AWG Blogs

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

SharePoint Workflows on 64bit server

This is a quick start on how to get a functioning workflow compiled, installed, and running to completion. It will simply log a message to the workflow history; that's it.

Assumes Visual Studio 2008 is installed on Windows Server 2003 64bit with WSPBuilder.

File, New Project, WSPBuilder Project with Workflow

Right-click project in Solution Explorer and choose Workflow, Sequential Workflow (code) - note: I tried using Sequential Workflow with definition expressed as Xaml and user code in a separate code file, but I got errors such as "RunWorkflow: System.Workflow.Activities.EventDeliveryFailedException: Event "OnWorkflowActivated" on interface type "Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.ISharePointService" for instance id "405ff0ae-d08d-41b8-ab69-be69ae4ccde1" cannot be delivered. ---> System.Workflow.Runtime.QueueException: Event Queue operation failed with MessageQueueErrorCode QueueNotFound for queue 'Message Properties Interface Type:Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.ISharePointService Method Name:OnWorkflowActivated CorrelationValues: '. "

Drag a onWorkflowActivated control onto the designer
Set its CorrelationToken property to anything, e.g. "mytoken"; then expand CorrelationToken and for OwnerActivityName, choose Workflow1 (e.g.)

Drag a logToHistoryListActivity onto the canvas under the onWorkflowActivated1 control.
Double click its MethodInvoking property, and enter the following code into the body of the method: var workflowProperties = new Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWorkflowActivationProperties();

this.logToHistoryListActivity1.HistoryOutcome = "Here is a comment " + workflowProperties.InitiationData;


Build Solution

Right click property and choose WSPBuilder, Copy to GAC

Create a folder called MyLoggingWorkflowFeature under C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\

Create two xml files in this folder:
Feature.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<Feature Id="genkey id here"
Title="Workflow to create a log something to history"
Description="Logs something to history"
Version="12.0.0.0"
Scope="Site"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
<ElementManifests>
<ElementManifest Location="workflow.xml" />
</ElementManifests>
</Feature>

workflow.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
<Workflow
Name="New Task Workflow"
Description="Creates a new task"
Id="yourId here from genkey tool"
CodeBesideClass="NewTaskWorkflow.Workflow3"
CodeBesideAssembly="NewTaskWorkflow, Version=1.0.0.1, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=yourkeytokenhere"
></Workflow>

</Elements>