we use Windows Workflow Foundation internally on a large data manipulation and loading operation. Some of the workflows are complicated and take, with their sub-workflows – significant time, up to a total runtime for the main workflow of arounr 3-4 hours at the moment. THis is expected…. but it would be nice to be able to see where a workflow is.
We have an ASP.NET front end for the operational users. We would lvoe for them to be able to open a page showing a specific running workflow instance in a visualization with basically presenting a way to see the status of the activities (i.e. which activity executed, which is currently executing). No editing is required here . the idea is purely one of not having a black box 3 hour run. We are writing log entries internally which can be seen, but as always, a picture says more than a thousand words, and a visual presentation would definitly be better for them.
Anyone knows of any suite of components for asp.net (preferably mvc) that can visualize a server side running workflow? Editing is NOT required.
This is perhaps not exactly what you are looking for…
I am not aware of any ready-made components but perhaps you can built one for your self using WF designer. See this sample that hosts workflow designer on server side, capture the image and shows it on the page. It uses custom tracking services to depict which activity has run. Unfortunately, its a dated article and I am not sure if similar approach can work in .NET 4 (AFAIK, workflow designer has changed in .NET 4).
In case designer can not be hosted then you may try painting workflow activities/nodes by custom code. You have to use tracking to see the workflow state.