Integrate Logistix in Nine Steps

Logistix Workflow.NET is a fully embeddable workflow engine. It has several developer-friendly features that allow it to be integrated with other applications with ease. These features also ensure that once embedded, Logistix is completely hidden from the end user of the application. Logistix can be added to your application through a few easy steps that are listed below:

Step 1: Configure the Application

Configure the Application and the Workflows associated with it in the Logistix Workflow.NET Configuration file - WorkflowNET.Config.xml

Step 2: Configure the Resource Handler

Logistix can query a resource and extract the resource properties from any source, like databases and active directories, through a Resource Handler. Identify the resource properties required by the application and configure the properties in an XML file. The path of this file has to be configured in the Logistix Workflow.NET Configuration file - WorkflowNET.Config.xml, for the specific application. Workflow.NET provides a default database handler. This database handler can be used for all the applications that get the resource information from the database.

Step 3: Develop and Configure Custom Actions for the Application

Logistix Workflow.NET provides more than a dozen standard actions, which can be used for most workflows. However, for some workflows you might need to extend standard actions or develop completely different actions. In such cases, you can develop the custom actions by implementing the IActionRun interface.

After developing the custom action(s), you need to configure it in the Actions.xml file. When you have configured the action(s) in the Actions.xml file, the action gets added to the list of actions in the Process Designer.

Step 4: Develop and Configure Custom Properties for the Custom Actions

Logistix Workflow.NET provides a set of properties for the actions. You can also develop custom properties. If the custom action needs a custom property, it has to be developed and configured in the Actions.xml file. All the properties implement the IPropertyType interface. For rendering the HTML for the property in the Process Designer, a web user interface and the property page has to be implemented for the property. The property type and the property web user interface have to be configured in the Actions.xml file. For displaying the property in the Process Designer implement the IPropertyTypeWebUI.

The custom property has to be configured in the Actions.xml file. The custom property will be displayed in the Properties pane of the Process Designer for the custom action.

Step 5: Develop and Deploy the Workflow Process using the Process Designer

After creating and configuring Custom Resource Handlers, Actions and Properties for the application, create and deploy a workflow process using the Logistix Workflow.NET Process Designer. Once the workflow process is designed and deployed, it can be executed.

Step 6: Create the Activity List for the Resources to view activities

After creating and deploying the workflow process, create the Activity List for the resources. Embed the Activity List control in the Web Form in your application and specify the application name in the ApplicationName property. Also specify the resource identifier in the UserIDInteger property or the UserIDString property.

The activity list will now display the activities for the resource who has logged in. The activities will be displayed with Action specific web controls. The view for the activity list is loaded from HTML templates. You can edit the templates to give a different look and feel to the activity list. The HTML templates are stored under the path configured in the WorkflowNET.Config.xml file.

Step 7: Develop Custom Document Views

After creating the Activity List do the following to create the document views for different actions.

• Identify the document view format for different Actions.
• Develop document view by implementing the IActivityWebUIHandler interface and inheriting the WebControl class.
• Configure the custom document view in WorkflowNET.Config.xml file.

Step 8: Configure the Calendars for the Organization and the Resources

Configure the Organization and Resource Calendars by embedding the corresponding controls in Web Forms in your application. These calendars are used to compute and track the business hours.

Configure the Organization Calendar by adding Organization Holiday and Shift details. For more details see Organization Calendar Reference. Similarly configure the Resource Calendar by adding the Resource Holiday and Shift details. For more details see Resource Calendar Reference. The Resource Calendar inherits the Organization Calendar details.

Step 9: Execute the workflow

Use the Client class to execute the workflow with the content data.