Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and DotNetNuke™

One of the most important things I took away from this years Microsoft MVP conference was an appreciation for the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) framework. DotNetNuke Core Trustee member, Steve Fabian spent hours over a series of days explaining WF to me. He has deployed numerous enterprise level workflow implementations at his job.

When I returned from the conference I got a the PRO WF book and spent weeks reading it. There was so much. I didn't know where to start... really I could not figure out where to lay down my first line of code. WF is an enterprise level framework and with power comes complexity. This is the advanced stuff.

I finally realized that what I wanted to do was make WF work with DotNetNuke. For that I decided to use web services. You can actually host a WF service inside your DNN website but I would not want to put the additional load on the DNN site.

I have finally gotten my first WF application working and I have published a short article with the sample code. This is not a "real application" because if I put the real stuff in there, such as persistence and authentication, many would have a hard time following the example.

The article is here:

http://www.adefwebserver.com/DotNetNukeHELP/Workflow/VacationRequest.htm

UPDATE:

There is a updated version here:

http://www.adefwebserver.com/DotNetNukeHELP/Workflow/VacationRequest2.htm