Special considerations
There are some special considerations that need to be taken into account when using the Workflow Designer.
Dates and times in Workflows
When you are using Workflow activities with arguments based on the DateTime object, you need to make sure that DateTime.Kind is specified as 'Utc' or 'Unspecified'. For more information, see Working with dates and times.
Copying/pasting between Workflows
It is possible to copy/paste activities between Workflows. There are however some limitations that have to be considered. If the activities in the source and target Workflows refer to different assembly versions, the copy/paste can have the following effect:
- The paste succeeds but causes validation errors because the classes and/or properties in the different assembly versions do not match.
- The paste does not succeed.
- An assembly conflict has occurred, caused by types missing from the assembly version of the target Workflow.
Note that classes can behave differently in different assembly versions. Make sure to read the documentation for any types that are pasted into the Workflow.
Using Microsoft Workflow activities
Adding a "generic" Microsoft WF activity to a Workflow requires that you also specify the type of generic argument that the activity should use. For some activities (for example Switch \<T>), the argument can only be defined in a pop-up window when the activity is added, but for others the argument can be changed at any time from the Properties pane.
To select a type that is not available in the list, select the "Browse for Types" option at the bottom of the list. This opens up the Type browser dialog where you can select types from any referenced assembly. When the type has been selected the activity will be added to the Workflow.
Searching a Workflow
The Search function performs a linear Workflow search from start to end (it is not possible to start the search from a selected item). If the end of the Workflow has been reached, the search can be continued from start. A search is always done separately on each Workflow, even if several Workflow documents are open in the Workflow designer.
The search considers activity and expression values but ignores the "fixed values" that may be visible in the designer.