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WF Scenarios Guidance

  • Article

May 2008

Michele Leroux Bustamante, IDesign

Zoiner Tejada, TejadaNET

Windows Workflow Foundation (WF or, Workflow) is Microsoft’s technology platform for building workflow-enabled applications. The platform includes a set of tools for designing and managing workflows, a programming model for implementing workflow logic, a rules engine, and a workflow runtime execution engine. Workflow technology can be employed in a wide range of application scenarios – the most common of which are listed below.

Common production application scenarios for Workflow

Scenario

Description

SharePoint 2007 and Workflow

SharePoint 2007 relies on Workflow technology for its packaged workflows, and for custom workflows created with SharePoint Designer 2007 or Visual Studio 2008.

Human Workflow

Workflow provides the underlying tools to support both human and system interaction according to business rules.

Workflow and WCF Services

Seamless integration between Workflow and WCF enables workflows to be exposed as services and to coordinate calls to WCF services.

Coordinating Presentation Flow

Both Windows and web applications can leverage workflows to drive presentation flow.

Workflow Designer Re-Hosting

Applications can host the Workflow Designer to provide a fully customized design experience for developers or business users.

This article series describes these scenarios: showing the choices involved in their selection, their implementation, and answering common questions that may arise during development.