Decision making in Workflow 4.0

Introduction

A FlowDecision node has a Condition and a FlowNode associated with each of two possible outcomes: True or False. The Condition is evaluated and the value of this evaluation determines the next FlowNode to be processed within the Flowchart.

FlowDecision is a simulation system for operational decision support in the context of workflow management. To do this we exploit not only the workflow's design, but also logged data describing the system's observed historic behavior, and information extracted about the current state of the workflow. Making use of actual data capturing the current state and historic information allows our simulations to accurately predict potential near-future behaviors for different scenarios

Methods which is used with FlowDecision activity are:

• GetType
• Equals(Object)
• Finalize
• GetHashCode
• MemberwiseClone
• ToString

Let see how to create FlowDecision activity:

Step 1: Create an Workflow Console Application application

Step 2: Drag a Flowchart activity to the designer. Why Flowchart, because in the Flowchart activity, you can place the activities anywhere on the palette. And more importantly, you have to draw the arrows.

Step 3: Drag a WriteLine activity to display a standard greeting message and set the DisplayName to Welcome and the Text property to "Welcome to FlowDecision activity"



Step 4: Now drag a FlowDecision and go to the Properties window, enter the condition as DateTime.Now.Hour >= 12.

Step 5: Now drag a WriteLine activity to the right of the FlowDecision. Set the DisplayName to Morning and the Text to "Good Morning"

Step 6: Now drag a WriteLine activity to the left of the FlowDecision. Set the DisplayName to Afternoon and the Text to "Good Afternoon"

Step 7: Open the Program.cs file and made changes in code like below

using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Activities;
using System.Activities.Statements;
 
namespace DecisionMaking
{ 
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            WorkflowInvoker.Invoke(new Workflow1());
            Console.WriteLine("Press ENTER to exit");
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}

Step 8: Run the application and depending on the time of day, your results should be similar to the following:



Thank You....