Why WF?
Hi,
I spent the last few months playing around WF, finally have better understand on how to create workflows and design the host applications.
Then the next question is where and how to make use of them.
My job focus is on Web-based Document Management Solution, which might involved some document approval workflow. One of the basic requirements is we need to provide a way for the users to design / modify the workflow (like many other DMS solution in the market).
If we go for WF as the Workflow engine, I've the following concerns:
1) the WF designer seems too complex for ordinary users to understand. Also doesn't work under Browser Environment (actually it can but not recommended because of security issues).
2) a workflow usually involves many programming codes, so how can the users design by themselves.
3) we, the programmer still need to workout the user interface for the workflow they designed.
4) For a simple Document Approval statemachine workflow with 4 to 5 steps, the programming works (using WF) are many times more than not using it.
5) Even the new Sharepoint service are not using the WF designer (correct me if I'm wrong), but provide a very simple text-based workflow editor instead.
6) Using WF under ASP.NET environment even more difficult than in WinForm Environment.
So how can we actually get benefit from WF? Any ideas?
Andy Ho
[1445 byte] By [
AndyHo] at [2007-12-24]
HI,Andy
I has spent the last few months playing around wf too.
for your concerns. i give some my idea.
1) Actually , the WF designer provider by WFF default is too complex for ordinary users to understand.
so the WF designer is suitable to programmer to develop workflow program in less time.
but, if you will provide the designer to ordinary user , you would be able to create a custom workflow
root designer like UML Activity Diagram.
here (http://img612.photo.163.com/netdebug115/69978297/1937669972.gif) is my sample screencapture. maybe can give you some idea.
by the way. you can create a usercontrol to rehost the designer runing in webbrowser sandbox. but,
runing in webbrowser is necessary ? i consider that modifing the workflow defination is only
permission to SystemManager and Administor , it is a good way creat a Winform Application Tool to
Modify the workflow.
2) let the users design workflow by themselves, you would do more thing and provider some sweet
toolkit to the users like
DataObject Editor
UI Editor
DataObject and UI Binding Editor.
Condition Editor
3) create a WatiForData EventDriven for response back to webbrowser to show the UI then resume the
workflow after finish the UI data input.
4) create Swimlane Activity to dispatch task to Worker who has permission to execute.
Matt.
Of course, there is a benefit to having WF. For me it is the workflow visualization that it provides out of the box and the execution model behind.
I think, all your questions can be answered by finding an answer to the question: is there something better for the Windows platform at the moment? I think, no. That does not mean, that I am totally convinced of the concepts that WF uses but I have to cope with it, because there is no better solution (otherwise, please respond :-).
I saved a lot of time using WF, because much of the visualization comes out of the box. There is a bunch of drawing tools (for example, MindFusion) that I could have used but these need much more time to visualize a workflow than using WF.
Hi Matt, I would like to look at your designer. But the URL returns access denied.
Regards,
Paul
Hi all,
First of all, thanks for all the reply.
Yes, it is quite easy to design a workflow with VS.NET and the Workflow Designer. But no help to ordinary users who want to design their own workflow. Even the new Sharepoint service make use of a rule-based workflow editor instead of a visualized one.
To develope an editor which suitable for ordinary users waste too much time.
Even if we adopt the designer rehost solution, the designer actually too complex.
I think WF is quite complex because of its extensibility and the capability to design workflow with many many steps. Hope it can has an Express or Lite version later to suit the need of designing workflow with limited steps and functionality. Or maybe some good tools for WF will be available when it was released.
It seems to be a very long road for me to make use of WF to design a flexible Workflow product.
Anyway, really feel excited to have WF. That's why I spent a few months on it.
Andy Ho
Hi Andy,
concerning complexity, I think, you are right in that WF has many features. But they that are not needed in every case.
You talked about customizing the designer in a rehosting scenario. I have used WF in exactly this scenario and it was not complex. It was the easiest model, I have ever seen.
Just derive from an activity class and overwrite OnPaint. This gives you full control over the visual appearance. As the workflow is an activity too, this concept works for single activites as well as the complete designer environment. For example, I did not care about state machines. My users wanted to have a sequential workflow designer. I have built 4 custom activities and thereby managed to bring the designer up to the end user level of experience within 10 days.
I removed the properties panel from the rehosting example that can be found on MSDN, because end users do not understand the properties that activities have. I further removed all the activities from the toolbox that I did not need and customized the rest. This was a snap, compared to what I would have needed to do using a drawing product like MindFusion. For example, the rules where to place activities are known by the WF designer but not by such a drawing tool. Guiding the user in this kind is intuitive and I am sure that without WF I would have needed at least 30 days for the same solution.
WF is not perfect yet, but I am fascinated about how easy it has now become to provide such a visual experience to end users.
Regards, Mario
Mario,
Sorry for my late reply. I was so busy recently.
Thanks for your idea and it sounds great.
Any sample for me to learn?
Regards,
Andy Ho
Paul Andrew wrote: