I started a dialog with K2 Support a few days ago to gather some requirements for adopting SharePoint 2013 as part of our Business Process Management strategy.

My initial request looked like this:

We are planning to install SharePoint 2013 later this year, and to integrate it with K2 blackpearl 4.6.7. In our planning, particularly for a production environment, our network engineers need to know how K2 blackpearl will communicate with SharePoint 2013. I believe their interest is in securing all of those channels.

Can you please point me to documentation that shows how K2 blackpearl and SharePoint “talk to each other?”

I made this request amid other research I was doing. I was neck deep in KB articles and was even reading a 2010 whitepaper on security and Kerberos authentication.

I was trying to tie everything together — requirements of 4.6.7, requirements of SP2013 SP1, ports known to be used (thanks to K2 support), and to learn about the new K2 for SharePoint product.

Then yesterday I did another search and found a new KB article — it had been published only the evening before — on K2 for SharePoint 2013 integration.

And once I read that, I had to throw all the other research away.

Uhh, guys?

 I noticed a new KB article was released LAST NIGHT (KB001614) which basically says…. throw all that older stuff away. So, to make sure I have it straight: in order for us to hook K2 4.6.7 up to a brand new SharePoint 2013 (probably with SP1), we have to acquire K2 for SharePoint 1.0 and follow the installation steps in KB001610. All communication between K2 and SharePoint now happen through remote API’s via the K2 for SharePoint app… so… all I need to secure it is SSL? That’s it?

The article was so new, even support didn’t know about it! After a little double-checking, K2 support responded:

Yes you are correct in all counts. The app for K2 is installed on the SharePoint server and because of this, all communications will automatically be passed back and forth. And yes, you’ll have to secure it with SSL.Thank you for bringing this up with me. I’ll have to keep that article handy.

DONE.

I feel like a burned a lot of cycles doing all of that other reading — and I’m glad I did — but I’m WAY more glad that securing 4.6.7 and SharePoint 2013 is so easy. Plus, as I’ve noted recently, 4.6.7 ships with HTTPS support.

Winner winner chicken dinner!!