Malin De Silva presented on tips and tricks for building Visual Studio workflows. The presentation covered differences between SharePoint 2010 and 2013 workflows, differences between designer and Visual Studio workflows, how to develop and debug workflows in Visual Studio, demonstrations of creating workflows and variables, accessing REST APIs, and working with workflow tasks. Best practices discussed included logging, scoping variables, handling failures, and avoiding too many requests errors.

1. malindesilva@live.com
Tips and Tricks for Building
Visual Studio Workflows
Malin De Silva
SharePoint Specialist
Exilesoft, Sri Lanka
Business 365 Saturday - Singapore
24th October 2015

2. About Me
Planning, Development and
administering experience since
SharePoint 2007.
Speaker at many forums and
conferences.
Blogger, StackExchange contributor
and a big Azure fan.

3. Agenda
• Introduction to Workflows
• Creating Visual Studio Workflows
• Using REST API References
• Working with Tasks
• Challenges and Best Practices
malindesilva@live.com

4. Who are we?
• Developers?
• Have built Workflows? (Designer or Visual Studio)
• Have built Visual Studio Workflows in 2013?
malindesilva@live.com

5. 2010 vs 2013 Workflows
SharePoint 2010 SharePoint 2013
Coupled to SharePoint servers Decoupled (Other consuming platforms)
Declarative or Custom Code Declarative
SharePoint Foundation and SharePoint
Server
SharePoint Server
Content Types No
No Apps App Friendly
.Net framework used by SharePoint (.Net
3.51)
.Net Framework xxx
Workflow runs inside SharePoint Workflows run outside SharePoint
malindesilva@live.com

6. Designer 2013 vs Visual Studio
SharePoint Designer 2013 Visual Studio
Power Users, SharePoint Developers SharePoint Developers
Can use Visio Can’t
Cannot debug Can debug, including SharePoint Online
No ALM support Full ALM support
Cannot be a part of apps Can be a part of apps
malindesilva@live.com

7. Workflow Development and Debugging
Prerequisites
• SharePoint Farm
• Workflow Manager
Farm connected
• Visual Studio 2012 or
later
• Office Developer Tools
for Visual Studio 2013
malindesilva@live.com
DEVELOPMENT
On-premises
• Allow Workflow Manager Tools
to access through firewall
SharePoint Online
• May require installing a proxy
client
• Create Azure Service Bus
namespace
DEBUGGING

8. Demonstration
Creating Visual Studio Workflows and Defining Variables

9. REST API References
• Any technology supports standard REST capabilities
• Mapping with client object model
• Client object model method:
List.GetByTitle(listname)
• REST endpoint:
http://server/site/_api/lists/getbytitle('listname')
malindesilva@live.com
Operation HTTP Method (s)
Read a resource GET
Create a resource POST
Update a resource PUT, MERGE
Delete a resource DELETE

10. REST API Examples
Operation HTTP Type Example
Read lists in a web GET http://malin.sharepoint.com
/_api/lists
Creates a list POST http://malin.sharepoint.com
/_api/lists
{
'_metadata':{'type':SP.List},
'AllowContentTypes': true,
'BaseTemplate': 104,
'ContentTypesEnabled':
true,
'Description': 'My list
description',
'Title': 'RestTest'
}
malindesilva@live.com

11. Demonstration
Accessing current item and using REST API references

12. Working with Workflow Tasks
• Content type changes
• Task  Workflow Task (SharePoint 2013)
• Workflow Task content type has two new columns
• WorkfowInstanceId
• TaskOutcome
• Two types of tasks
• Single task
• Composite task
• Custom task forms
malindesilva@live.com

13. Demonstration
Working with Workflow Tasks

14. Custom Declarative Activities
• Richer market needs
• Repeatable design needs
• Develop and deploy to business market
• Use activities and actions
• .actions4 files
malindesilva@live.com

15. Workflow Best Practices
• Log as much as you can
• Scope workflow variables
• Ensure User when assigning tasks
• Design with failures in mind
malindesilva@live.com

16. Challenges We Faced
• Long running workflows
• HTTP 429 too many requests
malindesilva@live.com

17. Questions?
malindesilva@live.com

18. Thank You!
Malin De Silva
SharePoint Specialist
Exilesoft
mds@Exilesoft.com/ malindesilva@live.com
@MalinD19