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Adding Activities to SPD

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GabeEilene Hey everyone,

Eilene Hao and Gabe Hall here, a program manager and developer on the SPD workflow team; nice to meet you! Today we’d like to answer one of our most frequently asked questions: adding activities into the SPD workflow designer. There’s a more detailed whitepaper describing this in the MOSS SDK’s ECM Starter Kit, but we thought it might be good to give you guys a quick summary, show you another example and give you some tips and tricks to help solve common issues.:)

How does it work?

Before we start with the walkthrough, let’s do a quick rundown of how the SPD workflow designer interacts with actions in SharePoint, so that what we do might make a little more sense.;)

All the actions you see in the SPD workflow designer are activities that live in a DLL on the SharePoint box (e.g. Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowActions.dll). There’s a .ACTIONS XML file in the SharePoint TEMPLATE directory on the local file system that describes how to display each of that DLL's activities in a sentence form and bind parameters to the activity’s properties. SPD reads all .ACTIONS files in the directory, then shows all the activities in the designer and pushes the data you enter down into the activity’s properties.

So how do you “import” the activity?

  1. Create an activity with promoted properties in Visual Studio 2005 called CreateACLTask. This activity is similar to the “Assign a ToDo item” action, except it only assigns to one user, and it restricts permissions on the task so that only the user it’s assigned to can see or edit it.
  2. Deploy the activity DLL to the Global Assembly Cache (GAC). This will allow SharePoint to load the activity code you wrote.
  3. Add the DLL to the web.config files. I.e. tell SharePoint that your new activity is safe to use. :)
  4. Create and deploy a .ACTIONS file for the activity to describe the sentence. SPD can read this to know what sentence to create and how to link that sentence into the activity.

Step 1: Creating the activity

This’ll be a pretty basic activity. In Visual Studio, hit File->New->Project and select a workflow activity library. For this action, we’re going to create a task, wait for user to edit the task, and then complete the task. So just 3 activities in sequence: CreateTaskWithContentType, OnTaskChanged, and CompleteTask. Fill out the properties like you normally in a VS workflow.

What’s special about the activity we’re building is that it uses the SpecialPermissions property on CreateTaskWithContentType. This property takes a hashtable of user-permission pairs (e.g. “DOMAIN\john”, SPRoleType). If you bind a hashtable to SpecialPermissions, CreateTaskWithContentType will strip out all existing permissions and only add permissions for each pair you add to the hashtable (if you don’t bind anything to it, it inherits permissions from the task list). So if you wanted only the user the task was ‘assigned to’ to see or edit, you would just say: hashtable.Add(“DOMAIN\john”, SPRoleType.Contributor).

Of course, in this case, we don’t know who this assignee is; he’s specified in SPD, so how do we get that property from the designer?

Enter promoted properties. Promoted properties are properties that are exposed externally to a parent workflow or activity. When SPD generates the parent workflow, the parent workflow passes values through this property into the child activity. Here, we want to get the assignee of the task, so we create a “Dependency Property” with a handy code snippet and name it “Assignee”.

So we bind all the properties on our activity, and now in the CreateTask handler, we’ll use the following code:

private void CreateTask(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    taskId = Guid.NewGuid();
    taskProperties.AssignedTo = Assignee; //Assignee demoted from SPD!
    taskProperties.Description = "Complete the task";
    taskProperties.Title = "You have a new task";
    specialPermissions.Add(Assignee, SPRoleType.Administrator);
}

The last piece of info we need in this activity is the content type for the task. A content type for a workflow tasks is what determine which aspx form to use for editing a task. Have you ever seen the New Task dialog that pops up in SPD when you add an “Assign a Todo” action? This dialog actually creates a new task content type along with an .aspx form to go with it.

So to get the content type, we just need to bind CreateTaskWithContentType’s ContentTypeId property to a promoted property. Rather than use a snippet, this time we can just select create a new property directly from the property binding dialog:

https://msdntnarchive.z22.web.core.windows.net/media/TNBlogsFS/BlogFileStorage/blogs_msdn/sharepointdesigner/WindowsLiveWriter/AddingActivitiestoSPD_FE79/clip_image002.jpg

Next, add whatever code you want, and with Assignee and ContentTypeId promoted, we can now deploy it so that you can use it in SPD.

