Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) is a Microsoft technology for defining, executing, and managing workflows. This technology is part of .NET Framework 3.0 and will be available natively in the Windows Vista operating system, and has been backported to the Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server operating systems. The .NET Framework 3.0 “workflow runtime” provides common facilities for running and managing the workflows and can be hosted in any CLR app domain.
A new XML-based language XAML is commonly used for declaring the structure of a workflow. However, the workflow may also be expressed in code using any .NET-targeted language (like C#).
Workflows comprise ‘activities‘. Developers can write their own domain-specific activities and then use them in workflows. The .NET Framework 3.0/Windows Workflow Foundation also provides a set of general-purpose ‘activities’ that cover several control flow constructs.
Windows Workflow Foundation also includes Visual Studio 2005 extensions. These extensions contain a visual workflow designer which allows users to design workflows, a visual debugger which enables the users to debug the workflow designed and project system which enables the user to compile their workflows inside Visual Studio 2005.
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