Custom Web Templates and Activating Features

Introduction
Lately I was messing around with Custom Site and Web Templates with Office 365 and made a few discoveries that I figure I share. Some of it is old, some of it I had to piece together.

Background
I am building a solution in Office 365 using SharePoint Online. I have a site collection with publishing turned on. I created a custom site template and I need to make sure that site (web level) publishing feature is turned on.

Publishing Feature Disables Creating Site Templates
For some reason, when you turn on the publishing feature on a site, the “Save site as a template” is removed from Site Settings. Now I have found some blog posting where people go down into the SharePoint install files and make some changes to fix that. First, probably not the best course of action if you want to make sure you have supportable upgrades (and someone actually documents the change <g>). Second, since I am working with Office 365 that is not even an option, so I need to find a solution that does it the right way.

Another thing I saw people suggest is go to the Save as Template page by typing in “_layouts/savetmpl.aspx”. Do not waste your time with that approach either, it will not work correctly.

My only option is to create my custom site initially without the publishing feature turned on. Then build some solutions to turn on publishing for the site automatically and ensure that the masterpages are set appropriately. The solutions I looked into are:

1. Feature Stapling
2. Modifying the Web Template
3. WebProvisioned Event Handler

Custom Web Template Feature Stapling
The first solution that I investigated was the most obvious; create a Feature Stapler that would activate the site publishing feature.

The first thing I ran into was finding the actual name of the template. Traditionally the name of the site template is usually something like STS#0. However since this is a custom site template where would I get the site template name from? I found some scripts that would help me get the template name. Since I was doing the development on my local machine it was easy for me to run some PowerShell on my development box to test this all out (I did find similar code to run API code against Office 365).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="94c94ca6-b32f-4da9-a9e3-1f3d343d7ecb" TemplateName="{04FB0801-1DFA-41ED-9B87-06D0FF088F01}#MyCommunityTemplate" />
</Elements>

I create a Feature Stapling feature that looked like this. As you can see there is a GUID#template name format.

Let me save you some though – this is not supported and did not work. Feature Stapling can only be used against the site templates that are OOB the box or deployed down into the hive. You cannot apply do Feature Stapling to a site template created off SharePoint web site.
Modifying the Web Template

The next thing I tried, which is a recommended approach, is to modify the web template. This is a really easy thing to do now with Visual Studio 2010.
In Office 365 I created a web template the way I needed but without publishing turned on. I then went into site settings and created web template like usual. I then went to the Site Collection Solution Gallery, downloaded the WSP, and opened it in Visual Studio 2010 (using an Import SharePoint Solution Package project).
In the project, there will be a module called “Web templates” and you will find a file called “ONet.xml”. Open this file and you will see <SiteFeatures> and <WebFeatures>.
<SiteFeatures> correspond to the site collection and the following features should already be in the web template because you will have publishing turned on at the site collection level.

<!--PublishingPrerequisites Feature-->
<Feature ID="{a392da98-270b-4e85-9769-04c0fde267aa}" Name="FeatureDefinition/a392da98-270b-4e85-9769-04c0fde267aa" />
<!--PublishingResources Feature-->
<Feature ID="{aebc918d-b20f-4a11-a1db-9ed84d79c87e}" Name="FeatureDefinition/aebc918d-b20f-4a11-a1db-9ed84d79c87e" />
<!--PublishingLayouts Feature-->
<Feature ID="{d3f51be2-38a8-4e44-ba84-940d35be1566}" Name="FeatureDefinition/d3f51be2-38a8-4e44-ba84-940d35be1566" />
<!--PublishingSite Feature-->
<Feature ID="{f6924d36-2fa8-4f0b-b16d-06b7250180fa}" Name="FeatureDefinition/f6924d36-2fa8-4f0b-b16d-06b7250180fa" />

Why are there four when you only turn on one publishing feature for the site collection through the SharePoint UI? The one with f6924d36-2fa8-4f0b-b16d-06b7250180fa is actually the main one, but the other three are supporting, hidden ones. There is not action for you, just brought this up because I thought is it interesting.

Now this is what you do need to do. Go to the <WebFeatures> and add the following two features.

Add the Publishing Web after the MetaDataNav:

<!--MetaDataNav Feature-->
<Feature ID="{7201d6a4-a5d3-49a1-8c19-19c4bac6e668}" Name="FeatureDefinition/7201d6a4-a5d3-49a1-8c19-19c4bac6e668" SourceVersion="14.0.0.0" />
<!--PublishingWeb Feature-->
<Feature ID="{94c94ca6-b32f-4da9-a9e3-1f3d343d7ecb}" Name="FeatureDefinition/94c94ca6-b32f-4da9-a9e3-1f3d343d7ecb" SourceVersion="14.0.0.0" />

Add the Publishing Feature after the GridList:

<!--GridList Feature-->
<Feature ID="{00bfea71-3a1d-41d3-a0ee-651d11570120}" Name="FeatureDefinition/00bfea71-3a1d-41d3-a0ee-651d11570120" SourceVersion="1.0.0.0" />
<!--Publishing Feature-->
<Feature ID="{22a9ef51-737b-4ff2-9346-694633fe4416}" Name="FeatureDefinition/22a9ef51-737b-4ff2-9346-694633fe4416" SourceVersion="14.0.0.0" />

This worked great and was really clean.

The next thing I needed do was make sure the master pages are set appropriately. Even though I turned on publishing, it does not mean that the mast pages will be set correctly. The solution is again very simple.

