Create a simple workflow

This tutorial demonstrates how to create a simple EmpowerID workflow that can be deployed in your environment to update the attributes of an EmpowerID Person. The purpose of this tutorial is to guide you through the steps for completing a fully functional workflow comprised of common workflow components. In this tutorial, these components include the following:

• A Lookup Control — Lookup Controls are User Interface elements that can be placed in a workflow to allow users to search for EmpowerID objects. In this tutorial, we will create a Lookup that can be used to search for a person.

• A Form — Forms are User Interface elements that you place in a workflow to allow users to provide information to the workflow. In this tutorial, we will create a form that allows users to enter information about the person they searched for in the Lookup.

• An Operation Activity — Operation activities are protected workflow shapes that you place on the workflow to perform the actions of the workflow. Workflows can contain multiple Operation activities, depending on their complexity. In this tutorial, we will use a single Operation activity that when executed updates an attribute on a person. In EmpowerID, this person is known as the "target person."

When you have completed this tutorial, you should have foundational understanding of the various components and principles involved with creating EmpowerID workflows that can be used as a basis for creating more complex workflows.

To create the workflow, we will do the following:

• Create a project folder. In Workflow Studio, a project folder is a container that provides a logical structure through which you can manage workflow applications and all the components associated with them.

• Create and publish a Lookup Control that allows users to search for a person

• Create and publish a form with fields bound to an EmpowerID Person

• Build the workflow, adding to it the Lookup Control and form, as well as a Multi-Operation Operation Activity that verifies whether the current person attempting to edit the person has the appropriate access to do so.

• Bind the appropriate properties of the workflow activities to one another to ensure that the workflow data remains consistent throughout its lifecycle.

• Publish and test the workflow.

Create project folders

1. In Workflow Studio, select the Solution Explorer tab to the left of the IDE.

2. Right click the parent source control node and select New Folder from the context menu.
   

   

3. Enter a name for the folder and click OK.
   

   

   
   

4. In the Folders dialog that appears, select the following subfolders to organize the items you create in this tutorial:

   • User Interface > Forms

   • User Interface > Lookup Controls

   • Workflows > Activities

   • Workflows > Applications

5. Click OK to add the subfolders and close the dialog.

   
   The Workflow Studio Source Control updates to show the new folder in the Source Control tree.
   

   

   
   

Create and publish a lookup for the workflow

1. Expand the New folder > User Interface folders.

2. Right-click the Lookup Controls folder and select New User Interface > Lookup.
   

   

   
   
   This opens the new Lookup Control in the Workflow Studio Lookup Designer.
   

   

3. In the Properties grid, set the Title property to Hello World Person Lookup and the Description property to Search for a Person.
   

   

4. In the Properties grid, set the Type property to Single. Setting the Type to Single allows users to select only one person.
   

   

   
   Next, we need to bind the Lookup Control to the PersonView component object to allow us to add grid columns related to that component.
   

5. In the Lookup Control Data Pane located at the bottom of the designer, do the following to set the Lookup Control to return a list of people.

   1. Click the Component Object drop-down list and select PersonView. The Component Object drop-down list contains a list of class definitions that relate to the objects EmpowerID protects, and the PersonView object provides a consolidated view of all the data fields associated with EmpowerID people.

   2. Click the Data Method drop-down list and select the GetAllSearch(string columnsToSearch, string textToSearch) method. This method returns all people contained in the EmpowerID Identity Warehouse to the Lookup Control.
      
      The following image shows what the Lookup Control Data Pane looks like with the above selections made.
      

      

6. In the Properties grid, set the GridType property to Person. Setting the grid type for Lookup Controls in this way automatically adds the columns associated with the component object you are binding to the Lookup Control. This allows you to provide a consistent look to your Lookups and makes it easier for localization as the default grid type columns are already localized.
   

   

7. Click the Save button above the designer and browse to the User Interface > Lookup Controls folder.

8. Enter HelloWorldPersonLookup as the file name and then click Save.
   

   

9. Next, publish the Lookup to your local file system by following the below steps. When you publish the Lookup, Workflow Studio converts it to an activity that can be placed within the workflow.

   1. From the toolbar located above the Workflow Studio Designer, click the Compile and Publish button.
      

      

   2. In the Lookup Publishing wizard that appears, click the Next button.
      

      

      
      

   3. Select the server to which you want to publish the Lookup and click Next.

   4. Click OK to close the Publishing action completed successfully! messagebox. 

   5. Select Yes when prompted to restart Workflow Studio. 

   6. Select Yes to save changes to any opened files.

Now that the Lookup has been created and published, the next step is to create and publish the workflow form.

Create and publish a form for the workflow

1. Right-click the Forms folder you created earlier and select New User Interface > Form.
   

   

   
   
   This opens the form with the default tab in the Workflow Studio Form Designer.

