Beginning WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 4.0

Windows Workflow Foundation is a ground-breaking addition to the core of the .NET Framework that allows you to orchestrate human and system interactions as a series of workflows that can be easily mapped, analyzed, adjusted, and implemented.

As business problems become more complex, the need for a workflow-based solution has never been more evident. WF provides a simple and consistent way to model and implement complex problems. As a developer, you focus on developing the business logic for individual workflow tasks. The runtime handles the execution of those tasks after they have been composed into a workflow.

Beginning WF demonstrates, in an eminently readable and accessible style, how Microsoft's Workflow Foundation (WF) technology can be used in a wide variety of applications.

• Loaded with lots of simple yet demonstrative sample projects
• Very hands-on with practical "how-to" information
• Indexed by feature so specific questions are easily answered

Beginning WF will take you step by step through many of the useful applications of workflow technology. Along the way, you will:

• Create designer-based and code-based workflows
• Communicate between applications using workflow activities
• Implement SQL persistence with custom participants
• Create workflow extensions and custom activities
• Build applications that support long-running workflows
• Host workflows in WCF services

This book is perfectly suited to anyone using or considering Microsoft's Windows Workflow Foundation. It describes what WF can do for you and how to quickly learn the basic concepts needed to be proficient. If you're actively implementing a workflow project, this book has lots of sample projects that demonstrate the most useful design patterns.

Table of Contents

1. Building a Simple Workflow
2. Coded Workflows
3. Flowchart Workflow
4. Passing Arguments
5. Replicated Activities
6. Exception Handling
7. Extending the Built-In Activities
8. Send and Receive
9. Communicating with the Host Application
10. Web Services
11. SQL Persistence
12. Custom Extensions
13. Tracking
14. Transactions
15. Transactions with Persistence
16. WorkflowServiceHost
17. Compensation, Confirmation, and Cancellation
18. Collections
19. Interoperability with Workflow 3.5
20. Policy