Nearly every time that you need to provide SharePoint 2010 customizations involving document collaboration, you will need to create one or more corresponding workflows. In the past, the out-of-the-box workflows were not customizable, and the previous version of SharePoint Designer sadly lacked and was very limited in its workflow creation capabilities. Every time, one quickly cracked open Visual Studio and created custom workflows from scratch.
SharePoint workflows are a unique type of workflow. They are typically assigned to a library or list, and revolve around assigning tasks for people to complete. Generally, once the tasks are completed, the workflow ends.
Since SharePoint 2010 has come along, I am proud to say I have not yet had to resort to Visual Studio 2010 in order to create a workflow! I have found SharePoint Designer 2010 to be a very capable workflow development tool, and it has met every workflow requirement to date. The reason is that most workflows honestly are...