The Process Designer is the main user interface of Skelta Workflow.NET 2004. The workflow process is designed and deployed from this window. It opens when the Process Designer control is executed from a Web Form in the Web Application.

The Process Designer is an ASP.NET server control that can be embedded in any Web based product, ASP Engine or Web Page. It is browser based requiring no plug-in or IDE. It provides a comprehensive set of standard actions, with an easy to use click & drop and link functionality to design your processes. The Process Designer has two areas:

• Staging Area – Where you can design and save the workflow process design files. The process design files are saved in the SWStaging table.
• Production Area – Where you can deploy different versions of the currently open workflow design. The process design can be saved and deployed as different versions, which are persisted in the SWProduction table. Each version is identified by a unique version name. After making changes to the workflow definition, you can choose to deploy it as a new version or as an existing version, in which case the contents of the selected version will be overwritten. You can select any version from the list of available versions to deploy. By default Skelta Workflow.NET 2004 Engine always executes the latest version.

The Process Designer user interface has four parts –

• the Menu bar
• the List of actions
• the Design Area, and
• the Action Properties.

These are described in separate sections. The Process Designer screen is shown here with the Properties pane for Start action.

Process Designer Screen

Menu bar

Menu bar

The Menu bar is located at the top of the Process Designer window. It has the following controls.

File

This dropdown has the following options to perform various actions on the files in which workflow process designs are saved.

• Open - This option opens an existing process design file to view or edit.
• Rename - This option allows you to change the name of the current process design file.
• Save As - This option allows you to save the current process design to a different file with a new name.
• Delete - This option deletes an existing process design file.
• Clear - This option clears the current process design from the design area.

File menu

Deploy

This dropdown has the following options to deploy different versions of the current workflow process design.

• Open Deployed - This option opens an existing deployed version of a process design.
• Deploy - This option deploys the selected version of a process design from the Staging Area, where it will be saved by default, to the Deployment Area, from where it can be executed.

Deploy menu

Tools

This dropdown has the following options to export and import workflow definitions.

• Import - This option enables the Process Designer to import workflow definitions from XML files.
• Export - This option exports a workflow definition to an XML file. The exported XML definition can be manually edited or moved to another database.

Tools menu

Zoom

This dropdown allows you to Zoom In or Zoom Out. You can set the display size of the workflow process design here.

See also Menu bar option popup windows for more details on the popup windows opened by each tool in the menus.

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List of actions

List of actions

You can use the List of actions to access the different actions that can be used in designing the workflow process in the Process Designer. There are several actions grouped under different folders in a tree structure, in addition to the Link action that is not part of the tree. These correspond to the standard workflow actions available with Skelta Workflow.NET 2004. Each node has a set of related actions dealing with the following common activities.

Resource Actions

When this node is clicked, it expands to show a list of resource-related actions: Approval, Checklist, Choice, Information, ResourceSet, Task and Work.

Engine Actions

This node expands into a list of workflow-engine related actions: COM-Object, CustomTimerController, CustomTimerSet, For-Loop, Invoke-Web-Service, Logger, Next-Loop, ResourceVariable, Rule, Scheduler, Script, Shell, SkeltaFileSystem, TimerTriggerAction, UpdateVariableValue, Workflow and XMLAction.

Microsoft Office Actions

This node displays the CreateDocument action.

DataBase Actions

This node displays the Status Change action, which is related to the DataBase.

Communication Actions

This node expands into a list of communication actions: Email, Notification, SendSMS, WaitForEmail and WaitForSMS.

Miscellaneous Actions

This node expands into a list of three actions: Redirection Off, Redirection On, and Synchronize. This synchronizes the execution of different actions and the alerting of users after execution of an action.

Link

This action links the selected action in the Design Area with another action to create the workflow. It opens a popup window in which you can link the actions.

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Design Area

Design Area

You can create and edit workflows in the Design Area. Initially it displays only the icon for the Start action. You can click and drop the different actions from the List of actions to the Design Area. This will display the icons corresponding to the selected actions on the Design Area. After displaying the action icon you can use the Link action to link it to the workflow.

Splitters have been provided on either side of the Design Area. You can click on the splitter on the left to hide the List of actions and enlarge the Design Area in that direction. Similarly, you can click on the splitter on the right and hide the Action Properties window to add more space in that direction.  The Process Designer with both splitters clicked is shown here.

Process Designer with both splitters clicked to enlarge Design Area

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Action Properties

Action Properties

The Action Properties at the right of the screen shows the property fields corresponding to the selected action. This image shows the Action Properties for the ‘Approval’ action.

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