What is ComponentBlox:Workflow?

ComponentBlox:Workflow is an embeddable component that allows you to change, debug and run your application's business rules when your product has already been shipped. This component allows you to isolate the highly dynamic elements of your software application and empowering non-technical, business users with a tool to manage them without touching the source code.

ComponentBlox:Workflow is most suitable for process orientated application that have partially ordered sequences of steps that execute over time and is subject to continual change and tuning by domain experts. Each step in a flow encapsulates specialised business logic which is executed by ComponentBlox:Workflow. The sequence of steps define the process flow.

Workflow applications manifest a clear separation of concerns between business domain experts that program and maintain process flows at the macro-level, and software developers that program and maintain each sequence step at the micro-level. This separation of concerns yields significantly greater responsiveness to changing business requirements; the high-level application logic or the “macro-program” can be re-wired by business domain experts using ComponentBlox:Workflow's graphical process management tool without depending on software developers. At the same time, each individual step or “micro-program” can be modeled as a context-free, reusable service within the application and have little or no awareness of the process flows that invoke them.

ComponentBlox:Workflow encourages you to:

• Create a graphical domain-specific language specifically to solve problems in a particular domain of your application.
• Design and create service-orientated architectures by breaking up your application into reusable blocks of specialised business logic that can be orchestrated by ComponentBlox:Workflow.
• Manage highly changeable parts of your applications at the logical presentation-logic, business-logic and data-logic tiers.

Feature Overview

ComponentBlox:Workflow is the lightweight alternative to Window Workflow Foundation to define and execute the dynamic processes contained within your application. A very simple xcopy deployment makes shipping ComponentBlox:Workflow with your app simple!

The component provides a web browser based environment where you or your customers can debug or change the behavior of your .NET WinForms, Console, ASP.NET, Windows Service and SQL Server 2005 applications.

Developers can add workflow to ASP.NET, WinForm, Console, SQL Server CLR and Windows Service applications for desktops, database and web servers using VB.NET, C# or any other Dot Net enabled language

• Single .NET assembly with a small < 1 MB footprint. Contains the web based modeller and internal HTTP server, live-debugger and engine.
• Multi-threaded design for high throughput.
• Easy to implement activities using a few lines within your application using.NET attribute decoration.
• Supports short and long running processes.
• Runs within client and server application that run on .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0 AND .NET 3.5 on Windows.
• Runs on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X and Unix using Mono 1.9.
• Royalty-free distribution.
• In the very near future a Java version.

Who Benefits?

ComponentBlox:Workflow benefits anyone who works with business rules that execute over a short duration of a few seconds to longer duration of days. ComponentBlox:Workflow  can help with a wide variety of business rule and process tasks, and different users benefit in different ways.

For example, ComponentBlox:Workflow makes it possible to define the sequence of web pages  based on entered and retrieved data for web designers. For IT departments, ComponentBlox:Workflow can help with many tasks, from service orientated architecture applications, data integration projects, document workflow, customer based phone call routing to developing phone based IVR applications.

Best of all we will show you how to accomplish these through our tutorial videos, blogs and downloadable samples.