Passing parameters to an External (Workflow) Activity

Question

I have created some sample External Activities which successful execute when called from the workflow activities in my Visio diagram. My code in my External Activity looks a bit like this:

AssemblyTbbId = "tcm:2010-21343-2048"
Type = "Net.SDLTridion.Workflow.CheckForDispatching"

This calls the Execute() method of my CheckForDispatching class. At the moment I really need to implement a new class for every activity in my workflow process definition. I would really like to parameterize my calls to my classes, so I could have more reusable code. Essentially I would like to be able to achieve something like the following for a decision activity:

Class: CheckIfUserIsAdmin
Execute Method: Execute(String activityIfTrue, String activityIfFalse)….

Is there a way to add some parameters to my Execute() method from within the same activity. The only way I can think to do this is make an additional automated activity which executes before my external activity which looks a bit like this:

ProcessInstance.Variables.Add("activityIfTrue", “Activity Name 1”);
ProcessInstance.Variables.Add("activityIfFalse", “Activity Name 2”);

These could then be read from the external activity class in the subsequent step. This feels like a very long winded approach, and I am hoping someone can suggest a better way.

Answer 1

I had the same issue before and I found 2 possible solutions.

1) Implement your own Script Executor, you can find details about it here.

Extending Workflow Scripts

2) Pass parameters to the standard script executor in the following way.

AssemblyTbbId = "tcm:2-7070-2048"
Type = "Tridion.ContentManager.Spark.Workflow.Publish.PublishToDevActivity"
ResultAware = True

As you can see there I am passing a parameter called ResultAware but I am not putting the value in Quotes (that is a hack so that the script validator will accept my script)

Then you can access to that value in your external activity like this.

private static readonly Regex NameValuePairRegex = new Regex(@"\s*(?<Name>[^""]+)\s*=\s*(?<Value>[^""]+)\s*", RegexOptions.Compiled);
public TridionActivityDefinitionData ActivityDefinition { get; set; }

private bool GetResultAware() {
    IEnumerable<Match> matches = NameValuePairRegex.Matches(ActivityDefinition.Script).Cast<Match>();
    if (matches.Count() > 0) {
        Match resultAwareMatch = matches.FirstOrDefault(m => m.Groups["Name"].Value.Equals(PublishConstants.ResultAwareParam));
        if (resultAwareMatch != null) {
            bool result;
            bool.TryParse(resultAwareMatch.Groups["Value"].Value, out result);
            return result;
        }
    }
    return false;
}