Step 2 and 3: Deploying the DLL and adding it to the authorized types list

Once we’re done with our code, we can compile it and get our DLL. Our DLL should go into the server/web front end’s GAC (%windir%\assembly) so that SharePoint can find and load the activity.

But before SharePoint will run the activity, it has to know that our new dll’s types are safe and trusted so we need to add it to the web.config file. Updating the config file’s authorized types means this activity can be used in declarative workflows in WSS (the workflow equivalent of ‘safe for scripting’). To open this file:

  1. Open the IIS console.
  2. Find the web site that is your SharePoint web under the "Web sites" node and select it.
  3. Right click and choose "Open".
  4. In the folder window, open the web.config file.

In web.config, browse to the bottom section and look for <System.Workflow.ComponentModel.WorkflowCompiler>. Inside that tag there should be an <authorizedTypes> section and an entry for each set of types. Add your type with the following line of XML:

<authorizedType Assembly="CreateACLTask, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=7114224e81918c16" Namespace="CreateACLTask" TypeName="Activity1" Authorized="True" />

Step 4: Creating and adding a .ACTIONS file

Now that our activity can be used by WSS, we have to add it to the actions that SPD can author by adding an entry in a .ACTIONS file. It’s a relatively straightforward XML file; however it has a few moving parts so we will just highlight the important aspects today.

Go to your WSS install directory (typically Program Files/Common Files/Microsoft Shared/web server extensions/12), and find the template/1033/workflow folder. (replace 1033 with the proper language ID if it’s not an English server). Place the following in a new file with the name ‘CreateACLTask.actions’:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<WorkflowInfo>
<Actions Sequential="then" Parallel="and">
<Action Name="Assign To-do Item with restricted permissions" ClassName="CreateACLTask.Activity1" Assembly="CreateACLTask, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=7114224e81918c16" AppliesTo="all" CreatesTask="true" Category="Task Actions">
<RuleDesigner Sentence="Assign %1 to %2 with restricted permissions">
<FieldBind Field="Title,ContentTypeId" DesignerType="Survey" Text="a to-do item" Id="1"/>
<FieldBind Field="Assignee" DesignerType="SinglePerson" Text="this user" Id="2"/>
</RuleDesigner>
<Parameters>
<Parameter Name="ContentTypeId" Type="System.String, mscorlib" Direction="In" />
<Parameter Name="Assignee" Type="System.String, mscorlib" Direction="In" />
</Parameters>
</Action>
</Actions>
</WorkflowInfo>

Essentially, this is a copy of the “Assign To-do item” entry in WSS.ACTIONS with a couple minor changes to the sentence, assembly, and bindings. Now, just do one IISReset and open SPD to create your new locked-task workflows! :)

Tip: the most common pitfall is adding a .ACTIONS or web.config entry which doesn’t exactly match your custom DLL. If you find that the action shows up in SPD, but nothing appears when it is selected, verify that the entries you’ve made match the activity class exactly. If a particular binding won’t change, make sure your .ACTIONS field bindings match the promoted properties in your DLL.

In Office 2007, building actions for SPD can be easier and faster than authoring a workflow in Visual Studio. We’ve attached the sample files if you’re interested in taking a closer look.

Good luck and we hope this helps :)!

Eilene and Gabe

CreateACLTask.zip

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 19, 2007
    SharePoint Designer Team Blog に、Visual Studio 2005 で開発したワークフローのカスタムアクティビティを、SharePoint Designerのワークフローに登録する方法が公開されました。

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2007
    Ahh good catch, thanks!

  • Anonymous
    March 28, 2007
    Hi folks, it's Gabe Hall again with a quick tip you can use when developing workflow activities on WSS

  • Anonymous
    March 29, 2007
    Maybe you can reference the post of Todd Baginski (and me ofcourse ;)) on how-to simply add a custom workflow activity to SPD? Todd's post : http://www.sharepointblogs.com/tbaginski/archive/2007/03/08/HOW-TO_3A00_-Create-a-custom-Windows-Workflow-Activity-and-make-it-available-in-SharePoint-Designer.aspx My posts : http://glorix.blogspot.com/2007/03/spd-workflow-activity-copying-listitem.html and http://glorix.blogspot.com/2007/03/spd-workflow-activity-creating-document.html

