Introduction to Workflow Services (building WCF Services with WF)

mwink — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 16:48:10 GMT

One of my favorite features in .NET 3.5 is the integration work that has been done between WF (Windows Workflow Foundation) and WCF (Windows Communication Foundation). Check out a c9 video with that team

• Dynamically Creating Service Contracts using Workflow Services in .NET 3.5

mwink — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 23:07:30 GMT

In this screencast, we show how we can use a workflow first design pattern to dynamically create a service contract when we are building workflow services.

For more information, check out my blog post here.

Creating a Workflow Service in Approximately 60 Seconds

mwink — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 19:49:55 GMT

Got VS 2008 Beta 2? In this screencast, we walk through the new project templates to rapidly create a WCF service that is implemented in WF using the Send and Receive activities in .NET 3.5. This is one of the biggest asks we have had from customers, and in this short 3 minutes of your life, you will see how to create them, and see how the tools can make your life easier.

BizTalk Server 2006 Extensions for WF

mwink — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:18:51 GMT

This video shows how to use this sample to integrate BizTalk and WF today.

From Paul Andrew's blog here.

The BizTalk Adapter for Windows Workflow Foundation SDK Sample (June 2007 CTP) is a preview of some new technology for business logic and process developers. It provides for workflow models developed using Windows Workflow Foundation from the .NET Framework 3.0 to be hosted in BizTalk Server 2006. By doing this the workflow gains access to services from BizTalk Server 2006 including scalability, reliability, manageability, and access to messaging with BizTalk Server ports. The next major version of BizTalk Server is planned to be built on Windows Workflow Foundation and this CTP provides an option for customers to do this with current technologies. A release date has not yet been planned and will depend on customer feedback and the sample is currently not planned to be Microsoft supported. The CTP is suitable for software developers familiar with Windows Workflow Foundation and is provided as an SDK sample with source code.

The sample provides a tool that evaluates an existing WF workflow model and creates a BizTalk orchestration project as a proxy for that WF workflow model. The orchestration can then be deployed to BizTalk Server and the WF model is used.

Building WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) Services with WF (Windows Workflow Foundation)

mwink — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:07:04 GMT

I often liken WF and WCF to long lost siblings separated at birth. Almost every customer I talk to wants to use these two technologies together. In V1, one could certainly use the two together, there was just some plumbing that had to be written. In Orcas, we aim to take care of most of that plumbing for you.

This is a 75 minute training session given by Pravin Indurkar, the PM responsible for the feature in Orcas.

For more information, you can check out my blog here. (Orcas WF+WCF features, Dynamically Creating Contracts (Workflow First Design))

Introduction to the Windows Workflow Foundation Pageflow sample

mwink — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 20:19:41 GMT

Most people think of workflows as a tool to represent and automate back-end business processes. Back-end business processes normally require some user interaction but their main purpose is not to drive the user experience or manage the UI. However, there is a growing type of application that leverages workflow as a tool to drive the user interaction and drive the user experience of an interactive process. This type of technology is called page flow.

Last year at TechEd, we showed off some bits we had been working on internally that were designed to make that possible, the ability to model the user interaction of an application using workflow. This approach provides developers the ability to continue managing the complexity of their application in a structure and scalable manner. It turned out that the code we showed at TechEd wasn't going to end up in any of the product releases, so the dev team requested permission to release that code as a sample of how one can implement a generic navigation framework using WF that can support multiple UI technologies (i.e. ASP.NET and WPF). This year, I just finished giving a talk showing this off and talking about how it will be available today!

You can find more information here on my blog.

Rules Driven UI using WF

mwink — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 23:35:58 GMT

Moustafa has put together this screencast to show off how you can use the Rules Engine capabilities contained in Windows Workflow Foundation outside of a workflow, and leverage it to drive the business logic of a Windows Forms application. Check out the video, and if you're interested in more, then head on over to our community site where you can download the sample .

This is the article that Moustafa mentions that introduces the Rules Engine available at MSDN.

For more information on Windows Workflow Foundation, you can check the following resources:

Workflow Manager Application

mwink — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 22:24:59 GMT

Sergey, from the Windows Workflow Foundation team, has put together a great sample that highlights designer re-hosting, tracking, and the ability to dynamically update a workflow. Check out the video, and if you're interested in more, then head on over to our community site where you can download the sample.

For more information on Windows Workflow Foundation, you can check the following resources: