sharepoint 2013 workflows a rchitecture

SHAREPOINT 2013WORKFLOWS ARCHITECTURE

Presented by

Srini Sistla@srinisistla

THANK YOU

CAPAREA SPONSORS AUDIENCE

SOURCES Samples and screen shots are from

Ignite SPC 2012

ABOUT ME

AUTHOR Pro SharePoint 2010 Business Intelligence (Apress) Pro SharePoint Migration (Apress) SharePoint 2013 Development Machine ** (Self Published)

SPEAKER INETA, SharePoint Saturday, CAPAREA.NET, SUGDC

BLOGGERSHAREPOINT 2010 ARCHITECT / CONSULTANT / SME

AGENDA

ARCHITECTURE DETAILS YOUR DEVELOPMENT MACHINE FOR WORKFLOWS

COMPARISON

2010 VS. 2013 SharePoint 2010 hosted the Workflow

Foundation (WF) workflow runtime Tightly coupled workflow to SharePoint

2010 Workflow data kept in SharePoint content

databases Challenges:

Designed for on-premise deployments (scale)

In SharePoint, extending WF meant you had to be a box admin

Analytics on current/previous workflow instances hard to acquire

Executed in the context of SharePoint as super user

Workflow now treated as a service in SharePoint 2013

Moved to Windows Azure Workflow No longer runs in the content farm No longer runs on SharePoint WFE /

App servers Harnesses the latest workflow

technology from Microsoft Windows Azure Workflow available

for on-prem deployments Improves stability, scalability &

transparency

ARCHITECTURE

SharingContentEvents People

Visu

al S

tudi

o

Shar

ePoi

nt D

esig

ner

SharePoint2010 WF

_API (REST OM)

Workflow Services Manager

Service BusInstances Interop

Deployment Messaging

WF Service Application Proxy

Workflow Manager

OAuth

Access Control

Wor

kflow

Clie

nt

SHAREPOINT 2013 AND WORKFLOW SERVICE

SharingContentEvents People

Visu

al S

tudi

o

Shar

ePoi

nt D

esig

ner

SharePoint2010 WF

_API (REST OM)

Workflow Services Manager

Service BusInstances Interop

Deployment Messaging

WF Service Application Proxy

Workflow Manager

OAuth

Access Control

Wor

kflow

Clie

nt

ARCHITECTURE

Enhanced parallel blocks

Do “App-Level” operations with App Step

Rapid design with the Visual and Text-Based Designers

Stages! Looping! Enhanced portability & packaging through WSP and VSDX files

Support classic 2010 workflow type and interoperability

Leverage web services(HTTP/REST)

Complex data types with ‘Dictionary’ variables

Full integration with Project Server workflows

Copy & Paste in the Text-Based Designer

New “Assign A Task” & “Start a Task Process” actions

IMPROVEMENTS

Enhanced parallel blocks

Do “App-Level” operations with App Step

Leverage web services(HTTP/REST)

Copy & Paste in the Text-Based Designer

Stages!

Rapid design with the Visual and Text-Based Designers

Complex data types with ‘Dictionary’ variables

Looping!

New “Assign A Task” & “Start a Task Process” actions

Enhanced portability & packaging through WSP and VSDX files

Support classic 2010 workflow type and interoperability

Full integration with Project Server workflows

IMPROVEMENTS

IMPROVEMENTS

New “Assign A Task” & “Start a Task Process” actions

Enhanced portability & packaging through WSP and VSDX files

Support classic 2010 workflow type and interoperability

Do “App-Level” operations with App Step

Enhanced parallel blocks

Full integration with Project Server workflows

NEARLY 50 NEW/IMPROVED FEATURES AND ACTIONS THIS RELEASE!!!!

IMPROVEMENTS

Introducing “Stages” Provides support for repeating & skipping workflow steps

Declarative workflows have loops Loop # times / with condition / with expression

Declarative workflows can call REST/SOAP services SharePoint 2010 required developers when:

Call SharePoint API Connect & query databases Consume feeds (ATOM / REST) Call Web Services / REST

SharePoint 2013 enables workflow authors to do all this declaratively

WORKFLOWS IN DESIGNER

Improved visual designer Integrated the Visio designer into SharePoint Can switch between visual designer & sentence-style Editable properties helper

Stages & Loops Calling REST Web Services Designer supports cut / copy / paste / undo / redo / select-all Improved email editor (rich formatting) Each stage has an entry point & gate

Gate: conditional transition point where workflow exits Underlying core in WF4 flow step in a flowchart Can contain multiple steps Mitigates SharePoint Designer loop limitations

WORKFLOWS IN VISUAL STUDIO

Can create WF 3.5 or WF 4 workflows For WF 4, Azure Workflow required For WF 3.5, see Workflow Interop Bridge…

Focus is around declarative workflows Push custom code logic to Web services

Programmatic workflows still possible, but only in Windows Azure Workflow

Workflow tools: SharePoint Designer & Visual Studio

DESIGNER VS VISUAL STUDIO

SharePoint Designer Visual Studio

Reusability Create reusable WF Create WF templates

Include in SP App

Custom Code

Custom Actions Consume, not create Yes; underlying activities

Visio Integration

Debugging

INTEROP BRIDGE Enables SharePoint 2010 workflows to work in 2013 Execution engine hosted in SharePoint 2013 Interop bridge:

Negotiates between two execution engines (SP2010 & SP2013) Delegates SP2010 workflows to SharePoint from WAWS

Invoke SP2010 workflow action from WAWS with InvokeSharePointWorkflow action

INTEROP BRIDGE

Assign Task

Workflow BackendSharePoint

Tasks

Instances

Persist

_API GET1

POST2

POST3Reserve Task

Id

Create Task

Lookup User

GET /…/web/siteuserinfolist/items?$filter=id eq {0}

SiteUser

s

POST /…/web/lists(guid'{0}')/reservelistitemidPOST /…/web/lists(guid'{0}')/items

• REST/OData message format• Retry on failure• Repeatable (idempotent) Create, Read, Update and

Delete• Merge update with conflict resolution (HTTP ETag)

Service Bus

Processing

Assign Task (cont)

Workflow BackendSharePoint

Tasks

Instances

Receive & Persist

_APIRegister Interest

SiteUser

s

Workflow Frontend

Wait For Notification

Service Bus

Messages

…

Processing

Collocated Topology

Database

Farm Node

WF ManagerSharePoint

Farm Node

WF ManagerSharePoint

Farm Node

WF ManagerSharePoint

load balancer

SP Farm 1

Workflow Cluster

SP Farm 2 load balancer

Workflow Client

Workflow Client

• Each SP farm targets a different Workflow Manager scope

• Independent security realms

Federated Topology

CONFIGURE

CONFIGURE

CONFIGURE

CONFIGURE

CONFIGURE

Register-SPWorkflowService –SPSite “http://sp/sites/awfs”

–WorkflowHostUri “http://sp:12291” –AllowOAuthHttp

DEMO

CONTACT

@srinisistla blog.srinisistla.com

USEFUL DOWNLOADS / LINKS

SharePoint Designer 2013 – http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35491

What's new in WF in 2013 – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219638.aspx

Getting Started - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj227177.aspx

Develop using VS 2012 - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj163199.aspx

Setup configure WF Manger - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj163276.aspx

Workflow Manager 1.0 - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj193528.aspx