I created a new Feature in Visual Studio 2010 to the web template solution I already had open and set the scope for Web. I then added an event handler to the new Feature. Then in the FeatureActivated event handler I added the following code:

using (SPWeb web = (SPWeb)properties.Feature.Parent)
{              
    web.MasterUrl = web.ParentWeb.MasterUrl;
    web.AllProperties["__InheritsMasterUrl"] = "True";
    web.CustomMasterUrl = web.ParentWeb.CustomMasterUrl;
    web.AllProperties["__InheritsCustomMasterUrl"] = "True";
               
    web.Update();
}

Then I selected the new Feature, clicked on the manifest and copied the GUID for the Feature ID. I then subsequently added that Feature ID into the bottom of the <WebFeatures> section in the ONet.xml file.
Now when this custom web template is provisioned, this code will be executed to set the master page appropriately.
Web Provisioned Event
Another totally different option to consider is use the new SharePoint 2010 WebProvisioned Event Handler. This event handler is available in the SharePoint Sandbox and can run in Office 365. This solution is very simple:

• Create a new SharePoint 2010 solution in Visual Studio.  
• Add an Event Handler. 
• Then add the following code.

public override void WebProvisioned(SPWebEventProperties properties)
{
    base.WebProvisioned(properties);

    using (SPWeb web = (SPWeb)properties.Web)
    {
        Guid sitePublishing = new Guid("94c94ca6-b32f-4da9-a9e3-1f3d343d7ecb");

        web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;

        web.Features.Add(sitePublishing, true);
               
        web.MasterUrl = web.ParentWeb.MasterUrl;
        web.AllProperties["__InheritsMasterUrl"] = "True";
        web.CustomMasterUrl = web.ParentWeb.CustomMasterUrl;
        web.AllProperties["__InheritsCustomMasterUrl"] = "True";
               
        web.Update();
    }

}

There are some advantages to this solution. First it is really simple. Second this code will be executed for ANY site that is provisioned. So if you need to always make sure that publishing is turned on for any site that is provisioned and that the master pages are always the same, this may actually be a better solution. Otherwise you will have to do what I previously described for every web template.

Conclusions

This was a really interesting little exercise that I went through and though it would be interesting to share. Hopefully you will see that there are options based on the business requirements you want to support. This is by no means the only options you have available either.

References

Things that I found along the way:

• http://littletalk.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/programmatically-creating-sites-from-a-custom-web-template/ - Script for getting template name
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spwebeventreceiver.webprovisioned.aspx - Web Provisioned Feature
• http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010programming/thread/48ccb616-f719-46f6-9c1b-a2c96036169b - master page
• http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-IN/sharepoint2010general/thread/ae64c4a3-6d58-4e21-90cc-627fd8f7c984 - master page
• http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010programming/thread/d59213d4-0d0d-4256-9f6a-1dbf9300341d - using Features with custom web template
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms474369.aspx - Understanding ONet.xml

Part 2 – Custom Action for Workflow Initiation

· Part 1 - Pattern for Building Stateful Workflows with SharePoint Designer 2010
· Part 2 - Custom Action for Workflow Initiation
· Part 3 - Delays for Workflow Initiation Action
· Part 4 - Using Business Connectivity Services (BCS) with SharePoint 2010 Workflow
· Part 5 - Custom Visio Services Reports with SharePoint 2010 Workflow

Part 2

Building the Custom Action

In the previous part of this blog I explained my approach and in this part I am going to show you how I created two custom actions that is needed to support my approach. I am first going to show you the code solution I created and then dive a bit into why I made the solution as is.

I can tell you honestly that I really wanted this solution to be a SharePoint 2010 Sandbox solution however I ran into a few challenges that prevented me from doing that. This forced me to build a full trust solution with Visual Studio 2010. There are basically two actions I needed to create. The first one is an action that can initiate another workflow. The second action I needed checks to see if 1 to N workflows are running on a list item, and if so, stop the running of that workflow.

It is pretty well documented on how to create a custom action, deploy it and then use that action in SharePoint Designer. The following are some good references:

· http://blog.voltje.be/?p=144

· http://msmvps.com/blogs/sundar_narasiman/archive/2010/12/26/develop-custom-workflow-activity-for-sharepoint-2010-workflow.aspx

Workflow Helper Class

First thing I did was create a simple helper class where I stored logic to initiate the workflow and to check to see if there are any existing workflows running. The ItemHasActiveWorkflows method is really straight forward as it is searching workflows that are running for the specific item. If it finds a workflow is running, it will return false. Why is this important? Well because a document or list item can only have one of a particular type running at a time. But since we broke the larger business process up into five smaller ones, we need to check to see if any of the five are running on the item. If any one of them is running, we need to block any new workflows from being started. This method will take a comma delimited list of workflow names that must be checked.

The second method is StartWorkflow which will initiate a workflow on a specified item. This code is very straight forward.

public class WorkflowHelper
{

    private string siteCollectionUrl;
    private string webUrl;
    private string listName;
    private int itemID;
    private string workflowName;

    public WorkflowHelper(string siteCollectionUrl, string webUrl, string listName, int itemID)
    {
        this.siteCollectionUrl = siteCollectionUrl;
        this.webUrl = webUrl;
        this.listName = listName;
        this.itemID = itemID;
    }

    public WorkflowHelper(string siteCollectionUrl, string webUrl, string listName, int itemID, string workflowName) : this(siteCollectionUrl, webUrl, listName, itemID)
    {
        this.workflowName = workflowName;
    }

    public bool ItemHasActiveWorkflows(string workflowNames)
    {
        string[] seperator = new string[] {","};
        string[] workflowNamesSplit = workflowNames.Split(seperator, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

        //Get the site collection
        using (SPSite site = new SPSite(siteCollectionUrl))
        {
            //Get the web
            using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb(webUrl))
            {
                SPList list = web.Lists[listName];
                SPListItem workflowItem = list.GetItemById(itemID);

