Walkthrough: Creating and Debugging a SharePoint Workflow Solution

Article
02/04/2013

This walkthrough demonstrates how to create a basic sequential workflow template. The workflow checks a property of a shared document library to determine whether a document has been reviewed. If the document has been reviewed, the workflow finishes.

This walkthrough illustrates the following tasks:

Creating a SharePoint list definition sequential workflow project in Visual Studio.
Creating workflow activities.
Handling workflow activity events.

Note

Although this walkthrough uses a sequential workflow project, the process is identical for a state machine workflow project.

Also, your computer might show different names or locations for some of the Visual Studio user interface elements in the following instructions. The Visual Studio edition that you have and the settings that you use determine these elements. For more information, see Working with Settings.

Prerequisites

You need the following components to complete this walkthrough:

Supported editions of Microsoft Windows and SharePoint. For more information, see Requirements for Developing SharePoint Solutions.
Visual Studio 2010.

Adding Properties to the SharePoint Shared Documents Library

To track the review status of documents in the Shared Documents library, we will create three new properties for shared documents on our SharePoint site: Status, Assignee, and Review Comments. We define these properties in the Shared Documents library.

To add properties to the SharePoint shared documents library

Open a SharePoint site, such as http://<system name>/SitePages/Home.aspx, in a Web browser.
On the QuickLaunch bar, click Shared Documents.
Click Library on the Library Tools ribbon and then click the Create Column button on the ribbon to create a new column.
Name the column Document Status, set its type to Choice (menu to choose from), specify the following three choices, and then click OK:
- Review Needed
- Review Complete
- Changes Requested
Create two more columns and name them Assignee and Review Comments. Set the Assignee column type as a single line of text, and the Review Comments column type as multiple lines of text.

Enabling Documents to be Edited without Requiring a Check Out

It is easier to test the workflow template when you can edit the documents without having to check them out. In the next procedure, you configure the SharePoint site to enable that.

To enable documents to be edited without checking them out

On the QuickLaunch bar, click Shared Documents.
Click Library on the Library Tools ribbon and then click the Library Settings button to display the Document Library Settings page.
In the General Settings section, click Versioning Settings to display the Versioning Settings page.
Verify that the setting for Require documents to be checked out before they can be edited is No. If it is not, change it to No and then click OK.
Close the browser.

Creating a SharePoint Sequential Workflow Project

A sequential workflow is a set of steps that executes in order until the last activity finishes. In this procedure, we create a sequential workflow that will apply to our Shared Documents list. The workflow wizard lets you associate the workflow with either the site definition or the list definition and lets you determine when the workflow will start.

To create a SharePoint sequential workflow project

Start Visual Studio and display the New Project dialog box by pointing to New on the File menu and then clicking Project.
Expand the SharePoint node under either Visual C# or Visual Basic, and then click 2010.
In the Templates pane, select Sequential Workflow.
In the Name box, type MySharePointWorkflow and then click OK.

The SharePoint Customization Wizard appears.
In the Specify the site and security level for debugging page, click Next to accept the default site and trust level.

This step sets the trust level for the solution as farm solution, the only available option for workflow projects. For more information, see Sandboxed Solution Considerations.
In the Specify the workflow name for debugging page, accept the default name (MySharePointWorkflow - Workflow1). Keep the default workflow template type value, List Workflow, and then click Next.
In the Would you like Visual Studio to automatically associate the workflow in a debug session? page, click Next to accept all of the default settings.

This step automatically associates the workflow with the Shared Documents library.
In the Specify the conditions for how your workflow is started page, leave the default options selected in the How do you want the workflow to start? section and click Finish.

This page enables you to specify when your workflow starts. By default, the workflow starts either when a user manually starts it in SharePoint or when an item to which the workflow is associated is created.

Creating Workflow Activities

Workflows contain one or more activities that represent actions to perform. Use the workflow designer to arrange activities for a workflow. In this procedure, we will add two activities to the workflow: HandleExternalEventActivity and OnWorkFlowItemChanged. These activities monitor the review status of documents in the Shared Documents list

To create workflow activities

The workflow should be displayed in the workflow designer. If it is not, then double-click either Workflow1.cs or Workflow1.vb in Solution Explorer to open it.
In the designer, click the OnWorkflowActivated1 activity to select it.
In the Properties window, type onWorkflowActivated next to the Invoked property, and then press ENTER.

The Code Editor opens, and an event handler method named onWorkflowActivated is added to the Workflow1 code file.
Switch back to the workflow designer, open the toolbox, and then expand the Windows Workflow v3.0 node.
Drag a While activity from the Windows Workflow v3.0 node of the Toolbox and connect it to the line under the onWorkflowActivated1 activity.
Click the WhileActivity1 activity to select it.
In the Properties window, set Condition to Code Condition.
Expand the Condition property, and type isWorkflowPending next to the child Condition property, and then press ENTER.