  • Anonymous
    April 04, 2007
    Three good references to get you started: HOW TO: Create a custom Windows Workflow Activity and make

  • Anonymous
    April 05, 2007
    Great! This helps a lot... Could you please post a list of all available Designertypes and a little "howto" of how to build a custom designertype? Bye Stefan

  • Anonymous
    May 08, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 08, 2007
    Freeman, WebID is implied by the workflow's web.  It isnt passed into the FindActivity.  ListID can be a name of a list or a GUID.  The first pair of {} is not used to determine web or list. Stefan, That is a great topic for future posts.  I'll add it to the list. -Gabe Hall

  • Anonymous
    May 09, 2007
    spdblog, Thanks. Why i'am ask for - i'm want to use linked List for FindActivity from another Web (but same Site scope)

  • Anonymous
    May 22, 2007
    Is there a way to deploy your new "authorizedType" to the Web.config (similar to adding a safe controls entry) using a SharePoint Solution? I would like to allow deployment of new SPD Actions via SharePoint Solution deployment. Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    May 29, 2007
    Excellent, well though there are number of other articles on custom activity but i was stuck in an issue which ur "pitfall" section took care. Thanks, http://metahat.blogspot.com

  • Anonymous
    June 06, 2007
    Cool, with every new article there is one new detail... ;-) But as stefan allready asked. Is there a list with all available designer types? Would be a great insight... And if there is a way to extend or buid custom ones, even better.

  • Anonymous
    June 10, 2007
    こんにちは。 方法を掲載しようと思いましたが、既にチュートリアルとサンプルのダウンロードが可能なページがありますのでご紹介します。（下記リンク） Adding Activities to SPD (Microsoft

  • Anonymous
    June 13, 2007
    Hi all, I have found the wssacions.xsd at http://johnholliday.net/download/wssactions.xsd. There you can find all available Designertypes:  <xs:enumeration value="ChooseDocLibItem" />  <xs:enumeration value="ChooseListItem" />  <xs:enumeration value="CreateListItem" />  <xs:enumeration value="Date" />  <xs:enumeration value="Dropdown" />  <xs:enumeration value="Email" />  <xs:enumeration value="Integer" />  <xs:enumeration value="FieldNames" />  <xs:enumeration value="ListNames" />  <xs:enumeration value="Operator" />  <xs:enumeration value="ParameterNames" />  <xs:enumeration value="Person" />  <xs:enumeration value="SinglePerson" />  <xs:enumeration value="StringBuilder" />  <xs:enumeration value="Survey" />  <xs:enumeration value="TextArea" />  <xs:enumeration value="UpdateListItem" />  <xs:enumeration value="WritableFieldNames" /> But i still need help for designing custom designertypes. HELP!! Bye Stefan

  • Anonymous
    June 26, 2007
    I have checked and double checked everything, but I still can't this to work.  My activity is showing up is SPD, but nothing is showing up after I select it.  Can anyone tell me what I might be doing wrong? I have made sure that all the entries match, but I still can't seem to make it work.

  • Anonymous
    July 03, 2007
    Great article! I am able to deploy my custom action and it shows up in SPD.  I can create a workflow and select the action.  However, when I enter data into one of the fillin fields and press return, the value does not "stick".  I'm sure there is some obvious thing I"m doing wrong, but it appears consistent with this and other workflow examples I have found.  Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    July 11, 2007
    Me too same thing happen to me, I can see it in Custom Activities I got my Move File Activity but when I select it nothing show

  • Anonymous
    July 26, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 12, 2007
    Hi, nice article, but I still have a problem. Could someone explain me, how can I read the workflow's initiator name and save it in a variable. I need this as an activity in SP Designer. I must assign a task (collect data) to the workflow initiator, but I far as I know, there is no way OOTB. I have not figured any workaround and this is very urgent.

  • Anonymous
    August 12, 2007
    Hi, it seems that my previous comment (question) didn't get posted. Within a workflow I need to assign a task to the task initiator. This seems pretty trivial, but there is no way of doing it in SPD with OOTB activities. I want to write an activity in which I just read the initiator's name and the save it a variable. How can I create such an activity in I pass an output variable the string? Thank you in advance! -Edgardo

  • Anonymous
    August 27, 2007
    Question regarding Pitfall discussed here: I have been trying to use  a simple Activity(from activity library) from two days. As explained by other, even i have the same problem I am able to see custom activity, but nothing happens in SPD. I made sure that there is no discrepancy in .ACTIONS and web.config file. Please help.

