The Future of The Future of Work and WorkflowWork and Workflow

Brandon SatromPractice Architect

brandon.satrom@thoughtascent.comwww.userinexperience.com

WF is the black sheep of .NETWF is the black sheep of .NET

WCF and WPF met an immediate WCF and WPF met an immediate need…need…

So then, why So then, why Workflow Workflow

Foundation?Foundation?

Workflow Workflow Foundation is a Foundation is a Bridge…Bridge…

… … To CompositionTo Composition

CompositionComposition

3 Requirements of Composition3 Requirements of Composition

ComposabilityIndependenceDiscoverability

Composition and WFComposition and WF

In WF, workflows are made up of independent and discoverable (in .NET 3.5) activities (both OOB and custom) that, when given context, can be composed together to accomplish meaningful work…

Composability and Composability and IndependenceIndependence

The Live Conference Feedback The Live Conference Feedback ApplicationApplication

WF ActivitiesWF Activities

A single “program statement” in a workflow

OOB WF activities provide the key constructs for creating Workflows◦Flow-control◦Events/ IO◦Conditional Execution◦Etc.

Custom ActivitiesCustom Activities

Custom activities encapsulate core application logic

Custom activities are declarativeCustom Activities are independent

◦Reusable across WFs◦Can even be unit tested independently of a WF

Demo: Creating the Demo: Creating the SessionManager WorkflowSessionManager Workflow

DiscoverabilityDiscoverability

Workflow Services in .NET 3.5Workflow Services in .NET 3.5

Combining the accessibility of services with workflow state and durability

System.WorkflowServices.dllSend and Receive ActivitiesWorkflowServiceHostContext Bindings (For Correlation)

◦basicHttp◦wsHttp◦netTcp

Demo: Creating a Workflow Demo: Creating a Workflow ServiceService

Workflow PersistenceWorkflow Persistence

Leverage a Microsoft-provided database to “dehydrate” Workflows when idle.

The result: Long-running and stateful WCF Services

Demo: Using Persistence to Demo: Using Persistence to Create Long-running ServicesCreate Long-running Services

Adding Scalability with MSMQAdding Scalability with MSMQ

Using MSMQ with Workflow Services is not available OOB

But it can be done by adding the context (WF InstanceId) to the outgoing message

Adding Scalability with MSMQAdding Scalability with MSMQ

And through a custom channel that looks for the WF Instance in the incoming header and passes that into the Workflow Runtime.

The Runtime then correlates the Queue message to the proper workflow instance.

Demo: Creating MSMQ Demo: Creating MSMQ ReceiveActivitiesReceiveActivities

Demo: Bringing it all TogetherDemo: Bringing it all Together

.NET 4.0 Features.NET 4.0 Features

Complete WF rewriteFull Support for Async MessagingNew Activities, some old activities ditched

◦Code Activity => Gone◦State Machine => Flowchart

Easier to create custom activitiesNew WF designer written in WPF

.NET 4.0 & Dublin Features.NET 4.0 & Dublin Features

Richer persistence and trackingRicher Correlation Options

◦Correlate inbound messages using XPath◦No need for Context bindings or custom

channelsDublin = Server extensions for hosting

and managing WCF/WF ServicesAnd more… See:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.01.net40.aspx

Questions?

brandon.satrom@thoughtascent.comwww.userinexperience.com