State Machine Workflows with Windows Workflow Foundation

I am attended the Business Process Integration & Workflow Conference at the Redmond Campus. It is a great event with sessions covering Windows Workflow Foundation, Indigo, BizTalk and other products from my division here at Microsoft.

My favorite event so far has been a demo of building a State Machine Workflows using Windows Workflow Foundation in Visual Studio 2005 by Pravin Indurkar.

State machine refers to workflow applications used to automate event-driven processes. When you think of workflow you may initially think of sequential type workflows employed by workers. Examples of this include document collaboration, order processing and various approval processes. In these cases, workflow follows predictable decision matrices and each step entails a human completing an activity.

While these are vital examples of workflow, state machine workflows involve systems responding to events. State machine workflows are characterized by the need for greater flexibility, visibility and control over the events and actions of the workflow.

Pravin’s demonstrations showed how, using Visual Studio and .NET one can create highly flexible and powerful workflows, remarkably easily. As the former CTO at several companies, I know that ISVs are going to welcome Windows Workflow Foundation and I am excited to be a part of bringing it to market.