The Code Editor opens, and a method named isWorkflowPending is added to the Workflow1 code file.
Switch back to the workflow designer, open the toolbox, and then expand the SharePoint Workflow node.
Drag a OnWorkflowItemChanged activity from the SharePoint Workflow node of the Toolbox and then connect it to the line inside the whileActivity1 activity.
Click the onWorkflowItemChanged1 activity to select it.
In the Properties window, set the properties as shown in the following table.

Property

Value

CorrelationToken

workflowToken

Invoked

onWorkflowItemChanged

Property	Value
CorrelationToken	workflowToken
Invoked	onWorkflowItemChanged

Handling Activity Events

Finally, check the status of the document from each activity. If the document has been reviewed, then the workflow is finished.

To handle activity events

In Workflow1.cs or Workflow1.vb, add the following field to the top of the Workflow1 class. This field is used in an activity to determine whether the workflow is finished.
```
Dim workflowPending As Boolean = True
```
```
Boolean workflowPending = true;
```
Add the following method to the Workflow1 class. This method checks the value of the Document Status property of the Documents list to determine whether the document has been reviewed. If the Document Status property is set to Review Complete, then the checkStatus method sets the workflowPending field to false to indicate that the workflow is ready to finish.
```
Private Sub checkStatus()
    If CStr(workflowProperties.Item("Document Status")) = "Review Complete" Then
        workflowPending = False
    End If
End Sub 
```
```
private void checkStatus()
{
    if ((string)workflowProperties.Item["Document Status"] == "Review Complete")
    workflowPending = false;
}
```

Add the following code to the onWorkflowActivated and onWorkflowItemChanged methods to call the checkStatus method. When the workflow starts, the onWorkflowActivated method calls the checkStatus method to determine whether the document has already been reviewed. If it has not been reviewed, the workflow continues. When the document is saved, the onWorkflowItemChanged method calls the checkStatus method again to determine whether the document has been reviewed. While the workflowPending field is set to true, the workflow continues to run.

Private Sub onWorkflowActivated(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Workflow.Activities.ExternalDataEventArgs)
    checkStatus()
End Sub

Private Sub onWorkflowItemChanged(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Workflow.Activities.ExternalDataEventArgs)
    checkStatus()
End Sub

private void onWorkflowActivated(object sender, ExternalDataEventArgs e)
{
    // Check the status.
    checkStatus();
}

private void onWorkflowItemChanged(object sender, ExternalDataEventArgs e)
{
    // Check the status.
    checkStatus();
}

Add the following code to the isWorkflowPending method to check the status of the workflowPending property. Each time the document is saved, the whileActivity1 activity calls the isWorkflowPending method. This method examines the Result property of the ConditionalEventArgs object to determine whether the WhileActivity1 activity should continue or finish. If the property is set to true, the activity continues. Otherwise, the activity finishes and the workflow finishes.
```
Private Sub isWorkflowPending(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Workflow.Activities.ConditionalEventArgs)
    e.Result = workflowPending
End Sub
```
```
private void isWorkflowPending(object sender, ConditionalEventArgs e)
{
    e.Result = workflowPending;
}
```
Save the project.

Testing the SharePoint Workflow Template

When you start the debugger, Visual Studio deploys the workflow template to the SharePoint server and associates the workflow with the Shared Documents list. To test the workflow, start an instance of the workflow from a document in the Shared Documents list.

To test the SharePoint workflow template

In Workflow1.cs or Workflow1.vb, set a breakpoint next to the onWorkflowActivated method.
Press F5 to build and run the solution.

The SharePoint site appears.
In the navigation pane in SharePoint, click Shared Documents.
In the Shared Documents page, click Documents on the Library Tools tab, and then click the Upload Document button to upload a document.
In the Upload Document dialog, click the Browse button, select any document file, click Open, and then click OK.

This uploads the selected document into the Shared Documents list and starts the workflow.
In Visual Studio, verify that the debugger stops at the breakpoint next to the onWorkflowActivated method.
Press F5 to continue execution.
You can change the settings for the document here, but leave them at the default values for now by clicking Save.

This returns you to the Shared Documents page of the default SharePoint Web site.
In the Shared Documents page, verify that the value underneath the MySharePointWorkflow column is set to In Progress. This indicates that the workflow is in progress and that the document is awaiting review.
In the Shared Documents page, point to the document, click the down arrow, and then click Edit Properties.
Set Document Status to Review Complete and then click Save.

This returns you to the Shared Documents page of the default SharePoint Web site.
In the Shared Documents page, verify that the value underneath the MySharePointWorkflow column is set to Review Complete. This indicates that workflow is finished and that the document has been reviewed.

Next Steps

You can learn more about how to create workflow templates from these topics:

To learn more about SharePoint workflow activities, see Workflow Activities for SharePoint Foundation.
To learn more about Windows Workflow Foundation activities, see System.Workflow.Activities Namespace.

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