Presenting Windows Workflow Foundation by Paul Andrew, James Conard, James Conrad, Jon Flanders, Scott Woodgate

Product Details

Synopsis

Presenting Windows Workflow Foundation is a premium reference that provides information on a key part of WinFX, providing universally accessible and consistent workflow technology for the Windows platform. Windows Workflow Foundation delivers an API as part of WinFX and a workflow designer hosted in Visual Studio 2005.

The Windows Workflow Foundation supports development of both sequential and state-based workflow involving both human and system interaction. Sequential workflow is a map of activities that may be in series or parallel. State-based workflow is a state machine where events cause transitions. Rules can be specified that drive decision making in a workflow and can be updated easily at runtime. Workflow can be created as a model and executed inside many host applications including Windows Forms, console applications, or Web applications.

• Key Scenarios that can be developed with Windows Workflow Foundation include:
• Document management: The steps involved in the review and approval of shared documents or other content.
• Line of business application: The processing flow or business logic in an extensible part of the application.
• Website page flow: The flow of state variables between web pages.
• IT management: Handling of common systems management processes.
• Decision making logic: Where complex business logic is well described by a sequential or state diagram.
• Consumer: A common series of steps for consumer PC usage.

Download the source code from the book at msdn.microsoft.com/workflow.

There are nine authors on the book and they representa combined experience of more than 30 years in Workflow and related technologies. I have the privilege of working with a very experienced and talented team. We are all very excited about bringing this state-of-the-art Workflow engine to the Windows platform. We hope that by using it you can find yourself new opportunities for building all kinds of interesting software.

Someone once told me that Workflow is the happy state you get into when your work just flows. Read this book and perhaps you will agree.

Paul Andrew Product Manager for Windows Workflow Foundation Microsoft Corporation

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Biography

Paul Andrew is the technical product manager for Windows Workflow Foundation. He has also worked for Microsoft both as a developer evangelist and as a developer consultant.

James Conard is an architect evangelist with Microsoft's Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE) group. James is responsible for driving the early adoption of Windows Workflow Foundation with key ISVs and customers.

Scott Woodgate is a group product manager responsible for technical product planning and worldwide readiness of BizTalk Server and Windows Workflow Foundation.

Jon Flanders is an industry-leading author and instructor of in-depth developer training materials at DevelopMentor.

George Hatoun is a program for Workflow in Microsoft Office. He defines Office workflow engine requirements and the integration of Windows Workflow Foundation into Windows Sharepoint Services.

Israel Hilerio is a program manager on the Windows Workflow Foundation team in charge of forms integration and designer re-hosting.

Pravin Indurkar is a program manager on the Windows Workflow Foundation team and is responsible for the state machine workflows in Windows Workflow Foundation.

Dennis Pilarinos is a technical program manager on the Windows Workflow Foundation team. He is responsible for defining and creating the developer tools and parts of the programming model for Windows Workflow Foundation.

Jurgen Willis is a program manager with the Windows Workflow Foundation team. He is responsible for the rules technology and condition-driven activities.