(*) Out-of-the-box reports, and ability to customize SSRS reports
(*) Graphical representation of processes in progress
(*) Future release will include a Silverlight based design canvas in addition to the K2 Studio designer
Some notable exclusions:
(*) No BDC integration
(*) No built-in report designer
K2 blackpearl
As mentioned before, one of the goals with blackpoint is to serve as a starting point for those interested in the K2 products. There will be an upgrade path available for moving from K2 blackpoint to K2 blackpearl. All of the workflows authored in K2 Studio and running on the K2 blackpoint server should work as-is when moving to K2 blackpearl. It should also be worth noting that the K2 Studio, Process Portals, Out-of-Office integration, etc. will be a part of K2 blackpearl releases.
More information on the product, the beta information, and pricing is available on the K2.com blackpoint page.
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