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  • Dot Net Workflow

Workflow Studio

Team-Based Development Studio with Integrated Source Control and Visual Designers

Workflow Studio is an integrated business process development environment that establishes a new standard for workflow and application design by bringing together in one platform: a visual process designer, a team-based development environment, a sophisticated and embedded RBAC security model, a rich set of communication services, SAML and WS-Fed based federation, a robust metadirectory, PowerShell services, and a code free user interface designer.

Best of Breed Designers for Windows Workflow Applications

The Dot Net Workflow Studio is the premier visual drag-and-drop design environment for developing solutions using the Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation. Unlike Workflow Studio, other competitive solutions use proprietary workflow engines that incorporate only limited Windows Workflow Foundation functionality. The Dot Net Workflow platform is pure Microsoft WF.

Workflow Studio extends far beyond workflow design, allowing the development of entire enterprise applications. Workflow Studio includes a variety of drag-and-drop designers for user interfaces and workflows, as well as full C# code-based development capabilities similar to that found in Microsoft Visual Studio. A wide range of editors are provided out of the box to accelerate the design and creation of specific solution components like workflows, examples of which include: activities, secure operation activities, web services, workflow forms, menus, pages, searchable lookups, reports, WPF XAML applications, WS-Federation and SAML claim extensions, identity management system connectors, business rule applications, .NET Class Libraries, console applications, and Windows Services.

One unique aspect of the Dot Net Workflow platform is the ability of the workflow to encapsulate the page flow for the application. Page flow in a Dot Net Workflow process is handled by using workflow activities within the workflow design for the forms, lookups, and other user interface controls that a user will see during the course of a workflow process. Workflow Studio designers provide a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG environment for creating these user interface activities without requiring coding or design skills. Best of all, workflows and their user interfaces automatically run on the following Dot Net Workflow user interface platforms: ASP.NET, Silverlight, and the Windows Presentation Foundation Click Once client.

Team-Based Source Control with Versioning and Portability

The Dot Net Workflow platform stores all the workflow solution components as objects within the SQL metadirectory database, which allows you to develop workflow applications in a secure team-based environment. These objects can be accessed in Workflow Studio using the Team Source Control Explorer, which provides file system like management of related items and their contents as well as check-in, checkout, and version comparison tools. The Team Source Control Explorer is a tree view in Workflow Studio that logically organizes these objects as packages and package-related items. Packages provide a logical way of grouping together the related components of workflow applications, such as: forms, lookups, activities, system connectors, reports, pages, and the workflows themselves. Packages, as well as the individual items within the packages, can be exported and imported between systems. Workflow Studio also supports fan out publishing to multiple environments over secure web services communication.

Secure By Default Workflows and Code-Free User Interfaces

Workflow designers and developers are provided with a rich security framework that frees the developer from writing tedious and error prone authentication and authorization security code as well as providing a rich basis for creating security trimmed user interfaces. All applications and web services created in Workflow Studio automatically support Federated Single-Signon and granular RBAC authorization.

Workflow Studio wizards allow for the creation of "operation activities" from custom code, web services, PowerShell cmdlets, and more. Operation activities are workflow shapes that represent protected actions that can be delegated using role assignments. These special operation activities contain a miniature authorization and approval workflow inside of them that performs what is known as Rights-Based Approval Routing (RBAR). This hidden (embedded) workflow provides a real-time authorization check that determines whether a person attempting to execute an action against a resource has a role that allows them to do so. If the current person does not have the required rights, the mini workflow handles any approval routing, creation of task tracking dashboard entries, and email notifications.

As a synthesis of a role-based access control platform and workflow, Dot Net Workflow allows developers to leverage the built-in user interface security options. All user interface elements in Dot Net Workflow solutions, including the workflows, pages, ribbon menu buttons, and user interface controls, are RBAC resources that can be registered as a protected resource, allowing visibility to be controlled externally through role-based delegation policies. This allows interfaces to be dynamic and responsive to the security access level of the user, without requiring that the developer write this logic into the application. Access to workflows and application elements is also auditable and reportable with default workflows for requesting or granting access.

Why Dot Net Workflow Studio

• It is not a proprietary workflow engine—it is built on the Windows Workflow Foundation
• It offers a true drag-and-drop visual workflow designer
• It has full support for flow chart, sequential, and state-machine workflows
• It offers a custom workflow activity designer
• It incorporates Rights Based Approval Routing technology
• If offers visually stunning workflow task dashboard and workflow request catalog for the web, Silverlight, and WPF
• It offers a rich library of ready-to-use workflow shapes
• It features a drag-and-drop workflow property mapper
• It exposes entire workflows as Web Services easily
• It creates workflows that publish and subscribe to events
• It can create scheduled workflows
• The team-based workflow development environment offers versioning, check-in, check-out, compare, and portable workflow project packages
• It offers a wizard framework for developing configuration wizards for your own custom workflow activities, including Microsoft PowerShell
• It offers rich development capabilities with built-in C# Intellisense
• What You See is What You Get (WYSIWYG) user interface designers simplifies the generation of workflow activities
• Complete extensibility allows organizations to integrate with existing systems, web services, code, and enterprise databases and directories