Sonali's blog

Help us prioritize our future investment in WF Activities

sonalic — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 18:48:00 GMT

Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) team is asking for your assistance in prioritizing our efforts going forward. If you’re interested in helping out, please take the time to fill in this survey on your current and future usage of WF Activities, and the areas where you would like to see us invest going forward. Your feedback will be extremely helpful in shaping the future of WF.

Programming JSON with WCF in Netfx3.5

sonalic — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:28:00 GMT

Check out this video which talks about how to access WCF services through AJAX. Look out for Tank game implemented using this feature.

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=335761

About debugging javascript

sonalic — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 22:31:00 GMT

Glav has posted this useful information here

WF Performance white paper is published!

sonalic — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:38:00 GMT

In past, many users had asked about the performance data for Windows Workflow Foundation. The white paper is now published and you can read it HERE

Hosting workflow in IIS hosted Remote object

sonalic — Wed, 17 May 2006 21:57:00 GMT

I have created a sample to host a workflow in IIS hosted remote object while answering this post

[This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights]

How to debug ASP.NET based workflows

sonalic — Wed, 10 May 2006 20:09:00 GMT

Workflows can be hosted in windows form application, windows console apps, IIS, ASP.NET development server, Windows service etc. Workflow debugger lets you debug the workflows hosted in any of the above hosts.

Here are the steps for debugging ASP.NET based workflows.

1. Enable debugging for the ASP.NET application by setting debug = true in the web.config file.
2. Set the workflow library as the startup project, and set breakpoints on the workflow.
3. Enter the URL of the default Web page in the workflow project properties\Debug\ Start browser with external URL text box.
4. In VS, select Attach to process on the Debug menu.
5. Select the process (mentioned in step 6) to attach to from the Available Processes list.
6. Attach to the w3wp.exe or webdev.webserver.exe or aspnet_wp.exe process in which the workflow is hosted
7. Click Select next to the "Attach To" text box.
8. The "Select Code Type" dialog box appears. Select "Debug these code types" and select "Workflow"
9. Click OK.
10. Click Attach.
11. Open the default Web page in a browser and start the workflow.

After this breakpoints on your workflow should get hit.

If you are trying to debug workflows hosted in IIS on 64 bit machines you will need to do some additional security settings. Let me know and I will be glad to help you that.

Troubleshooting workflow issues

sonalic — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 22:41:00 GMT

Problems in getting workflows up and running? Workflows hanging in the middle of execution? Workflows throwing unexpected exceptions? Here are some troubleshooting tips to know what is happening there and what is NOT happening.

1. Regsiter to the events on WorkflowRuntime in host. WorkflowRuntime class exposes events like workflowterminated, workflowcompleted, workflowaborted etc. Subscribing to these events will help you to understand what is happening to the workflow instance.
2. Trace workflow execution. Add the following config file in your host (version > 4008). This will trace the entire workflow execution in the specified file.

</switches>
<trace autoflush="true" indentsize="4">
    <listeners>
      <add name="customListener"
     type="System.Diagnostics.TextWriterTraceListener"
     initializeData="WFTrace.log" />
    </listeners>
</trace>
</system.diagnostics>
</configuration>

3. Debug!. Workflow debugger is useful and user friendly tool to step through the execution of workflows. To set breakpoint, open the designer view, select an activity and press F9. Mark the workflow project as the start up and start debugging using F5. You can use F10, F11, Shift + F11 to step through the activities and code beside of the workflow. Debugging workflows is itself a big topic. I will be posting more information about it in this blog. Keep watching.

How to lock a workflow instance using SqlWorkflowPersistenceService?

sonalic — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 05:06:00 GMT

SqlWorkflowPersistenceService, the out-of-box persistence service in WF, provides a mechanism to lock workflow instances. Instance locking is required if you want to run a workflow in different hosts and ensure that it is loaded in one and only one host at a given time. While answering one of the questions http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=371851&SiteID=1 on WF forum, I created a simple workflow which is accessed by 3 hosts. I have uploaded the sample here for those who are interested. Take a look at it and let me know if you have any questions!

Windows Workflow Foundation is announced!

sonalic — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 03:21:00 GMT

Check the link WinWF

PDC 2005 has started!

sonalic — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 03:39:00 GMT

Helllo there! I am sonali, working as a SDET with Microsoft for last 7 months. I am working on a product which will be announced in PDC 2005 tomorrow. It is a cool product and if you are into developement of business applications it is going to be part of your life soon! Keep an eye on this blog for more information about our product.

Meanwhile you can take a look at what is happening in Los Angles at PDC2005