The Workflow Studio IDE is where you develop EmpowerID workflows. It comprises four user interface components that work together to provide developers with a visual design environment. Through friendly drag-and-drop operations, depictions of business processes can be translated quickly into workflow logic without the need for extensive code. This can be as simple as dragging predefined activities onto the design surface of the IDE and connecting those activities with flow lines. Code editors allow C# code to be injected into the process when desired to create a complete package.
The below image shows what the Workflow Studio IDE looks like with a Flow Chart workflow opened in the Document Space or Workflow Studio Designer.
As depicted by the above image, the Workflow Studio IDE is comprised of four components—the Ribbon, the Solution Explorer, the Document Space, and the Toolbox—each of which combine to create a rich, interactive environment for workflow development. Expand the sections below for details.
The Workflow Studio ribbon provides immediate access to a variety of tools and application-specific development tabbed toolbars. The toolbars are dynamic in that the number of tabs and commands available on the ribbon at any given time is determined by the number and types of designers and editors opened in the IDE. Common ToolbarThe Common toolbar contains a number of command buttons that allow you to perform general tasks when working in the IDE.
Build ToolbarThe Build toolbar contains a number of commands relevant to publishing projects created in Workflow Studio.
Tools ToolbarThe Tools toolbar contains commands for performing a number of Workflow Studio maintenance tasks.
Workspace ToolbarThe Workspace toolbar contains commands relevant to the Workspace, which is a local copy of the Workflow Studio Source Control. The workspace can be individualized with selected packages and package items.
Best Practices ToolbarThe Best Practices toolbar contains commands for creating new workflow items according to the preferred method for each item. For example, clicking on the New Workflow command creates a new Flow Chart workflow.
Options and Settings ToolbarThe Options and Settings toolbar contains commands that allow you to perform various actions.
Workflow Editing ToolbarThe Workflow Editing toolbar contains commands related to designing workflows and activities. This toolbar only appears when a workflow is open in the Workflow Designer or an activity is open in the Activity Designer.
Form Designer ToolbarThe Form Designer toolbar contains commands related to designing forms. This toolbar only appears when a form is open in the Form Designer.
Ribbon Designer ToolbarThe Ribbon Designer toolbar contains commands related to ribbon design. This toolbar only appears when the EmpowerID Menu Editor is open.
Lookup Designer ToolbarThe Lookup Designer toolbar contains commands related to Lookup Control design. This toolbar only appears when the Lookup Designer is open.
Application MenuClicking on the EmpowerID logo on the top left of Workflow Studio opens the Workflow Studio application menu. The application menu provides even greater access to various functionalities. Application functionalities accessible through the application menu are not specific to any particular type of solution development and are not affected by any designer or editor currently loaded in the Workflow Studio IDE. Many of the menu items in the application menu are fly-out items. Hovering over a fly-out exposes related menu items that when selected perform a specific command related to the fly-out.
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The Solution Explorer is comprised of several tabbed views that provide access to the Workflow components in your development environment.
Each of these is discussed in further detail below. Servers TabSelect the Servers tab to display a tree view of EmpowerID servers and their status in your environment. Expand a server node to display the EmpowerID services installed on that server. Right-click a node to open a context menu that allows you to select various options for that node. The following table describes the menu items available when you right-click a server or service node in the Servers tab.
Solution Explorer TabThe Solution Explorer tab provides access to the workflow applications and other objects that exist in the EmpowerID Identity Warehouse. It is comprised of three sub-tabs for managing these applications: the Workspace tab, which gives you access to all the objects you develop in Workflow Studio; the Search tab, which allows you to search for objects by name and type; and the SharePoint tab, which allows you to work with your SharePoint objects. Of the three, the Workspace Tab provides the greatest functionality for working with and managing the objects developed in Workflow Studio. Using the Workspace TabIn Workflow Studio, the workflow applications and other objects that you develop are classified as package items (or solution items) and placed in "packages" you create. These packages are simply containers for holding the package items you are developing and are represented as nodes in the Source Control tree visible from the Workspace tab of the Solution Explorer. Each time you create a new workflow, activity, user interface element, or other object, Workflow Studio prompts you for the package in which the object should be placed and then places that object within a Source Control folder underneath the selected package. While Workflow Studio gives you some freedom in placing packages and package items, Source Control folders are predetermined by their content and cannot be moved or deleted. If a Source Control folder does not exist for a particular package item being created, Workflow Studio will create that Source Control folder at the time the package item is created and then place the package item in the folder. Workflow Studio allows you to determine which packages and package items you want to appear in your Workspace. You can opt to have all packages and package items that exist in the Identity Warehouse appear in your Workspace or pick and choose only those items with which you are working. When you start Workflow Studio for the first time, your Workspace will contain no package items and you will be prompted by the Workspace dialog to add items. If you click No, the dialog closes, allowing you to proceed. If you click Yes, the Source Control dialog opens. The Source Control dialog contains two panes, the Team Source Control pane on the left and the Workspace Source Control pane on the right. The Team Source Control pane displays the Source Control tree populated with every package and package item that exists in the EmpowerID Identity Warehouse. The Workspace Source Control pane displays every package and package item that exists in your personal Workspace. To add packages and package items to your Workspace, you simply locate the packages and/or package items in the Source Control tree of the Team Source Control pane and then click the button with the right arrow to move them to the Workspace Source Control pane. Clicking on a package node will move the package and all the package items in that package to the Workspace. In the above image, we selected the DocTest package so we should see the Source Control tree of the Workspace Source Control pane update to show that package with all of its package items. Once you have selected all the packages and/or package items desired, you can click the Close button to close the dialog. You will see the Workspace Source Control tree in the Solution Explorer tab update to include the packages and package items you selected. Source Control folders exist for each package item type that can be created in Workflow Studio and encompass the following:
These Source Control folders ensure consistent project structure and placement of objects within the Source Control tree for every Workspace. If you or another team member create a new form, it will always be placed in the User Interface/Forms Source Control folder and never the Workflow Applications folder, which is reserved for workflow applications only.