                //Loop over the workflows to look for
                foreach (string workflowName in workflowNamesSplit)
                {
                    //Loop over the workflows on the item
                    foreach (SPWorkflow workflow in workflowItem.Workflows)
                    {
                        //Check the state of the workflows to see if any are running
                        if (workflow.InternalState == SPWorkflowState.Running ||
                            workflow.InternalState == SPWorkflowState.Expiring ||
                            workflow.InternalState == SPWorkflowState.Faulting)
                        {
                            if (list.WorkflowAssociations[workflow.AssociationId].Name.ToLower() == workflowName.Trim().ToLower())
                            {
                                return true;
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }

        return false;
    }

    public void StartWorkflow()
    {
        //Open the site collection.  Cannot go across site collections in 
        //sandbox so easier to just pull of workflow context
        using (SPSite site = new SPSite(siteCollectionUrl))
        {
            //Just open web because we cannot go across site collections
            //with a sandbox solution.
            using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb(webUrl))
            {
                //Get the manager that will initiate the workflow
                SPWorkflowManager workflowMgr = site.WorkflowManager;

                //Get the available workflows on the list
                SPWorkflowAssociationCollection workflowAssocs = web.Lists[listName].WorkflowAssociations;

                //Get the list item that the workflow will be initiated on
                SPListItem workflowItem = web.Lists[listName].GetItemById(itemID);

                //Get the workflow that has been associated
                SPWorkflowAssociation workflowAssoc = workflowAssocs.GetAssociationByName(workflowName, System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture);

                //Start the workflow
                workflowMgr.StartWorkflow(workflowItem, workflowAssoc, workflowAssoc.AssociationData, true);
            }
        }
    }
}

Start Workflow Action

Next I created an action that would start a second workflow. I created the following code.

public class InitWorkflowAction : Activity
{

    #region Properties

    public static DependencyProperty SiteCollectionUrlProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("SiteCollectionUrl", typeof(string), typeof(InitWorkflowAction));

    [Description("Site Collection URL")]
    [Category("Custom Workflow")]
    [Browsable(true)]
    [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)]
    public string SiteCollectionUrl
    {
        get
        {
            return ((string)(base.GetValue(InitWorkflowAction.SiteCollectionUrlProperty)));
        }
        set
        {
            base.SetValue(InitWorkflowAction.SiteCollectionUrlProperty, value);
        }
    }

    public static DependencyProperty WebUrlProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("WebUrl", typeof(string), typeof(InitWorkflowAction));

    [Description("Web Url")]
    [Category("Custom Workflow")]
    [Browsable(true)]
    [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)]
    public string WebUrl
    {
        get
        {
            return ((string)(base.GetValue(InitWorkflowAction.WebUrlProperty)));
        }
        set
        {
            base.SetValue(InitWorkflowAction.WebUrlProperty, value);
        }
    }

    public static DependencyProperty ListNameProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("ListName", typeof(string), typeof(InitWorkflowAction));

    [Description("List Name")]
    [Category("Custom Workflow")]
    [Browsable(true)]
    [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)]
    public string ListName
    {
        get
        {
            return ((string)(base.GetValue(InitWorkflowAction.ListNameProperty)));
        }
        set
        {
            base.SetValue(InitWorkflowAction.ListNameProperty, value);
        }
    }

    public static DependencyProperty WorkflowNameProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("WorkflowName", typeof(string), typeof(InitWorkflowAction));

    [Description("Workflow Name")]
    [Category("Custom Workflow")]
    [Browsable(true)]
    [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)]
    public string WorkflowName
    {
        get
        {
            return ((string)(base.GetValue(InitWorkflowAction.WorkflowNameProperty)));
        }
        set
        {
            base.SetValue(InitWorkflowAction.WorkflowNameProperty, value);
        }
    }

    public static DependencyProperty ItemIDProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("ItemID", typeof(int), typeof(InitWorkflowAction));

    [Description("Item ID")]
    [Category("Custom Workflow")]
    [Browsable(true)]
    [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)]
    public int ItemID
    {
        get
        {
            return ((int)(base.GetValue(InitWorkflowAction.ItemIDProperty)));
        }
        set
        {
            base.SetValue(InitWorkflowAction.ItemIDProperty, value);
        }
    }


    #endregion

    #region Methods

    protected override ActivityExecutionStatus Execute(ActivityExecutionContext executionContext)
    {
        //WorkflowHelper workflowHelper = new WorkflowHelper(this.SiteCollectionUrl, this.WebUrl, this.ListName, this.ItemID, this.WorkflowName);
        //workflowHelper.StartWorkflow();

        WorkflowHelper workflowHelper = new WorkflowHelper(this.SiteCollectionUrl, this.WebUrl, this.ListName, this.ItemID, this.WorkflowName);
        Thread thread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(workflowHelper.StartWorkflow));
        thread.Start();

        return ActivityExecutionStatus.Closed;
    }

    #endregion

}

With the StartWorkflow method you see the code is straight forward but there some threading. You may be wondering why I have implemented threading? Well I was getting the below error message in the SharePoint logs when the workflow was initiated on the same thread. I did not find any information on why this was occurring but on a hunch I thought the workflow service was competing for the same resources. My solution was to move the call to StartWorkflow into a different thread and the problem was resolved.

w3wp.exe (0x2BC4) 0x0A2C SharePoint Foundation Workflow Infrastructure xmfh Medium Workflow Compile Failed: Invalid token for impersonation - it cannot be duplicated.

w3wp.exe (0x2BC4) 0x0A2C SharePoint Foundation Workflow Infrastructure 72fs Unexpected RunWorkflow: Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException: Invalid token for impersonation - it cannot be duplicated. at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPNoCodeXomlCompiler.SubCompiler.DoCompile(WorkflowCompilerParameters parameters, String xomlSource, String assemblyName, CompilationPacket& packet, DirectoryInfo& tempDir) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPNoCodeXomlCompiler.CompileBytes(Byte[] xomlBytes, Byte[] rulesBytes, Boolean doTestCompilation, String assemblyName, SPWeb web, Boolean forceNewAppDomain) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPNoCodeXomlCompiler.LoadXomlAssembly(SPWorkflowAssociation association, SPWeb web) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWinOeHostServices.LoadDeclarativeAssembly(SPWorkflowAssociation association) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWinOeHostServi...

