Using Existing .NET Libraries

Overview

There are three ways that an existing .NET library can be exposed to Workflow and invoked from workflow logic.

Each approach has different advantages that may be more suitable than the others depending on the situation.
  • Custom Services

    In most cases, the ideal way to expose the .NET library to Workflow is to create a custom service and wrap the library. With this approach, you must create an interface for your service that contains the set of methods that workflows can invoke. In addition, you can expose events for use in triggering schedules or Wait for Event activities in workflow

  • Custom Workflow Activity

    Another approach for exposing a .NET library to Workflow is to create one or more custom workflow activities to wrap the library. This should only be done if the library must be invoked in the same process as the workflow engine. Some reasons for this may be if the API works with large objects that would be slow to send/receive via service methods, or if it works with objects that cannot be represented by service data contracts.

  • Call from Code Activity