Additionally, the Workspace tab in Solution Explorer gives you ready access to the commands associated with packages and package items. These commands are accessible from a context menu that appears when right-clicking an object in the Workspace Source Control tree. The number of commands available from the context menu depend on the particular object that has been right-clicked. Commands relevant to that object are enabled, while commands not relevant are grayed out and not selectable. The following image shows the commands menu that appears when right-clicking on one of the nodes in the Workspace Source Control tree. The commands available depend on the particular node selected.
Windows Form TabThe Windows Form Toolbox contains common Windows Forms controls that can be dragged onto a Windows Form that you are designing in Workflow Studio. Once a control has been added to a Windows Form, you can manipulate the properties and write event-handling code as you would with Visual Studio. |
The Document Space is reserved for Workflow Studio designers and editors. Most of the work you do in Workflow Studio is accomplished through one or more designers and editors, which are commonly referred to as development tools. In Workflow Studio, designers provide for rapid visual application development, enabling you to organize and present application content at design time. Editors provide intellisense-enabled C# and XML language support for editing code and appear in the Document Space as a tab when that feature is relevant to the object you open in the Document Space. For example, the C# Editor appears for workflows, activities, lookup controls, and forms are open in the Document Space, but does not appear for reports, menus, and pages. In those cases, the editor that appears is the XML Markup Editor. As a workflow developer, the designers most relevant to you include the following:
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The Workflow Studio Toolbox is situated to the right of the IDE and provides access to a number of features related to workflow development and project management. The Toolbox is comprised of four tabs: the Activities Toolbox tab; the Solution tab; the Properties tab; and the Workflows tab. Each tab has its own unique function, and depending on the type of object open in the Document Space, some tabs will have more relevance to your project than others. The purpose of each is discussed in more detail below. The Activities TabThe Activities tab displays icons for all activities in your environment that have been published to the Workflow Server(s). Once an activity is published, it becomes available as a toolbox item that can be dragged from the toolbox and dropped onto the design surface of any workflow open in the Document Space. You can also drop activities onto the design surface of a select number of activities. The Activity Toolbox provides a Search field and a Category drop-down, both of which can be used to narrow the amount of activities appearing in the toolbox. When using the Search field, the available activities are narrowed by the string value entered into the field. To search for an activity, you simply enter the name of the activity or text that can be found in the activity's description. This search is performed across all activities regardless of the category selected. If you wish to broaden the search to a category of activity, you can use the Category drop-down list to locate activities classified by category.
The Solution TabThe Solution Tab contains two sub-tabs for working with a project: the Code Tree tab and the Code Snippets tab. • The Code Tree Tab - The Code Tree tab provides a logically organized tree view of the files associated with the object currently open in the Document Space and provides placeholders for adding new files, such as custom methods and classes. Expanding a node in the Code Tree allows you to view the files in your project related to that node and gives you access to the commands relevant to it, allowing you to add new assembly references, namespaces, support classes, and embedded resources to the project.
The following table show the commands available from the Code Tree for the User Interface applications you create for your workflows.
• The Code Snippets Tab — The Code Snippets tab displays any Code Snippets that you have added to a project or other team members have published. The Code Snippets tab behaves as a toolbox. Thus, as with the activities in the Activities Toolbox, you can drag a code snippet from the Toolbox and drop it into an open project to incorporate it. However, code snippets must be dropped onto an open Code Editor. They cannot be dropped onto the design surface of an object. The Properties TabThe Properties Tab provides immediate access to the browsable properties of the currently selected object or document in the Document Workspace. Changes made to property values shown in the property grid are committed immediately to the object. The following image shows property grid displaying browsable properties for the SelectGroups activity.
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