w3wp.exe (0x2BC4) 0x0A2C SharePoint Foundation Workflow Infrastructure 72fs Unexpected ...ces.CreateInstance(SPWorkflow workflow) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWinOeEngine.RunWorkflow(SPWorkflowHostService host, SPWorkflow workflow, Collection`1 events, TimeSpan timeOut) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWorkflowManager.RunWorkflowElev(SPWorkflow workflow, Collection`1 events, SPWorkflowRunOptionsInternal runOptions)

0x0A2C SharePoint Foundation Workflow Infrastructure 98d8 Unexpected Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException: Invalid token for impersonation - it cannot be duplicated. at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPNoCodeXomlCompiler.SubCompiler.DoCompile(WorkflowCompilerParameters parameters, String xomlSource, String assemblyName, CompilationPacket& packet, DirectoryInfo& tempDir) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPNoCodeXomlCompiler.CompileBytes(Byte[] xomlBytes, Byte[] rulesBytes, Boolean doTestCompilation, String assemblyName, SPWeb web, Boolean forceNewAppDomain) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPNoCodeXomlCompiler.LoadXomlAssembly(SPWorkflowAssociation association, SPWeb web) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWinOeHostServices.LoadDeclarativeAssembly(SPWorkflowAssociation association) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWinOeHostServices.CreateIns...

w3wp.exe (0x2BC4) 0x0A2C SharePoint Foundation Workflow Infrastructure 98d8 Unexpected ...tance(SPWorkflow workflow) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWinOeEngine.RunWorkflow(SPWorkflowHostService host, SPWorkflow workflow, Collection`1 events, TimeSpan timeOut) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWorkflowManager.RunWorkflowElev(SPWorkflow workflow, Collection`1 events, SPWorkflowRunOptionsInternal runOptions)

Check Active Workflows Action

Below is the code that will check to see if there is an action running on a workflow item. The code is straight forward and calls my helper class that I created earlier.

public class CheckActiveWorkflowsAction : Activity
{

    #region Properties

    public static DependencyProperty SiteCollectionUrlProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("SiteCollectionUrl", typeof(string), typeof(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction));

    [Description("Site Collection URL")]
    [Category("Custom Workflow")]
    [Browsable(true)]
    [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)]
    public string SiteCollectionUrl
    {
        get
        {
            return ((string)(base.GetValue(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction.SiteCollectionUrlProperty)));
        }
        set
        {
            base.SetValue(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction.SiteCollectionUrlProperty, value);
        }
    }

    public static DependencyProperty WebUrlProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("WebUrl", typeof(string), typeof(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction));

    [Description("Web Url")]
    [Category("Custom Workflow")]
    [Browsable(true)]
    [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)]
    public string WebUrl
    {
        get
        {
            return ((string)(base.GetValue(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction.WebUrlProperty)));
        }
        set
        {
            base.SetValue(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction.WebUrlProperty, value);
        }
    }

    public static DependencyProperty ListNameProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("ListName", typeof(string), typeof(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction));

    [Description("List Name")]
    [Category("Custom Workflow")]
    [Browsable(true)]
    [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)]
    public string ListName
    {
        get
        {
            return ((string)(base.GetValue(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction.ListNameProperty)));
        }
        set
        {
            base.SetValue(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction.ListNameProperty, value);
        }
    }

    public static DependencyProperty ItemIDProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("ItemID", typeof(int), typeof(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction));

    [Description("Item ID")]
    [Category("Custom Workflow")]
    [Browsable(true)]
    [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)]
    public int ItemID
    {
        get
        {
            return ((int)(base.GetValue(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction.ItemIDProperty)));
        }
        set
        {
            base.SetValue(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction.ItemIDProperty, value);
        }
    }

    public static DependencyProperty HasActiveProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("HasActive", typeof(bool), typeof(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction));

    [Description("Has Active")]
    [Category("Custom Workflow")]
    [Browsable(true)]
    [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)]
    public bool HasActive
    {
        get
        {
            return ((bool)(base.GetValue(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction.HasActiveProperty)));
        }
        set
        {
            base.SetValue(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction.HasActiveProperty, value);
        }
    }

    public static DependencyProperty WorkflowNamesProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("WorkflowNames", typeof(string), typeof(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction));

    [Description("Workfow Names")]
    [Category("Custom Workflow")]
    [Browsable(true)]
    [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)]
    public string WorkflowNames
    {
        get
        {
            return ((string)(base.GetValue(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction.WorkflowNamesProperty)));
        }
        set
        {
            base.SetValue(CheckActiveWorkflowsAction.WorkflowNamesProperty, value);
        }
    }

    #endregion

    #region Methods

    protected override ActivityExecutionStatus Execute(ActivityExecutionContext executionContext)
    {
        WorkflowHelper workflowHelper = new WorkflowHelper(this.SiteCollectionUrl, this.WebUrl, this.ListName, this.ItemID);
        this.HasActive = workflowHelper.ItemHasActiveWorkflows(this.WorkflowNames);
            
        return ActivityExecutionStatus.Closed;
    }

    #endregion
}

Deployment

The deployment of this solution was pretty easy with Visual Studio 2010.

· I created an empty SharePoint 2010 project.

· Added the above code.

· Added a Site Collection level Feature.

· Added a SharePoint mapped folder called “Workflow”

· Create a new file called InitWorkflowAction.actions in the Workflow folder.

