Key Concepts
The VertiGIS Studio Workflow Designer has a wide range of built-in activities you can use to satisfy your business case. You can take the behavior of workflow even further by running the commands and operations available in VertiGIS Studio Web and VertiGIS Studio Mobile.
VertiGIS Studio Workflow is a flexible tool for automating business processes. It allows you to create workflows, which are composed of various activities, control flow elements such as loops, and forms that enable user interaction. Workflows can run on different platforms, including VertiGIS Studio Web, VertiGIS Studio Mobile, on a business server, or in ArcGIS Web AppBuilder.
Workflow
A workflow is a collection of connected activities and forms, and is created using VertiGIS Studio Workflow Designer. Workflows are generic and not tied to a platform by default, but certain activities and features will only work in certain platforms.
Activities
Activities are the building blocks of a workflow. Each activity represents a unit of work. For example, VertiGIS Studio Workflow provides activities to set the map extent, perform geocoding, and gather input from the user. In all, VertiGIS Studio Workflow provides over 200 activities for building workflows.
Most activities have inputs - the values that the activity operates on, and outputs - the results of the activity's operations. When you add an activity to a workflow, you customize the activity by configuring the activity's inputs. The outputs are computed when the workflow runs.
Activities have metadata that VertiGIS Studio Workflow Designer presents to an end user for easy workflow creation. This metadata can be defined in an activity pack. They also have an implementation, which powers the behavior of the activity. This implementation is defined in the appropriate language for the target platform; activities for web applications are defined in TypeScript, and activities for VertiGIS Studio Mobile applications are defined in C#.
Form Elements
Some platforms have UI, like VertiGIS Studio Web or VertiGIS Studio Mobile, and can use forms to facilitate end user interaction. VertiGIS Studio Workflow provides over twenty configurable form elements for building forms, like the Auto Complete, Geometry Picker, Date Picker, Number Slider, and Text Area elements. Just as activities are the building blocks of workflows, form elements are the building blocks of forms.
VertiGIS Studio Workflow Designer and Runtime
VertiGIS Studio Workflow includes a powerful tool for building workflows, VertiGIS Studio Workflow Designer. Designer's drag-and-drop interface and library of predefined activities simplify the process of creating custom functionality for your web mapping applications, without programming. VertiGIS Studio Workflow Designer uses activity definitions to produce workflows.
When a workflow is run, the workflow definition is read and executed by the workflow runtime. The runtime is responsible for locating the activity implementation definitions, and executing them with the inputs defined in the workflow definitions. Each workflow host has a different runtime:
- VertiGIS Studio Web and ArcGIS Web AppBuilder use the JavaScript workflow runtime
- VertiGIS Studio Mobile and VertiGIS Studio Workflow Server use the .NET workflow runtime
Workflows are classified as client and server workflows. Client workflows support visual elements such as forms and prompts, and can be run on platforms with a visual interface, such as VertiGIS Studio Web or VertiGIS Studio Mobile. Server workflows do not support forms, prompts, or other visual elements, and can only be run on VertiGIS Studio Workflow Server, which has no visual interface. However, server workflows have a number of unique capabilities, such as the ability to connect to a database or mail server.
VertiGIS Studio Workflow Hosts
VertiGIS Studio Workflow, is a cross platform product. If an environment supports a version of the workflow runtime it, is called a workflow host.
The current existing workflow hosts are:
Web Applications
- VertiGIS Studio Web (client)
- ArcGIS Experience Builder (client)
- ArcGIS Web AppBuilder (client)
- Geocortex Viewer for HTML5 (client)
.NET Applications
- VertiGIS Studio Mobile (client)
- VertiGIS Studio Desktop for ArcGIS Pro (client)
- VertiGIS Studio Workflow Server (server)
Learn more about the different workflow hosts or about adapting workflows to different environments.
Activity Packs
An activity pack defines a collection of activities that VertiGIS Studio Workflow Designer is aware of. An activity pack defines the metadata for one or more activities so that it can participate in the VertiGIS Studio Workflow Designer interface.
If the activities are targeted for web platforms, the activity pack can also define activity implementations and form elements otherwise, activity implementations and form elements are defined on the target platform.
Activity packs must be registered as an ArcGIS item, and this makes them shareable with other workflow authors.
Next Steps
Get Started with the Web Applications SDK
Build custom activities and form elements with the Web Applications SDK
Get Started with the VertiGIS Studio Mobile SDK
Build custom activities and form elements with the VertiGIS Studio Mobile SDK
Get Started with VertiGIS Studio Workflow Server
Build custom activities for a server environment with VertiGIS Studio Workflow Server