  • Anonymous
    September 30, 2007
    Hi, I'm Phil Allen, a developer with the SharePoint Designer team who works primarily on Workflow. Today

  • Anonymous
    February 26, 2008
    Thanks for the article!  Unlike many others this didn't skip the info in Step 2 that was needed to deploy the assembly. For those that are running into the issue that the text/sentence doesn't show up when you select the action in SPD, don't overlook the step of doing an IISRESET on the server once you have modified the .ACTIONS  and the web.config files - this fixed the issue for me.

  • Anonymous
    April 21, 2008
    I have the same question as Edgardo - how can I capture the name of the initiator of a workflow to use it in the workflow in SharePoint Designer, such as in a variable.

  • Anonymous
    May 05, 2008
    In a document libraray ,for the record while clicking delete i am invoking  a custom  approval workflow . If the document has been approved then only it 'll be deleted. In my event handler class I am desebaling the delete event and then starting my workflow  & in my workflow  code while approving i am trying to delete the record .But it's showing error that u r not supposed to delete it. Is there any way to solve this problem?

  • Anonymous
    July 11, 2008
    Hi there, I’m Jordan Hull, a Software Development Engineer in Test on the SharePoint Designer Workflow

  • Anonymous
    July 14, 2008
    For people who are still having issues with nothing happening in SPD when choosing the custom activity, here's a pointer - I had the same issue and I figured the token in assembly tag should have space after the comma. What I mean is : Correct assembly string: Assembly="CustomWFActivity1, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=6117140bb48139dd" Incorrect assembly string : Assembly="CustomWFActivity1,Version=1.0.0.0,Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=6117140bb48139dd" Note the spaces after each comma in the correct string - this seems stupid, but this resolved the issue for me. And remember to do IISReset after ensuring the assembly token is the same in web.config and the actions file. Hope this helps someone.

  • Anonymous
    July 14, 2008
    Hello Eilene and Gabe: This is save my days, Thanks. An quick question, Do you have a try to make the workflow activity as a SharePoint solution package before? I wonder to know does possible to do that? Thanks -Robert

  • Anonymous
    July 15, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 23, 2008
    hey there, i want to ask a question , i know it's somewhat irrelivant to the subject but i couldn't find anywhere else to ask, my problem is that when i want to create a website i choose Fie -> New -> Web Site and then when it shows me three options to choose from on the left  General , Templates, and SharePoint Templates. When i select the General one three options appear , but when i select either one of the two options nothing appear , i am new to sharepoint and i don't have any clue what to do , so your help will be very appreciated. thanks in advance. Baher.

  • Anonymous
    August 13, 2008
    La conception et le développement de workflow sous SharePoint peut des fois donner le sentiment d'un

  • Anonymous
    September 05, 2008
    Thank you very much Viji. You save my weekend Erik

  • Anonymous
    September 10, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    November 01, 2008
    Excllent Article!  Thanks for the zip of the code -Dave

  • Anonymous
    November 02, 2008
    Sadly, it is not to be. We cannot send an email with attachments from a SharePoint Designer workflow

  • Anonymous
    November 19, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 18, 2008
    How can we send email to more than one people???

  • Anonymous
    February 26, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 09, 2010
    Hi. Same problem, but just on one installation an other works fine. Is there any SPD Log or debug message to find the problem?

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2010
    I have custom activity which is working fine... However whenever I try to modify the workflow designer doesnt show this activity sentence. Whats wrong?

  • Anonymous
    September 03, 2011
    Hi, I have created a custom activity where the project name is "WaitFormToBeClosed" and the class have the same name, when I add the activity to SPD and click finish I get an error: "errors were found when compiling the workflow.The workflow files were saved but can't be run" and the details are: (651,35).The type name "WaitFormToBeClosed" doesn't exist in the type "WaitFormToBeClosed.WaitFormToBeClosed" I added the dll to GAC and added it in authorized types in the web.config that exists in both IIS root and in Config folder and I couldn't figure out what may be the problem so kindly advise. Thanks in advance.