The InitWorkflowAction.actions file describes my custom actions and makes them available to design tools such as SharePoint Designer 2010 to create a declarative workflow. Information below is very straight forward. It defines the sentence users will fill in and what type of data will be consumed or returned from the methods I created earlier.

<WorkflowInfo>
  <Actions Sequential="then" Parallel="and">
    <Action Name="Start Workflow"
            Assembly="My.Activities, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=7cb64b163bd9c1db"
            ClassName="My.Activities.InitWorkflowAction"
            AppliesTo="all"
            Category="Custom Workflow">
      <RuleDesigner Sentence="Initiate workflow %4 on item %5 in list %3 in Web %2 in Site Collection %1">
        <FieldBind Field="SiteCollectionUrl"
                   Text="Site Collection Url"
                   Id="1"
                   DesignerType="TextBox" />
        <FieldBind Field="WebUrl" 
                   Text="Web Url"
                   Id="2"
                   DesignerType="TextBox" />
        <FieldBind Field="ListName"
                   Text="List Name"
                   Id="3"
                   DesignerType="TextBox" />
        <FieldBind Field="WorkflowName"
                   Text="Workflow Name"
                   Id="4"
                   DesignerType="TextBox" />
        <FieldBind Field="ItemID"
                   Text="Item ID"
                   Id="5"
                   DesignerType="Integer" />
      </RuleDesigner>
      <Parameters>
        <Parameter Name="SiteCollectionUrl"
                   Type="System.String, mscorlib"
                   Direction="In"
                   DesignerType="TextBox"
                   Description="Site Collection Url"/>
        <Parameter Name="WebUrl"
                   Type="System.String, mscorlib"
                   Direction="In"
                   DesignerType="TextBox"
                   Description="Web Url"/>
        <Parameter Name="ListName"
                   Type="System.String, mscorlib"
                   Direction="In"
                   DesignerType="TextBox"
                   Description="List Name"/>
        <Parameter Name="WorkflowName"
                   Type="System.String, mscorlib"
                   Direction="In"
                   DesignerType="TextBox"
                   Description="Workflow Name"/>
        <Parameter Name="ItemID"
                   Type="System.Int32, mscorlib"
                   Direction="In"
                   DesignerType="Integer"
                   Description="Item ID"/>
      </Parameters>
    </Action>
    <Action Name="Check Active Workflow"
            Assembly="My.Activities, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=7cb64b163bd9c1db"
            ClassName="My.Activities.CheckActiveWorkflowsAction"
            AppliesTo="all"
            Category="Custom Workflow">
      <RuleDesigner Sentence="Check if workflows %6 on item item %4 in list %3 in Web %2 in Site Collection %1 has a running workflow (Output to %5)">
        <FieldBind Field="SiteCollectionUrl"
                   Text="Site Collection Url"
                   Id="1"
                   DesignerType="TextBox" />
        <FieldBind Field="WebUrl"
                   Text="Web Url"
                   Id="2"
                   DesignerType="TextBox" />
        <FieldBind Field="ListName"
                   Text="List Name"
                   Id="3"
                   DesignerType="TextBox" />
        <FieldBind Field="ItemID"
                   Text="Item ID"
                   Id="4"
                   DesignerType="Integer" />
        <FieldBind Field="HasActive"
                   Text="Has Active"
                   Id="5"
                   DesignerType="ParameterNames" />
        <FieldBind Field="WorkflowNames"
                   Text="Comma delimited list of workflow names"
                   Id="6"
                   DesignerType="TextBox" />
      </RuleDesigner>
      <Parameters>
        <Parameter Name="SiteCollectionUrl"
                   Type="System.String, mscorlib"
                   Direction="In"
                   DesignerType="TextBox"
                   Description="Site Collection Url"/>
        <Parameter Name="WebUrl"
                   Type="System.String, mscorlib"
                   Direction="In"
                   DesignerType="TextBox"
                   Description="Web Url"/>
        <Parameter Name="ListName"
                   Type="System.String, mscorlib"
                   Direction="In"
                   DesignerType="TextBox"
                   Description="List Name"/>
        <Parameter Name="ItemID"
                   Type="System.Int32, mscorlib"
                   Direction="In"
                   DesignerType="Integer"
                   Description="Item ID"/>
        <Parameter Name="HasActive"
                   Type="System.Boolean, mscorlib"
                   Direction="In"
                   DesignerType="ParameterNames"
                   Description="Has Active"/>
        <Parameter Name="WorkflowNames"
                   Type="System.String, mscorlib"
                   Direction="In"
                   DesignerType="TextBox"
                   Description="Comma delimited list of workflow names"/>
      </Parameters>
    </Action>
  </Actions>
</WorkflowInfo>

Using Custom Actions in SharePoint Designer 2010

Now I am going to show you how I used the custom actions in my workflow. Earlier in this series you saw that I had created five different SharePoint Visio 2010 workflow diagrams. I am going to skip documenting the steps on how to bring the Visio diagrams into SharePoint Designer as that is a pretty straight forward process.

Below is a screenshot of the Initiate Process workflow. The first Action is my custom action that checks to see if there is already a workflow running for the custom list item. You will notice that the sentence displayed here corresponds with the sentence in the InitWorkflowAction.actions file. Also note the first parameter is a comma delimited list of all the other workflows (Review,Manager Review,Resubmit Request,Complete Request).

Next I take the value returned from my custom action and check to see if it Yes or No. If it is No, that means there are no running workflows and that I should initiate the Review Workflow. The third sentence in the diagram below captures this. I will initiate the Review workflow on the current item and send a notification email. Otherwise the workflow will not be started and the user will be notified.

Note that for the configuration of this workflow, it is the only one that supports allowing the workflow to be started manually. All of the other workflows I have created have no checkboxes checked for the Start Options section. This reduces the potential for user errors when starting the workflow for the item. The reason why is that we always want users to start with the Initiate Process workflow and let the other workflows be started based on business rules.

