Adding Operations to Multi-Operation Activities

The Multi-Operation activities that ship with Workflow Studio can be extended to support your own custom operations. In this tutorial we demonstrate this by adding a new operation called "EditNameAttributes" to the Person Multi-Operation activity we created in the Create Operation Activities topic.

What You'll Learn

In this tutorial, you will:

• Open an existing Multi-Operation activity
• Add a new operation to the activity
• Define the operation executor code
• Implement attribute updates for Person objects
• Create an OperationExecutionSummary to return operation results
• Compile and publish the updated activity

Prerequisites

caution

This tutorial assumes you have already created a Multi-Operation activity as described in the Create Operation Activities topic. You should be familiar with basic C# programming and understand how operations work in EmpowerID.

Add Operation to Multi-Operation Activity

1. Open the Multi-Operation Operation Activity to which you want to add an Operation. In our example, we are using the Operation activity we created in the Create Operation Activities topic.
2. With the Multi-Operation Operation activity open in the Activity Designer, right-click on the activity and select Add New Operation from the context menu.
   
3. In the Add New Operation window that appears, enter a name for the operation in the Operation Name field and a friendly or display name in the Friendly Name field and then OK to close the window.
   
4. Right-click on the activity again and select Edit Operation Executor > Edit EditNameAttributes Executor from the context menu. This allows you to define what occurs when the operation is executed against the Person object.
   
5. Type the desired code for the operation executor in the C# Editor that opens. In our example, we have added code to set the FirstName, LastName, and MiddleName attributes to that entered into the workflow form.

// Set the Person against whom the Operation is being executed to the workflow's target resource
C.Person person = CurrentWorkflow.TargetResource.Person;
// Set the first name to the approval form's TargetPerson.FirstName property
person.FirstName = CurrentWorkflow.Form_TargetPerson.FirstName;
// Set the last name to the approval form's TargetPerson.LastName property
person.LastName = CurrentWorkflow.Form_TargetPerson.LastName;
// Set the middle name to the approval form's TargetPerson.MiddleName property
person.MiddleName = CurrentWorkflow.Form_TargetPerson.MiddleName;

6. Next, enter the following code to create an instance of the OperationExecutionSummary to return the results of the operation to the workflow user.

OperationExecutionSummary opExecutionSummary = (OperationExecutionSummary) Parameters[person.ResourceID.ToString()];
opExecutionSummary.OperationExecuted = person.Update();
CurrentWorkflow.OperationExecuted = CurrentWorkflow.OperationExecuted || opExecutionSummary.OperationExecuted;
Parameters[person.ResourceID.ToString()] = opExecutionSummary;

7. Save your changes.

info

To have your changes take effect in EmpowerID, be sure to compile and publish any new or edited Operation activities.

Compile and Publish Activity

1. Click the Compile and Publish button in the Workflow Studio toolbar located above the Activity Designer.
2. In the Publish Workflow wizard that appears, click the Next button.
3. Select the host server and click Next.
4. Click Next again to begin compiling the activity. Upon a successful compilation, Workflow Studio publishes the activity.
5. Select Yes when prompted to restart one or more services.
6. In the Active Services window that appears, make sure the EmpowerID Web Role Service is selected and click Restart.
7. Click No when prompted to restart Workflow Studio.