Customizing Workflows

Important: If you customize the workflow then upgrade to a new version of Ektron CMS400.NET, you need to point to the new references then compile the workflow.

Ektron utilizes Microsoft’s Windows Workflow Foundation to create and implement order process workflows in Ektron CMS400.NET. Within Ektron CMS400.NET eCommerce functionality, you use a workflow to handle the ordering process after your site has received an order. The workflow can be as simple or complex as your business requires.

For example, you could have a simple workflow that sends an email to the customer when their order is received and sends another to the person shipping product for you. Or, you could have a more complex workflow that:

sends an email to the customer when the order is received

checks to see whether the item is a tangible product or a virtual product. Then, continues down the workflow path that’s appropriate for the item.

handles shipping notifications and updates the account throughout the shipping process

handles the order if it is canceled

handles the order if it is determined to be fraudulent

marks the order as complete once all activities are finished

Ektron’s default sample workflow is shown below.

Windows Workflow Foundation is a development tool that allows you to automate a business process. Released with Microsoft’s .NET 3.0, it allows you to create an activities based workflow that has the ability to persist over a given length of time or be paused and restarted depending on events. From Microsoft’s MSDN:

Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), originally introduced as part of the .NET Framework 3.0 with extensions for Visual Studio 2005’s designers, has continued to be enhanced for the .NET Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008. WF makes it possible, and for many workflow scenarios, even easy to create robust, manageable workflow-based applications. WF is actually many things: It’s a programming model, and runtime engine, and a set of tools that help you create workflow-enabled applications hosted by Windows. For more information on WF, drop by the portal site here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663328.aspx.

Workflows are comprised of Activities; each activity represents a portion of your Business Process. Once all activities have finished within a workflow, the workflow terminates. There are two types of activities:

Activities - executed inside the workflow once the activity is reached. For example, an email might be sent to a customer once their order is received by using the AdvancedEmailActivity placed after the OrderReceivedEventActivity. This email would be automatically sent with no human interaction needed and the workflow would continue on.

Event Activities - cause the workflow to pause until the event has taken place. Once the event takes place, the activity associated with it is executed. Think of events as road blocks in the workflow that don’t open unless a matching action happens. Once the event happens, the workflow follows the path associated with that event. For example, an OrderFraudEventActivity in a workflow would keep the workflow from going through the Fraud Event portion of the workflow unless the order is marked as fraud.

Ektron supports Sequential Workflows and State Machine Workflows. Sequential Workflows are structured; a step based process where one activity leads to the next. State Machine Workflows typically move from one activity to another when their state has changed.

Only one workflow project can be run at a time. You can have multiple workflows projects associated with your eCommerce site and you can change workflow projects at anytime. Note however, once an order process is started with a specified workflow, it will continue through that Workflow.

Note: You may find the following webinar helpful: "Introduction to the Ektron eCommerce Workflow Engine."