Introduction
Workflow Server as an application development platform is based on the workflow paradigm. The workflow paradigm is a very powerful approach allowing exploring, describing, and, with help of the Workflow Server framework, developing applications addressing certain business case.
With the workflow approach the application business logic is expressed as workflow - a set of distinct steps accompanied by business rules governing transition from one step to another. In the Workflow Server language such steps are called Activities. The data involved in the business case usually are grouped together in a number of hierarchies, also known as business objects. In the Workflow Server language business objects are called Documents. Finally, for those steps (Activities) which require interaction with a live person, user interface supporting such interaction has to be defined.
Every development methodology - workflow based or not - has to cover these three aspects of the application being developed. In this respect the workflow based approach is no different from any other approach. Where the workflow based approach is different is not in whether it covers these three aspects, but in how it is done. In the early days of business application development all these aspects were entangled together and immersed in the application code. Maintaining applications developed in such a way is really costly. A conscious effort to design an application so that various aspects of the application logic are separated from each other can improve this situation. How significant the improvement will be though depends on the quality of the design team and how much time it spent putting together the design of the application. Also cross training developers to maintain different applications can became increasingly difficult if the architecture of different applications varies.
Workflow Server provides an application development platform ensuring common architectural ground for applications across enterprise. Various aspects of application business logic are described separately from each other, specifically
- Application workflow (Activity graph)
- Business object definitions (Documents)
- Business object persistence (Document mapping)
- User Interface mapping
- Variations of the abovementioned based on different conditions (Customization)
These and other aspects of the application are described using declarative, rather than procedural language and together comprise the workflow server application definition. Runtime the Workflow Server framework loads and interprets the application definition using standard or, when supplied, custom activities, document types, document factories, cache managers, etc. Also Workflow Server framework covers standard functionlity like application startup and monitoring, message logging and error handling, various web application related functionality - double postback blocking, back button, and so on and so forth.
- Workflow Server Application Defined
- Building User Interface
- Workflow Server Designer
- Programming Workflow Server Web Applications
- [Programming other types of Workflow Server Applications]
- [Customizing Workflow Server Applications]
- [Application Tuning and Monitoring]
- How to...
- FAQ
See also:
Workflow Server Resources
Programmer's Reference
Programmer's Reference
