Windows Workflow Foundation Using Visual Basic

Learn how Windows Workflow Foundation makes it easy to create applications that follow a flow, or react to events and move from state to state. By providing a visual interface for designing the applications, and by binding code activities directly to the design of the application, Windows Workflow Foundation makes it easier than ever to create and maintain complex business applications.

Course includes 36+ hours of total training time...

10 modules of training

Over 12 hours of media run time

Over 800 pages of printable courseware

Step-by-step hands-on-labs

Sample code

Format

Sessions

Retail Price

Windows Workflow Using Visual Basic

CD-ROM

10 CD-ROMs

$495.00

CD-ROM & Books

10 CD-ROMs + Printed Books

$615.00

DVD-ROM

1 DVD-ROM

$495.00

DVD-ROM & Books

1 DVD-ROM + Printed Books

$615.00

•	Read about Ken Getz and Robert Green .

Course Outline (Outlines are subject to change.)

Windows Workflow Foundation Using Visual Basic

Sessions	Run Time	Pages
10	12 hours	800

Microsoft has provided the Windows Workflow Foundation, a set of assemblies based on the .NET Framework 2.0 (as part of the .NET Framework 3.0), along with a full-featured workflow designer built on top of Visual Studio 2005, and it’s free.

Windows Workflow Foundation makes it easy to create applications that follow a flow, or react to events and move from state to state. By providing a visual interface for designing the applications, and by binding code activities directly to the design of the application, Windows Workflow Foundation makes it easier than ever to create and maintain complex business applications.

In addition, Windows Workflow Foundation provides a runtime engine that manages your application’s behavior (that is, the “plumbing”) and enforces the workflow. The runtime makes sure the workflow behaves in the manner in which you designed and coded it.

In this course you will learn...

Learn the prerequisites for Windows Workflow Foundation
Investigate all the available workflow activities
Learn how to handle exceptions in workflow applications
Work with Delay and Listen activities
Learn how to use RuleSets and Policy activities in workflows
Provide bi-directional communications between the workflow and the host
Understand the difference between sequential and state machine workflows
Learn when and how the workflow runtime persists information about a workflow
Learn when and how the workflow runtime tracks information about a workflow
Understand how to group activities into a transaction
Modify an executing workflow from the host application
Explore how to maintain state between workflow Web service method calls

Prerequisites:

This course assumes that students have a strong programming background and have worked through the course, Microsoft Visual Basic 2005: Developing Applications, or its equivalent. This course assumes intermediate knowledge of Visual Basic, and of building Windows and Console applications using Visual Studio 2005.

Introduction to Workflow

What is Windows Workflow Foundation?
Creating Your First Workflow
Hosting a Workflow in a Windows Application

Handling Conditions an Exceptions

Introducing Conditional Activities
IfElse Activity
While Activity
ConditionedActivityGroup Activity
Replicator Activity
Handling Exceptions

Flow Activities

Introducing Flow Activities
Delay Activity and Handling Properties
Listen Activity
Suspend and Terminate Activities
Parallel and SynchronizeScope Activities
Handling Cancellation

Making Decisions in Workflows

Using Rules in Workflows
Using the Policy Activity
Setting Priorities
Forward Chaining

Workflow Communications

Calling Methods in the Host from the Workflow
Handling Host Events in the Workflow
Bi-Directional Communications

Creating State Machine Workflows

Introduction to State Machines
State Machine Activities
Creating a State Machine Workflow
Circular Navigation in State Machines

Using and Building Persistence Services

Introducing Workflow Persistence
Using the SQL Persistence Service
Creating a Custom Persistence Service

Using and Building Tracking Services

Workflow Tracking Services
Using the SQL Tracking Service
Tracking Profiles
Creating a Custom Tracking Service

Creating Custom Activities

Introducing Custom Activities
Creating a Simple Activity
Creating a More Complex Activity
Creating Composite Activities

Handling Workflow Transactions

Transactions
Transactions in Workflows
Transactions and Batches of Work
Compensation in Workflows

Dynamic Workflow Updates

Introduction to Dynamic Updates
Modifying a Workflow from the Host Application
Modifying a Workflow from within the Workflow
Dynamic Rule Conditions

Workflows and Web Services

Workflow-Based Web Services
Building a Workflow Web Service
Maintaining State in Web Services
Invoking a Web Service in a Workflow

Your Instructor

Ken Getz is a nationally renowned speaker and best-selling author who specializes in programming with Visual C# and Visual Basic. He is the author and presenter of some of most popular courses . Ken is also a senior consultant with MCW Technologies and the author or co-author of several best-selling books including Access 2002 Developer's Handbooks (with Paul Litwin and Mike Gunderloy (Sybex)), Access Cookbook (with Andy Baron and Paul Litwin (O'Reilly)), VBA Developer's Handbook (with Mike Gilbert (Sybex)), and ASP.NET Developer's JumpStart (with Paul D. Sheriff (Addison-Wesley)). Since the inception of the program, Ken has been selected each year as a Microsoft Support MVP and is a member of the INETA speaker's bureau, traveling to speak at .NET user groups throughout the country. Ken is a frequent speaker at technical conferences, including Microsoft's Tech-Ed, as well as VSLive and DevConnections. Ken is also a technical editor for Advisor Guide to Microsoft Access and Advisor Guide to Microsoft Visual Basic and is a columnist for both CoDe Magazine and MSDN Magazine.

Robert Green is a senior consultant with MCW Technologies, a Microsoft Certified Partner. Before joining MCW, Robert worked at Microsoft for 8 years, most recently as a Program Manager on the Visual Basic product team and previously as a Product Manager for several products including Visual Studio, Visual Basic, Visual Studio Tools for Office and Visual FoxPro. Prior to joining Microsoft, Robert was a Vice President and co-founder of The Information Management Group, a consulting and education services firm in Chicago. Robert has been a frequent speaker at technology conferences, including TechEd, VSLive, VSConnections and Advisor Live. His articles have appeared on MSDN and Advisor Publication’s VB.NET Advisor, and will appear in other venues as well throughout the year. Robert is the co-author and co-presenter of Visual Basic 2005 and Visual C# 2005 training, along with Ken Getz.