Next I have another workflow called Review that corresponds to the Visio diagram in the previous part of this series. Notice again I simply wire into the custom action StartWorkflow to start Manager Review, Complete Review or Resubmit Request.

Below is the Manager Review workflow. As you can see if the Manager approves the Complete Request workflow will be called otherwise the Resubmit Request workflow will be called.

Next is the Resubmit Request workflow. The workflow checks to see if the user cancels the workflow. If they do, the item will be updated and an email will be sent. Otherwise, the item will go back to the Review workflow (for re-review).

Finally the Complete Request workflow is below. I have not done much with it at this time but more can be added.

So now once I validate and deploy my workflow I can initiate it on an item. Below is a screenshot of a user initiate the process for an item. Notice only the Initiate Process workflow is available.

Once I have started the workflow I come back to the workflow status screen. Here you see the Review workflow is In Progress. Notice that the Initiate Process workflow is still available. Since the workflow is in progress I want to make sure that I cannot initiate the entire workflow again while it is current running.

Below is a screenshot of the completed workflow.

Now you can see I was able to chain together several workflows that as a whole make up a larger business process. Pretty neat.

Sandbox Solutions

I alluded earlier that I really wanted to make this a sandbox solution. Why? Because I believe that you should always develop for the Sandbox first because it quick to deploy solutions, it is secure, ensures good performance and works well with Office365.

Here are some good resources on how to deploy actions into the SharePoint 2010 Sandbox:

· http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff798499.aspx

· http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff630175.aspx

· http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff798389.aspx

· http://www.wictorwilen.se/Post/Sandboxed-workflow-activities-in-SharePoint-2010.aspx

The process is a little different and the code above would change a tiny bit so that it is scoped to a Site Collection only. However fundamentally there is not much difference.

When I deployed the custom actions and created the workflows I would get errors initiating the workflows. I went into the logs and found the following.

SPUCWorkerProcessProxy.exe (0x1E70) 0x1EC0 SharePoint Foundation Workflow Infrastructure 72er Medium System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.ClearAllVars(String bstrUrl) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem.PrepareItemForUpdate(SPWeb web, Boolean bMigration, Boolean& bAdd, Boolean& bPublish, Object& objAttachmentNames, Object& objAttachmentContents, Int32& parentFolderId) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem.UpdateInternal(Boolean bSystem, Boolean bPreserveItemVersion, Guid newGuidOnAdd, Boolean bMigration, Boolean bPublish, Boolean bNoVersion, Boolean bCheckOut, Boolean bCheckin, Boolean suppressAfterEvents, String filename) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem.Update() at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWinOEWSSService.CommitUpdateListItem(Transaction txn, Object[] transData)

SPUCWorkerProcessProxy.exe (0x1E70) 0x1EC0 SharePoint Foundation Workflow Infrastructure 72fe High Error in commiting pending workflow batch items: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.ClearAllVars(String bstrUrl) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem.PrepareItemForUpdate(SPWeb web, Boolean bMigration, Boolean& bAdd, Boolean& bPublish, Object& objAttachmentNames, Object& objAttachmentContents, Int32& parentFolderId) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem.UpdateInternal(Boolean bSystem, Boolean bPreserveItemVersion, Guid newGuidOnAdd, Boolean bMigration, Boolean bPublish, Boolean bNoVersion, Boolean bCheckOut, Boolean bCheckin, Boolean suppressAfterEvents, String filename) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem.Update() at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWinOEWSSService.CommitUpdateListItem...

SPUCWorkerProcessProxy.exe (0x1E70) 0x1EC0 SharePoint Foundation Workflow Infrastructure 72fe High ...(Transaction txn, Object[] transData) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPPendingWorkBatch.Commit(Transaction transaction, ICollection items)

SPUCWorkerProcessProxy.exe (0x1E70) 0x1EC0 SharePoint Foundation Workflow Infrastructure 88xr Unexpected WinWF Internal Error, terminating workflow Id# 8d547a01-bdb8-44ac-b066-586c12367dc0

The information that was provided was not very good. Here are some observations I made.

· Note that the error is in SPUCWorkerProcessProxy.exe and not w3wp.exe. This basically means the entire workflow is running inside the Sandbox service because it has a reference to an action that is deployed there.

· I would only get this error the very first time the workflow run. From then on, it worked every time flawlessly. However if I stopped and restarted the Sandbox service manually, I would get the error again.

· I would also not get the error if Workflow A started a very simple Workflow B. For instance if Workflow B was sending an email, no issues. However if Workflow B had an approval process there would be an error.

After doing some research I came to the conclusion that this error occurs based on a combination of a few things.

1. When you build a workflow in SharePoint Designer 2010 it is a declarative workflow, not a complied workflow. The workflow will be compiled the first time the workflow is initiated. This is why it always takes a long time to start a workflow the very first time.

2. Sandbox solutions have a threshold of 20 seconds before it is determined the process too intensive and will stop the execution.

This combination would push me over the 20 seconds rule the very first time running the workflow. The solution would be to write some sort of script that could manually go through each workflow and initiating them so they would be compiled and ready to go when the user comes to manually start the workflow. I did not find that to be an acceptable solution because the Sandbox cache will be remove items from memory if they are not used often. This is why I did a full trust solution.

Next Part

Hopefully this gave you a pretty good idea of how simple it is to achieve this vision I have. Now in the next part of this series I am going to extend the solution a little bit to support my reporting requirements using Visio Services.

