K2 Replacement Project
Purpose of this project was to replace some existing K2 Workflows and K2 Forms in the organization so they could retire and replace K2 across the organization to save in support and licensing costs.
Technology Utilized
K2
Our Staff has a solid understanding of K2 as we utilized this with some of our past projects for workflow development.
Power Applications
Used Model Driven and Canvas Applications for direct replacements of K2 Forms.
M365
SharePoint / OneDrive / Teams was utilized for the source of the data and storage of documents.
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Power Flows
Direct replacements of K2 workflows were redone in Power Automate cloud flows.
Dataverse
We utilized Dataverse to store content and support reporting needs.
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Adaptive Cards
Utilized adaptive cards to show tasks in teams and outlook emails.
Challenge
The main challenge with any K2 replacement project to Power Automate is the replacement of State Driven workflow. This is where you can trigger a flow from a modify or creation of a list or library item and it will enter a state driven workflow while subsequently updating the same list item. This functionality is very complicated to replicate. While we have done K2 replacements this is always the biggest hurdle to overcome as well as the pesky 30-day expiration of approvals in Power Automate. Also K2 has a great task management system interface to see all tasks that had email action capability.
Non State Machine Strategy
For all K2 workflows we utilized power flows a simple one to one replacement as most of these were based on specific trigger actions of SharePoint Lists / Libraries, as most of these were done by citizen developers.
State Driven Workflow Strategy
For all the K2 workflows that were state driven it was a simple switch statement with a directed status column. We created a workflow that had a path for each status with a dedicated default that caught any background updates that did not affect a workflow that was awaiting a task.
Task Management Strategy
We created a scalable task management system for the entire organization to replace the K2 Worklist feature. We created a simple Dataverse table that managed all tasks that were created. This feature was a simple one to one replacement for the K2 worklist feature that allowed each user to see their tasks as well as manage their tasks from Outlook, and Teams.
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Each power application that utilized this task management feature created a scheduled flow that updated application-level status to trigger an action based on a task update as well manage an instance identifier to ensure they were updating the correct data based on a run.
Forms Strategy
K2 forms was easily replaced with Power Apps. Whether they wanted to utilize a simple model driven form or a complicated canvas application. Power Apps provided more than enough features to make this replacement at least a one-to-one match in features and functionality.
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We also utilized Adaptive cards that were utilized in Email and Teams to allow us to create a rich task management interface that was managed in a global task management system.
Result
We were able to fully cancel the license costs / needs for K2 in their environment. The project cost alone allowed the business to still maintain their solution along with saving the organizations over 300K each in licensing cost per year.