Overview

Workflows within the MIKE Workbench are used as a means to author worksflows, host and manage workflows, and execute workflows.

These workflows are based on Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) first introduced in .NET Framework 4.

WF is a Microsoft technology that provides an API, an in-process workflow engine, and a rehostable designer to implement long running processes as workflows within .NET applications.

A workflow is a series of distinct programming steps or phases. Each step is modeled in WF as an Activity. The .NET Framework provides a library of activities. Activities can be assembled visually into workflows using the Workflow Desginer hosted in the main pane of the workflow in MIKE Workbench.

A Workflow is a named entity that represents a workflow which can be activated or started.

An Activity (or Code Activities) is the core building blocks in the workflows. An activity can be composed from other activities, either custom developed or activities provided in the System.Activities namespace. The .NET framework comes with a series of built in activities for performing e.g. IF statements or loops, but in addition to that there are a number of Activities that have been built to perform tasks specific to the use of workflow to automating DHI specific tasks. It spans from simple tasks such as CopyFile to more complex tasks such as Dfsu2Dfs2.

There are several ways that workflows can be executed. If integrated into a web solution, then the Domain Services offers a Web API (the Jobs API) for doing on-demand execution of workflows. The Web API can also be invoked in an automated fashion allowing scheduled execution of workflows.

The Workflow Manager contains the standard activities provided in the System.Activities namespace, and also DHI developed activities with dedicated functionality.