Yes,you can trigger a workflow while uploading a file to a Windows Folder

1.  Create a filewatcher service .

2. In the OnCreate event of the filewatcher service , write the code for executing the   workflow.

Hope this will help you.

Regards,
Abhijeet Dubey

Hi Joseph,

Following is  the Explanation of  FileWatcher service:

File watcher Service is a windows service which continuously monitors a Windows folder for new files. When new files arrive, File watcher Service then triggers a custom action. Here we are going to create a File Watcher Service in Visual Studio. Following are the steps for creating file watcher service.

   1. Start Visual Studio .NET, and create a new project. From the New Project dialog box,      

       choose either a Visual Basic or Visual C#  project,and then select windows, and select the  

       Windows Service project type. Set the name for the project to FileWatcher.

         2. Modify the file name. Once Visual Studio has created the project, you'll find a class named  

             Service1 w ithin the project. In the Solution Explorer window, rename this file to

             fileWatcher.cs   or FileWatcher.vb,depending on the project language. 

   3. Open the class(FileWatcher.cs) in Design view.Modify the service properties. In the

       Properties window,  set the service's properties as follows:

Service Class Properties Property Value Description AutoLog True When set, automatically logs common events to the event log. In this case, since you're only going to log the OnStart event, you'll want some notation entered in the event log when you pause, stop, and resume your service CanPauseAndContinue True Allows the service to be paused and continued CanShutDown True Allows the service to be shut down CanStop True Allows the service to be stopped ServiceName FileWatcher Contains the name for the service

5. Set fsw's properties. Select the FileSystemWatcher component you just added and modify 

     its properties as shwon in figure.

Once you've selected the Add Installer link, Visual Studio .NET creates a new project file named ProjectInstaller.cs (or .vb). Right now, this new file contains two components: ServiceProcessInstaller1 and ServiceInstaller1. Note that Visual Studio .NET sets the ServiceName property of the ServiceInstaller object when you add the ServiceInstaller object to your project. If you change the name of your service class, you'll need to manually change this property to match.

By default, the ServiceInstaller class's StartType property is set to Manual. If you want your service to start automatically when you install it, select the ServiceInstaller1 component in ProjectInstaller's designer, and set the StartType property to Automatic.

In order for the installer to be able to install your service, you need to supply information about the account the service will run as. For this simple service, you can set the Account property of ServiceProcessInstaller1 to be LocalSystem—that way, you needn't supply any authentication information. However, if you don't set the Account property to LocalSystem, or you don't supply a valid UserName and Password property values, the installation setup will fail.

Adding FileSystemWatcher Event Code

Follow these steps to set up your code:

1.  Select the FileWatcher object in the Solution Explorer window, and then use View |     

     Designer (Shift+F7) to open the designer window.

 2.  Right Click on  FileSystemWatcher component on the FileWatcher class designer and

     choose Properties. In the Properties window Choose Events and then, double click

     on  Created Event.It will open filewatcher.cs class which will have fsw_Created function. In

     this function you can write any custom code. This code will automatically run whenever a

     new file is added to the specified folder. For example code to Execute the workflow is

     given below.

       private void fsw_Created(object sender, System.IO.FileSystemEventArgs e)

       {

                string test = "<test>m</test>";

                object userid = "ProviderName::UserName";

                Client cl = new Client("FieWatcherRepository", "FileWatcherWorkFlow");

                cl.Execute(userid, test);

                cl.Close();

        }

Testing the Service: 

Please Do let me know if you have further queries.


Regards,
Abhijeet Dubey