Automatic activity not performing

Question

Created a workflow with basic as below.

Created a calss library, used ProgId, set comvisible true and registerd the assembly in the Tridion server.

This is the way i have tested:

1. Created a component
2. Finished the activity from the work list.
3. Navigated to the "Global Work list" and finished the Reviewer activity by myself by choosing the "Back to Author" step and clicked the "Finish" button.

The item is not moved to the author. but when i finish the activity again from the global work list, the item moved to author.

It seems that my code is not performing the activity because i tried removed the below VB script code and tried with the default automatic script code.

' Script for Automatic Activity Content Manager Workflow
FinishActivity "Automatic Activity Finished"

It behaves the same as above. so i decided my code is not worked. Can any one please help on this?

Below is the VBScript I used in the script box of "Back to Author":

Option Explicit

Dim workflowHandler
Set workflowHandler = CreateObject("CoreComponentWorkflow.WorkflowHandler");

If Not workflowHandler Is Nothing Then
    Call workflowHandler.MoveBackToActivity(Cstr(CurrentWorkItem.ID, "Create or Edit     Component")
End If
Set workflowHandler = Nothing

Below is the C# Code:

public void MoveBackToActivity(string workitemid, string strActivitytoMove)
    {

        try
        {
            Session session = new Session();
            WorkItem workitem = new WorkItem(new TcmUri("workitemid"), session);
            ActivityInstance currentactivity = workitem.Activity as ActivityInstance;
            ProcessInstance procInstance = currentactivity.Process as ProcessInstance;

            IEnumerable<ActivityInstance> ieActivities = procInstance.Activities                    
            .Select (s => s)
            .Where (w => w.Title.IndexOf(strActivitytoMove) !=-1)
            .OrderByDescending(w =>w.StartDate);

            if (ieActivities != null && ieActivities.Count<ActivityInstance>() > 0)
            {
                ActivityInstance targetactivity = ieActivities.ElementAt(0);
                User lastperformuser = targetactivity.Performers.ElementAt(targetactivity.Performers.Count<User>() - 1);
                ActivityFinish finish = new ActivityFinish(targetactivity.FinishMessage, lastperformuser, workitem.Session);
                currentactivity.Finish(finish);

            }

        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            throw ex;
        }
    }

Answer 1

Be aware that you are using an API that is NOT supported in Automatic Activities. The only processes where you are allowed to use TOM.NET are Event System handlers and Template Building Blocks as documented here.

Automatic Workflow Activities - if not developed with VBScript - must use the CoreService interface.

The good news is that I know for a fact this works - plenty of people got it to work in many implementations. The bad news (for you) is that the error is in your code. Have you tried debugging/step-by-step through your code yet? You can attach to to the workflow process (cm_wf_svc.exe) and figure out what's wrong with the code much faster than we can.

Here's a really simple snippet to finish an activity with CoreService:

ActivityFinishData activityFinish = new ActivityFinishData
    {
        Message = "Automatically Finished from Expiration Workflow Extension"
    };
ActivityInstanceData activityInstance = 
    (ActivityInstanceData)processInstance.Activities[0];
client.FinishActivity(activityInstance.Id, activityFinish, readOptions);

BTW - If you intended to use TOM.NET anyway, why did you bother asking which API to use?

Answer 2

Following the Nuno's answer, yes you should change the code to use TOM or Core Services. TOM .Net is not supported because it is using a different thread apartment than the underlying technology we use for workflow (COM).

About the issue I have checked that you are calling the activity like this.

Call workflowHandler.MoveBackToActivity(Cstr(CurrentWorkItem.ID, "Create or Edit     Component")

It looks like the activity name is not matching. there are some strange characters between "Edit" and "Component"

I hope this helps.

Answer 3

Automatic activities are executed by the Workflow agent service. An Assigned state may indicate that it's just not being picked up by the service. Is your service running correctly, and are things like queue notifications set up properly?