   

   
   

2. Edit the caption in the form tab by double-clicking directly on the caption text.

3. Change the caption from Tab1 to Person.

4. Repeat the process for the form section text, changing it from Tab1 Section1 to Name Information.
   

   The tab and section caption should look like those shown in the below image.
   

   

   
   

5. When a user runs the Hello World workflow, we want the form to have certain fields populated with attribute data, such as the target person's name information. This is accomplished through adding Form Data components to the form. To do this, click the Workflow Studio Form Designer Commands tab and select Add Object.
   

   

   
   

6. In the Add Object window that appears, click the Rbac Components tab, select the Person component and then click the Add button.
   

   

   
   
   This adds a component, named Person1, to the Components tree located to the left of the form. The Components tree contains bound objects and other types that can be used when designing forms. The Person1 component contains attributes and properties related to the EmpowerID people in your environment.
   

   

7. Double-click the Person1 component text and change the name to TargetPerson.

8. Expand the TargetPerson node to reveal the attributes available for the Person component.
   

   

9. From the TargetPerson node in the Components tree, scroll to the FirstName object and drag it onto the design surface of the form. When you are dragging the object, notice that FirstName becomes outlined by a green rectangle and the mouse cursor icon changes, indicating that you are performing a drag-and-drop operation. The blue rectangle indicates where you are dropping the FirstName object.
   

   

   
   

10. From the TargetPerson node in the Components tree, drag the LastName attribute onto the form. You should see both fields on the form.
    

    

    
    

11. On the form, double-click directly on the field names and edit them to read First Name and Last Name, respectively.

12. Add an new section to the form by clicking the Workflow Studio Form Designer Commands button and selecting New Section.
    

    

13. Double-click the new section caption and edit it so that it reads Address Information

14. From the TargetPerson node in the Components tree, drag the following components onto the Address Information section of the form:

    • StreetAddress

    • City

    • State

    • PostalCode
      

15. Add spacing to the StreetAddress and PostalCode field names. Your form should look like the following image.
    

    

16. Click the Save button above the designer and browse to the User Interface > Forms folder you created earlier.

17. Enter HelloWorldEditPerson as the file name and then click Save.
    

    

18. Next, publish the form by following the below steps. When you publish the form, Workflow Studio converts it to an activity that can be placed within the workflow.

    1. Click the Compile and Publish button located above the Form Designer.
       

       

    2. In the Form Publishing wizard that appears, click the Next button.

    3. Select the server to which you want to publish the form and click Next.

    4. Click OK to close the Publishing action competed successfully! messagebox. 

    5. Wait for the toolbox to load and then select Yes when prompted to restart Workflow Studio.

    6. Select Yes to save changes to any opened files.

Now that the Lookup and form have been created and published, we can begin building the workflow.

Build the workflow

1. In Workflow Studio, right-click the Workflows > Applications folder you created earlier and select New Workflow > Flow Chart Workflow.
   

   

   
   
   Workflow Studio creates the workflow and opens it in the Workflow Designer.
   

   

   
   

2. On the Source Control tree, expand the User Interface > Lookup Controls folders you created earlier and locate the Person Lookup activity you just created. 

3. Drag the Person Lookup activity onto the Workflow Designer and drop it below the Start activity.
   

   

   
   

4. Click the Start activity to activate its drawing points and then draw a line connecting the Start activity to the Lookup activity.

5. Next, drag the HelloWorldEditPerson form activity onto the Workflow Designer and drop it below the Lookup activity.

6. Click the Lookup activity to activate its drawing points and then draw a line connecting the Lookup activity to the form activity.
   

   

   
   

   Now that we have added the Lookup and form activities to the workflow, the next step is to add an Operation activity to it. Operation activities are protected blocks of code based on the EmpowerID workflow authorization framework used to determine if the current user in a given workflow process can execute the code contained in that activity against the workflow's target object. Each operation activity is derived from the OperationWorkflowBase activity, which exposes a number of methods and other members implemented by the deriving activities. Workflow Studio provides templates that allow for the quick creation of several different types of operation activities, depending on the number of resources involved in the workflow process. In this tutorial, our workflow allows the attributes of a single resource—an EmpowerID Person—to be edited. Thus, to keep unauthorized users from being able to edit those attributes, we need to add a Single Multi-Operation Activity to the workflow. While you can create your own Multi-Operation activities, for the purpose of this tutorial, we will use the stock Edit Person Multi-Operations Operation Activity that EmpowerID provides for protecting unauthorized changes against EmpowerID people.

   
   

7. From Solution Explorer, search for EditPersonMultiOperations.

8. Drag the Operation activity from Solution Explorer onto the Workflow Designer, placing it directly below the form activity. Note that the activity shows as Operation Base Activity.
   

   

9. Click the form activity to activate its drawing points and then draw a line connecting the activity to the Operation Base activity.

