Workflows in SharePoint Server 2010 enable enterprises to reduce the amount of unnecessary interactions between people as they perform business processes. Software that simplifies and manages this "human workflow" enables the automation of interactions among groups who participate in the process. This automation results in more speed, overall effectiveness of the interactions, and often a reduction in errors. You can automate business processes, such as document approval by associating a workflow with data in SharePoint Server 2010.

Examples of business processes that could be facilitated by workflows include:

Contract Approval - Guiding a proposed contract among members of an organization who must approve or reject it.

Expense Reporting - Managing the submission of an expense report and associated receipts, reviewing the report, approving it, and reimbursing the submitter.

Technical support - Guiding the progress of a technical support incident as it is opened by a customer, investigated by a support engineer, routed to technical experts, resolved, and added to a knowledge base.

Interviewing - Managing the process of interviewing a job candidate. This includes scheduling and tracking interview appointments, collecting interview feedback as it accumulates, making that feedback available to subsequent interviewers, and facilitating the hire/no-hire decision.

Content Publishing - Managing the approval of the publication of content on the Internet presence site of an enterprise.