Date post: | 13-May-2015 |
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Technology |
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Building Systems using the Workflow Approach
Bijoy SinghalDeveloper Evangelist
Microsoft [email protected]
Assume it’s a:
CD/DVD Repairing Assembly Line
CD/DVD Repairing Machine
How can we represent this in software ?
ActivitiesConnectionsFlowcharts
The Workflow Approach
What? Why? How?
Work Flows
What
“Meta”
Meta-data
Meta-Language
Meta-Programming
A Higher Level of Abstraction
Breaking down a problem into smaller independent units that can be assembled later
How?
Lets see…
What did we just do?
• Decomposed a larger business problem into smaller independent entities of “work”
• Created Graphical Representations• Gave it to our customers• They could combine them using a designer
into desired sequence• Monitor, Persist, change…
Why?
Today’s Application Development
Forms
Data
Applicationlogic
Rules andpolicies
Applicationcode
Workflow model
Services
The workflow way…
• Easy to “Compose” Systems as compared to “Create” them
• Building Human and Machine interacting systems• Taking Problem Solving closer to Business Folks• Declarative• Easy to understand and maintain• Tracking/Parallelizing/Persisting/Scaling• A unified system implemented on multiple
machine and infrastructure
Windows Workflow Foundation
Key Concepts
Host Process
WindowsWorkflow Foundation
Runtime Engine
A Workflow
An Activity
Runtime Services
Base Activity Library
Custom Activity Library
Visual Designer
Visual Designer: Graphical and code-based construction
Workflows are a set of Activities
Workflows run within a Host Process: any application or serverDevelopers can build their own Custom Activity Libraries
Components
Base Activity Library: Out-of-box activities and base for custom activitiesRuntime Engine: Workflow execution and state management
Runtime Services: Hosting flexibility and communication
Activities: An Extensible Approach
OOB activities,workflow types,base typesGeneral-purposeActivity libraries define workflow constructs
Create/Extend/Compose activitiesApp-specificbuilding blocksFirst-class citizens
Base ActivityLibrary
Custom ActivityLibraries
Author new activity
Out-of-Box Activities
Extend activity
Compose activities
Vertical-specificactivities & workflowsBest-practice IP &Knowledge
Domain-SpecificWorkflow Packages
Compliance
RosettaNet
CRM
IT Mgmt
Workflow Scenarios
• Document Life Cycle Management• LOB Application Workflow• Business Process Management• UI Navigation Logic
References
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663328.aspx
• First steps with WF: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/first-steps-with-wf.aspx
• http://wiki.windowsworkflowfoundation.eu/
• http://blogs.msdn.com/endpoint/archive/2009/05/29/a-tour-on-the-wf4-activity-palette.aspx
Thank You