Developing your Workflow Solution

Build a more effective workflow solution by allowing users to collaborate in a shared environment.

OpenText Workflow Sever, .NET Edition supports users with a variety of technical skill levels contributing to the same workflow solution. Non-technical knowledge workers can configure workflow solutions through wizards or use the complete integrated development environment (IDE) to intuitively design workflow solutions. For detailed development of complex, highly integrated workflows, developers and workflow model design engineers use the Workflow Server IDE, a powerful development environment modeled on Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. Workflow Server also provides a library of re-usable drag-and-drop custom actions that can be incorporated into workflow solutions to automate routine tasks, speeding time to delivery and reducing overall development costs.

Collaboration among Multiple Subject Matter and Domain Experts

Many organizations find that the best workflow models are based on input from multiple concerned constituents. Typically workflow model developers are comfortable with the workflow designer, but are not familiar with the nuances of the specific business process undergoing automation. Subject model experts understand the individual business process but are not workflow developers and are not comfortable using the complete development environment.

Workflow Server offers two ways to address this issue. Importing Microsoft Visio diagrams into the IDE allows business analysts and process owners to collaborate around a Visio diagram and then forward the diagram to the model developers for import and design. In addition, Workflow Server provides workflow wizards to help non-technical workers build and deploy simple workflow designs without any coding or programming. Once the core workflow has been designed by the wizard, it can then be accessed by model developers within the full development environment for model enhancement and expansion.

Workflow Server IDE

Workflow Server provides a powerful, high productivity, and integrated development environment patterned after Microsoft Visual Studio for .NET. Developers can open an existing wizard built or IDE designed model, start with a blank canvas, or drag in a Visio diagram to kick-start development. The IDE provides a full set of reusable actions and robust tools to increase development speed and accuracy, even when building out the most complex workflows. As developers create the workflow by dragging and dropping objects, VB.NET script is automatically being generated.

Although not generally required, direct script editing with built-in intelligence scripting support is available for ultimate flexibility. Workflow Server also provides unique, high productivity data binding capabilities, and automatic XML-based form generation, to automate the process of linking forms to XML data and database queries, further increasing developer productivity and reducing overall costs of deployment.

Workflow Server Wizard

Workflow Server brings the power of wizards to workflow, making it possible for non-technical knowledge workers or managers to set up and deploy automated workflow solutions. Workflow wizards are used to quickly stitch together sequential or parallel tasks into simple workflows.

Workflow models designed with wizards and can be further customized using the Workflow Server IDE. The IDE uses sophisticated design wizards and drag-and-drop capabilities that increase the speed and accuracy of work performed by developers, further lowering the cost of implementing workflow automation. The Workflow Server Wizard for CMS and Workflow Server Wizard for SharePoint enable rapid creation of workflow extensions to those products.

Custom Actions

Workflow Server also provides an extensible library of re-usable custom actions that can be incorporated into workflow solutions. Workflow Server includes a collection of commonly used actions. Alternatively, companies and software vendors can create additional custom actions specific to their organization or market. Workflow Server offers a powerful, easy-to-use mechanism to access functionality in other software applications, reducing overall cost of integration and accelerating development time.