Windows Workflow: using to define workflows for users of website

1
votes

We need a way to guide a user through our site, it is very much a workflow situation, but I need to be able to let users(admins) design and modify workflows for their users.

This all needs to be done IN the web site, and I also need to be able to draw the workflow so the user can navigate to the next appropriate action or easily identify what work is available to them at any point.

I'm not finding any good examples of using WF4 for this purpose, can anyone suggest a good place to look?

(Site is now ASP.NET, but we are looking to move to ASP.NET MVC3)

2
c#asp.net-mvcworkflow-foundation-4
If you are looking for a web-based interface to allow user manipulation of a WF xaml file I'm not aware of one. You would have to restrict the functionality somehow to ensure that only a pre-determined set of activities could be selected and ordered. I think you'd be better off rolling your own solution for this one. Admin users could create crazy workflows that you'd have to go off and implement .NET code activities for anyway. - Nick Ryan
Couldn't find an existing web based designer solution. - BoxOfNotGoodery

2 Answers

2
votes

The approach I took when I was faced with a similar problem was to create a ClickOnce deployed WPF application which hosts the WF4 designer, and a WCF web service to facilitate versioning and CRUD operations on workflows stored in a database. My MVC application then contains a link to launch the installer.

I know you said you wanted it all done in your website, but it ended up being the only good option I could come up with (aside from rolling your own web-based workflow designer).

0
votes

You can also create a WPF Browser Application and allow your users to edit Workflows in that inside the browser: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa970060.aspx

As far as I am aware you can't host the Workflow Designer outside of a WPF control which restricts you to hosting it in a WPF / WinForms application.