Part 1 – Pattern for Building Stateful Workflows with SharePoint Designer 2010

· Part 1 - Pattern for Building Stateful Workflows with SharePoint Designer 2010
· Part 2 - Custom Action for Workflow Initiation
· Part 3 - Delays for Workflow Initiation Action
· Part 4 - Using Business Connectivity Services (BCS) with SharePoint 2010 Workflow
· Part 5 - Custom Visio Services Reports with SharePoint 2010 Workflow

Introduction
In the SharePoint 2007 days moderately complex workflow could not be achieved with SharePoint Designer 2007. Individuals would then try to build those workflows using Visual Studio 2007 and then run into a whole new set of complexities. In many cases individuals wanted to use visual tools to build automation inside of SharePoint 2007 only to find out that there were limitations. The end result was developers reverting back to adding event handlers to lists or writing web parts with a custom database.

With SharePoint 2010 workflow tools have matured allowing us to do more complex business process automation. Most notably:

1. Visio 2010 is now a tool that can be used to visually design workflows definitions that can be pulled into SharePoint. It also provides the ability to do reporting and data visualization where graphics can be mapped to data. Then based on the value of that data, conditional logic can be applied to change visual element in Visio (like change something from green to red, or change the shape completely).

2. SharePoint Designer 2010 workflow design tool has significantly improved tremendously. There is Visio integration, InfoPath form integration (initiation, association and task forms), better workflow designer, more workflow fields to interact with, etc. It is almost night and day versus the previous version of SharePoint Designer.

3. Visual Studio 2010 has changed tremendously providing workflow project templates which drastically reduce the level of effort to create workflow process.

4. Workflow definitions can be moved between tools fairly easily only a few limitations.

5. Workflow can be easily redeployed between dev, test and production.

6. Workflow can now run at the site level instead of only being associated to a list item.

One Big Hurdle Left

At the end of the day this is all well and good but there still some holes. Specifically you cannot do state workflows in Visio and SharePoint Designer 2010. SharePoint Designer only supports sequential works. This basically means the flow goes top to down and cannot loop back within the workflow. Not having this capability can be limiting even for a simple workflow process.

The Resolution

Have some assumptions you must take think about with this solution:

1. Let me state first that my solution is pretty clean and simple. But I really only recommend this as a solution for those simple to moderately complex workflows where you just want to be able to achieve stateful workflows without having to do a bunch of custom code.

2. Much of this solution is based on leveraging the OOB capabilities of SharePoint 2010.

3. There is a lot room for improvement of this solution so please use this as a framework to start trying to build some stateful workflows. I will NOT be supporting this solution moving forward. This is just a demonstration of showing you how you can achieve a great solution by using the SharePoint 2010 toolset.

After do some brainstorming the following two things dawned on me:

1. State is relative to the business process instance data; not the business process definition itself. What does that mean? It means you do not have to create a single process definition to manage an entire business process state. Still does not make sense? What I am saying is you do not have to create a single workflow diagram to automate a business process. Instead you can create multiple workflows and chain them together. All of these workflows will manage a single stateful item (record); like a SharePoint list item or document. I like this idea because in actuality state workflows are chained together sequential processes when it comes down to it. My goal is to come up with a pattern that will allow me to daisy chain together many sequential workflows that manage the state of a single item to go through a workflow. Doing this this will allow me to achieve my vision of building workflow in SharePoint Designer 2010 and Visio 2010.

2. The workflow diagram never looks the same as the automation workflow diagram. Visual workflow designer tools are positioned to allow business users to take their process diagrams (box, diamond and arrow diagrams) and quickly transform it into an executable that can run in some system. That is not really easy. The reality is that business person’s workflow diagram never, ever looks like the automation workflow diagram created in a workflow tool. This is because there will be tons of steps added into the diagram to support the actual automation. Using Visio Services in SharePoint 2010, I will be able to come up with a visual report.

I believe I have actually come up with a pretty simple solution change solves these challenges. The following are the elements of this solution.

· Use Visio 2010 to build up the initial workflow definition and then use the SharePoint Designer 2010 to connect the workflow to SharePoint 2010.
· Create custom workflow activity with Visual Studio 2010 that can initiate another workflow. Basically we need to create a simple .NET function that can take some parameters and then initiate a workflow. This will allow for us to chain workflows together.
· Use Visio 2010 for reporting by using its new capability to map to data. We can create a picture that the business user can understand and have it “light up” and report to a user about the current state of a business process execution.

Ok – Show Me What You Are Talking About

Is this still too complicated? Have I gotten a little nerdy on the workflow? Let’s put this into context. Below is a pretty simple review workflow by most standards.

· There is a review step.
· If the item being reviewed is greater than $20K, a manager needs to review it.
· If a request is rejected by the reviewer or manager, the request should go back to the originator for resubmission.
· Only the requestor has the ability to cancel the request.

So you may say what is the big deal? Why did you write all that esoteric stuff about workflow for something as simple as this? Really? Look at the diagram below, the stuff I highlighted in red could not be achieved in a tool that only supports sequential workflow. Because there is a loop back to the initiator to allow them to resubmit this immediately becomes a state workflow.

As well, notice anything else about either of these diagrams? They are simple and what the business users understands. There is nothing in these diagrams that show emails being sent, task items being created, permissions being set, item metadata being updated, data being sent to a database for reporting, etc. If I were to take this diagram and try to model all those steps I can assure you it will become a clutter mess!!!

Solution Design

I am excited to say my solution solves both of these problems!!! First I will be able to break this up into a bunch of connected workflows. Second I will be able to take the original diagram we draw and light it up based on where the workflow is.

So how does the solution work? I will get to the real “how does this work in SharePoint 2010” shortly. First we need to break this workflow into multiple workflows. In the screenshot below you will see that I have broken the business process into five somewhat smaller workflows.

· Initiate – This process will have the responsibility of starting the workflow and performing any activities need to get it going.
· Review – This is the part where the main reviewer reviews the request.
· Manager Review – Workflow that manages the workflow for the manager to review.
· Resubmit – Consolidates the logic for either resubmitting the request or canceling it.
· Complete – Will handle any operations needed to complete the workflow.

