Windows Workflow 4.0 Notes from TechEd

Here is a list of items I got from the WF Team at TechEd:

  • No one has a silverlight management tool for tracking workflows – someone should build it and make some money!
  • Activity Designers in 4.0 are in WPF!
  • No more dependency properties everything is InArgument and OutArugment
  • Current Expresson parsers are in VB only, future will be C# (when .net team gives em one)
  • WorkflowInvoker class can be used to unit test your workflows!  Sweet!
  • WCF Activity is basically NO CODE!
  • No need to build ServiceHosts anymore, everything is in Dublin!
  • BEST PRACTICE:  Always put logic in a class seperate from the activities!  Basic SOA step!
  • No Activity to Activity Binded Properties!
  • PowerShell Activity is builtin!
  • No Auto Terminate when workflow errors, you can have it start at the activity before – WOOHOO!
  • Interop Activity will be used to host older activities (NOTE:  there is NO ROOT WORKFLOW with a InterOp activity) – not clear as to if Interop will run in 3.5 or 4.0 runtime.
  • Interop Activity is a synchronous call
  • ETW is the new tracking database!
  • You can create tracking participants
  • There is a new Workflow Simulator!  It was very cool looking!  You can run through the entire workflow similar to BizTalk testing!

Also found this WF team blog has some more details:

http://blogs.msdn.com/endpoint/archive/2009/05/01/the-road-to-4-wf-changes-between-beta-1-and-ctp.aspx

I have downloaded the latest CTP.  You should too!  It will be the next hot thing!

Chris