Email discussion - Where does Workflow Fit

I was part of an email exchange last week that contained a lot of valuable information about Windows Workflow, PowerWF, and PowerShell.  I’ve edited the emails below for clarity and anonymity.

Email from PowerWF user:

Hey guys,

Interesting that Microsoft dropped state machine flows from Windows Workflow Foundation. Is there another workflow activity that is displacing it or did they just find that no one was using it? I was looking at these because I kept wondering to myself “what is the advantage of a workflow over a script anyway” this seemed like it could be an answer. I get the whole notion of separating what from when with workflows and so forth, but all the cases that I’ve been able to identify the “when” is basically “as fast as possible” which suggests workflow is not really adding much. Can you help me understand the true value here a bit better?

Thanks,

Our response

Hello,

The State Machine…

Microsoft dropped the state machine because they were not happy with the current implementation. There are plans to do something out of the box to address the State Machine model, but have been soliciting feedback from WF 3 customers before moving forward.

Additional reading on State Machine and the direction of Workflow 4.0

Script vs. Workflows…

You bring up several good points and I think the Workflow vs. Scripting debate is a interesting one. We have had this discussion many times in our office.

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• #support
• #workflow
• #windows workflow

PowerWF fills in the gaps of Windows Workflow Foundation

Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) is a powerful tool that has quickly found its way into a number of Microsoft products. Unfortunately developers are not taking full advantages of the features found within this great framework due to its complexity and learning curve. PowerWF has made great strides to finish what Microsoft started.

The Pros

• Windows Workflow provides a Visual Representation of processes.
• Windows Workflow Foundation is becoming the common foundation for workflow within Microsoft products and technologies. For example, Windows SharePoint Services provides document-oriented workflow services based on WF. Future releases of other Microsoft products including Microsoft’s Service Manager will implement workflow services using WF.
• Windows Workflow Foundation provides a flexible and powerful framework for developing workflows. This allows users to spend time on solving real-world business problems.
• Windows Workflow promotes a consistent way of developing applications so that each workflow looks very similar to the next. The consistency in programming model and tools improve productivity when developing new applications and visibility when maintaining existing ones.
• Windows Workflow Foundation supports workflow persistence so a running workflows state can be saved and reloaded later. Maintaining the state of a running workflow is especially important when running long-running workflows.
• Windows Workflow supports problem solving using a domain-specific model. Develop custom activity components where each custom component addresses a specific problem. These custom components can then be orchestrated together using the workflow paradigm.
• Windows Workflow provides a complete workflow ecosystem. In addition to the workflow runtime itself, Microsoft provides a suite of standard activities, workflow persistence, workflow monitoring and tracking, a rules engine, and a workflow designer that is integrated with Visual Studio.
• Windows Workflow Foundation is infinitely extensible.
• Windows Workflow is included with Visual Studio so it is available for use in any custom applications.

The Cons

• Windows Workflow Foundation is a framework targeting programmers, not a workflow application intended for immediate use by end users. Accordingly implimentations would require end-users to use Visual Studio. In most cases the complexity of Visual Studio proves prohibitive for non-developers.
• Windows Workflow Foundation is a complex model that requires high level programming skills. Programmers should have a good .Net background, preferably with BizTalk orientation, as the Windows Workflow Foundation is an extraction of the BizTalk orchestration definition. There is a fair amount of complexity in tackling even simple example such as the “Hello World” example in Bruce Bukovics’ Pro WF book which covers 11 full pages.
• Microsoft left a lot of “TODOs” for the developer. As such, the common pitfall for new WF developers is they get started quickly only to find themselves up to their waists in alligators. Many developers become discourage and go back to traditional development techniques.

How Does PowerWF help?

PowerWF Studio is built upon Windows Workflow Foundation and as such encompasses the advantages of Windows Workflow Foundation without the complexity. PowerWF completes many of the Windows Workflow Foundation TODO’s, leaving users with a rich-development environment to build workflow based solutions.

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• #powershell
• #windows workflow

PowerWF Layout and Terminology

Here is a preview of the introductory portion of the PowerWF Studio - Getting Started Guide (the part that most people skip over right after they skip over the installation instructions).  This section describes the product layout and defines some of the terms used in PowerWF Studio.

If there are more terms that need to be clarified, please post them in the comments

Product Overview

PowerWF Studio leverages Windows Workflow Foundation to create a rich, easy to use workflow creation tool. When the application is initially launched, the number of available options may seem overwhelming but most are self-explanatory. This guide will walk through numerous examples that will explore the most common features but first it is necessary to become familiar with the layout and terminology.

Studio Layout

PowerWF Studio is laid out similar to many other modern Windows products, and like most other products, poking around at tabs and buttons will likely be all the effort that is required to start using the product. The layout information below is provided as a reference for the tutorials.

Ribbon Bar - The ribbon bar controls all common activities, such as creating or saving workflows, playing workflows, or publishing workflows to the agent.
Toolbox - All prebuilt activities reside in the Toolbox in the left-hand pane. Activities are units of work, such as getting drive information or displaying data in an HTML table. Drag activities to the canvas to create workflows.
Output - The bottom center pane displays output information from workflows as they run.

Canvas - Workflows are displayed on the Canvas window in the center pane of the PowerWF Studio. Until a new workflow is created, the canvas shows the start page with a link to a YouTube video showing the basic layout of the PowerWF Studio environment and the steps necessary to create a simple “Hello World” workflow.

Properties - The properties for any activity in a workflow can be edited using the property viewer in the right hand pane.

Terminology

Although PowerWF Studio was designed to be very easy to use with minimal jargon, there are a few terms that require defining.

Activity – An “Activity” is the smallest unit of work in a workflow. The terms “Step” and “Task” are used interchangeably with “Activity” in various other workflow discussions, but in PowerWF the term “Activity” will always be used. An activity could be anything from a connection to a server, a loop that iterates through a list virtual machines, or a conditional branch or rule based on the output from a previous activity. Activities can be very simple or very complex, but they cannot be subdivided into smaller units of work within PowerWF. This nuance will be discussed in more detail later.

Activity Pack – An “Activity Pack” is a group of related activities. Windows Workflow provides a handful of basic “Activity Packs” to handle conditional and flow control activities. PowerWF adds “Activity Packs” for Hardware and Network activities as well as industry specific packs such as PowerShell, VMWare VIX, and VMWare PowerCLI.

• #powerwf
• #windows workflow

What’s a Workflow Anyway

Simply put, a workflow is a series of steps or activities taken to accomplish some task.  Those steps may be sequential or repeated until the desired goal is achieved.  Steps may require decisions to be made or conditions met before deciding how to proceed.

The web comic XKCD.com illustrated a simple workflow that is used by “Local Computer Experts” everywhere.

Although meant to be humorous, the comic presents many meaningful concepts.  When faced with a complex problem, experienced programmers generally break the problem down into more manageable pieces.  These pieces are subdivided until the developer is comfortable tackling that activity.  An activity could be a task such as “click a button” or a decision such as “did it work.”  Besides the activity it accomplishes, generally each activity has an input and an output.  The inputs and outputs allow the activities to be connected together in some specific order to form the workflow.

Although workflows are commonly represented visually, the workflow itself is the underlying logic that represents the series of activities and the order in which they are performed.

Why PowerWF Studio

PowerWF Studio provides an easy way to create powerful scripts using a workflow paradigm and a simple drag and drop interface.  Novice users can easily create valuable workflows by dragging the desired activities from the toolbox.  Experienced users can create PowerShell scripts that are automatically converted into visual representations which can be further extended using the built in the activities.

• #powerwf
• #windows workflow