When I was designing this solution I was able to test approach with many other more sophisticated workflow patterns (i.e. complex parallel processing or a spider diagram). I was always able to break up the workflow into a set of sequential workflows that could be coordinated with each other.

Building the SharePoint Workflows with Visio 2010

Many of the readers of this blog are aware that they can build SharePoint workflow in Visio 2010. For this solution I will use it to initially build the workflows above however I will not use it for the long term. One limitation is that I will have to build two custom actions in Visual Studio 2010. Custom actions are not supported in Visio 2010 but they are supported in SharePoint Designer 2010.

Initiate Process

Below is the initiate process. Not much going on here other than an email is being sent.

However there are several other things we will need to add when we move this into SharePoint Designer. For instance check to see if any of the other processes are currently running. We have to use a custom action to achieve this which cannot be modeled in Visio.

Review Process

Below is the review process. As you can see I have added some steps to update the state of the Review list item and send an email. Like before, I could not add the actions to initiate the other workflows but I have put in placeholders.

Manager Review

Next I have the manager review. Again I have added some steps to update the review item state, send some emails and put in a placeholder to initiate other workflows.

Resubmit Process

Below is the resubmit process. Again I have added actions that send emails and update the state of the record.

Complete Workflow

Finally we have the complete workflow; pretty self-explanatory.

What’s Next?

Well what we now need to do is bring these workflows into SharePoint Designer 2010 and use some custom actions that can initiate each workflow. In the next part of the series I am going to focus on how these custom actions were built.

Customize SPMetal Generated Code for SharePoint to LINQ

A common question that has come up with SharePoint 2010 developers. If they are using the SPMetal tool to generate entities (or class definitions) for objects in SharePoint, can they modify the generated code? The first response someone may say is no; that is not possible. The reason being is when you rerun the SPMetal command and then replace the new generated code overtop your existing code, you will lose your changes.

Well there is a solution and is it extremely simple. I actually got the idea from all the coding experiences I had with building customizations into RIA Services with Silverlight. All the SPMetal tool is doing is generating Proxy code and notice that all of the code is generated as partial classes!!! Now the sky is the limit.

So in the example below, here is a custom content type I created called Anonymous Comment. Below is the generated code and you can see it is a partial class. Now all you need to do is add another partial class to your project called, AnonymousComment and add in custom methods. When you use the AnonymousComment class in some other custom code it will be treated as one class definition.

Another neat thing you can is see there are partial methods for OnLoaded, OnValidate and OnCreated. You can extend those methods if you want and they will be called by the framework. One unfortunate thing you cannot do is modify the behavior of the getter and setter properties, but you can handle that in your custom partial class.

/// <summary>
/// The item that will capture an anonymous comment.
/// </summary>
[Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq.ContentTypeAttribute(Name="Anonymous Comment", Id="0x0100E3A8FCEBECB140D2812D4F3DE177EFEC")]
public partial class AnonymousComment : Item {
    
    private string _comment;
    
    private System.Nullable<System.DateTime> _created;
    
    private string _response;
    
    private System.Nullable<System.DateTime> _responseDate;
    
    private System.Nullable<Category0> _category;
    
    private System.Nullable<Status> _status;
    
    #region Extensibility Method Definitions
    partial void OnLoaded();
    partial void OnValidate();
    partial void OnCreated();
    #endregion
    
    public AnonymousComment() {
        this.OnCreated();
    }
    
    [Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq.ColumnAttribute(Name="AnonymousComment", Storage="_comment", FieldType="Note")]
    public string Comment {
        get {
            return this._comment;
        }
        set {
            if ((value != this._comment)) {
                this.OnPropertyChanging("Comment", this._comment);
                this._comment = value;
                this.OnPropertyChanged("Comment");
            }
        }
    }
    
    [Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq.ColumnAttribute(Name="Created", Storage="_created", ReadOnly=true, FieldType="DateTime")]
    public System.Nullable<System.DateTime> Created {
        get {
            return this._created;
        }
        set {
            if ((value != this._created)) {
                this.OnPropertyChanging("Created", this._created);
                this._created = value;
                this.OnPropertyChanged("Created");
            }
        }
    }
    
    [Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq.ColumnAttribute(Name="AnonymousCommentResponse", Storage="_response", FieldType="Note")]
    public string Response {
        get {
            return this._response;
        }
        set {
            if ((value != this._response)) {
                this.OnPropertyChanging("Response", this._response);
                this._response = value;
                this.OnPropertyChanged("Response");
            }
        }
    }
    
    [Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq.ColumnAttribute(Name="AnonymousCommentResponseDate", Storage="_responseDate", FieldType="DateTime")]
    public System.Nullable<System.DateTime> ResponseDate {
        get {
            return this._responseDate;
        }
        set {
            if ((value != this._responseDate)) {
                this.OnPropertyChanging("ResponseDate", this._responseDate);
                this._responseDate = value;
                this.OnPropertyChanged("ResponseDate");
            }
        }
    }
    
    [Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq.ColumnAttribute(Name="AnonymousCommentCategory", Storage="_category", FieldType="Choice")]
    public System.Nullable<Category0> Category {
        get {
            return this._category;
        }
        set {
            if ((value != this._category)) {
                this.OnPropertyChanging("Category", this._category);
                this._category = value;
                this.OnPropertyChanged("Category");
            }
        }
    }
    
    [Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq.ColumnAttribute(Name="AnonymousCommentStatus", Storage="_status", FieldType="Choice")]
    public System.Nullable<Status> Status {
        get {
            return this._status;
        }
        set {
            if ((value != this._status)) {
                this.OnPropertyChanging("Status", this._status);
                this._status = value;
                this.OnPropertyChanged("Status");
            }
        }
    }
}