10. Next, click the Operation Base activity to activate its drawing points and then draw a line from the activity to the End activity. This ensures that the workflow exits after the Operation activity executes.
    

    

11. Next, to ensure that the Multi-Operation Activity executes the desired operation, we need to enable that operation for the workflow by doing the following:

    1. Right-click on the Multi-Operation Activity and select Enable/Disable Executing Operations from the context menu.
       

       

    2. In the Enable/Disable Resource Operations dialog that appears, select Edit Address from the Disabled Operations columns and move it to the Enabled Operations column by clicking the Right Arrow button.
       

       

    3. Click Close to close the Enable/Disable Resource Operations dialog.
       

       

12. Finally, to use the Multi-Operation Activity in the workflow, we need to add to the workflow project a reference to the OperationBaseActivity assembly:

    1. On the Workflow Studio toolbox to the right of the Workflow Designer, click the Solution tab and in the Code Tree right-click the project name and select Add Reference > Add Assembly Reference from the context menu.
       

       

       
       

    2. In the GAC Assembly Reference window that appears, select the OperationBaseActivity assembly and then click the Add selected items button.
       

       

    3. From the Code Tree, expand the Reference > Assemblies nodes. You should see the OperationBaseActivity assembly.
       

       

       
       

Bind workflow properties

1. From the Workflow Designer, click the Bindings tab.
   

   You should see two identical columns, each with a Workflow Properties node, as well as nodes for each of the activities in the workflow. These nodes provide access to the properties of the workflow and the activities of the workflow. These properties are categorized by type, such as Input and Output, allowing you easily pass the output of one activity to the input of another and so on.
   

   

   
   For this tutorial, we want to pass the person selected in the lookup on the form, and the from the form to the Operation activity. As mentioned earlier, this person is the target of the workflow.
   

2. In the left column of the Bindings tab, expand the Lookup activity and then expand the Output node for that activity. You should see three properties, Comments, SelectedValue and SelectedValueAsComponent. The property we are interested in is SelectedValueAsComponent. The property represents the EmpowerID Person selected in the lookup.

3. In the right column of the Bindings tab, expand the Form activity and then expand the Input/Output node for that activity. You should see a TargetPerson property. As indicated by the type (Input/Output), the target person is passed to the form, where edits are made to the available attributes and then passed to the Multi-Operation activity.
   

   

4. From the left column of the Bindings tab, drag the SelectedValueAsComponent property onto the TargetPerson property. This binds the person selected in the lookup to the form.
   

   

5. Collapse the nodes in both columns. This makes it easier to make the next binding.

6. In the left column of the Bindings tab, expand the form activity and then expand the Input/Output node for that activity. You should see the TargetPerson property.

7. In the right column of the Binding tab, expand the Multi-Operation activity (OperationBaseActivity) in our example, and then expand the Input node. You should see a number of properties prefixed with Form_. The property we are interested in is the Form_TargetPerson property.
   

   

8. From the left column of the Bindings tab, drag the form TargetPerson property onto the Multi-Operation activity Form_TargetPerson property.
   

   

   
   

Deploy and test the workflow

1. Click the Save button above the designer and in the Save As dialog that appears, enter HelloWorld as the file name and click Save.
   

   

2. Next, click the Compile and Publish button above the Workflow Designer.
   

   

   
   

3. In the Workflow Publishing wizard that appears, click the Next button.

4. Select the appropriate workflow server(s) and click Next.

5. Click OK to close the Publishing action completed successfully! dialog.
   
   Workflow Studio adds the .pub file for the workflow to the WFS > _PublishedItems folder on your local file system. You should also see .pub files for the lookup and form you published earlier.
   

   

   
   
   

   At this point, the workflow is simply published to your local file system. In order to make it available to users in the EmpowerID Web application, you need to run the PublishWorkflowStudioItem workflow in the Web application.

6. Log in to the EmpowerID web application as a user with the appropriate access to run the PublishWorkflowStudioItem workflow.

7. On the navbar, expand Object Administration > Workflows and click the Publish Workflow Studio Item action link.
   

   

8. Click Choose File, navigate to the _PublishedItems folder and select HelloWorld.pub. 

9. Click Submit.
   

   

10. Reset IIS.

11. In the address bar of your browser, append #w/HelloWorld to the base URL for your site. The full URL should look similar to https://sso.empoweriam.com/ui/#w/HelloWorld where sso.empoweriam.com is the FQDN of your EmpowerID server.
    
    EmpowerID starts the workflow. You should see the Lookup for the workflow.
    

    

12. Search for a person, click the record returned and then click Submit.
    

    

    
    

13. In the Address Information section of the Update Person Form that appears, type an address in the Street Address field and click Submit.

    

14. Finally, verify the change by searching for the person whose address you updated. You should see your change beside the Street Address label.