Type Converters

Type Converters allow you to convert one data type to another within a workflow. An example of using a type converter would be converting the login name of a Person (string) to PersonID (integer). This article demonstrates using a type converter in this way.

Adding a type converter to a workflow

1. Open the workflow to which you want to add a type converter

2. Right-click on the Workflow Designer and select Workflow Binding Type Converters.
   
   

   Open

   

    

3. Name the Type Converter appropriately and click Add.
   
   

   Open

   

    

4. Click Close to close the Type Converters window.

5. Locate the class for the Type Converter in the Code Tree and double-click on the ConvertTo() method to open the C# Editor for it.
   
   

    

6. In the C# Editor, replace the default code for the method with code that retrieves a value of type string and returns a value of type int. In this example, we specifically, enter code to do the following:  

   1. Retrieve the Person object by the login name passed to the type converter

   2. Return the PersonID from the retrieved Person object.
      
      

   Person p = Person.GetByLogin(value.String()); return p.PersonID;

   
   The below image shows what the code looks like in the editor.
   
   

    

7. Click the External Rules tab located above the C# Editor and expand the Business Rule Engine tree to locate the property you need to convert to the new data type.
   
   

    

8. Drag the type converter from the Code Tree onto the node for the property you need to convert.
   
   

   
   This binds the Converter to the property.