Skip to Content- Evaluate Workflow Engine Workflow Engine is an embeddable .NET library that adds business process automation to any application with guaranteed backward compatibility across versions.
- License Key Get a trial or commercial license key for Workflow Engine, register it with WorkflowRuntime, and see what Workflow Engine Free allows without a key.
- Workflow Engine Editions Compare Workflow Engine Free; Team and Complete Editions of Workflow Engine; and Subscription, Business, SaaS, and Enterprise Editions of Workflow Engine NEO.
- Action An action is named business logic that Workflow Engine executes from an activity implementation while it runs a process instance.
- Activity An activity is a stable state where a process instance waits for a command, a timer, or an external event before moving forward.
- Annotation An annotation is a named string value attached to an activity or transition in a scheme - it serves as custom metadata that code can read at runtime.
- Command A command is a named trigger that moves a process instance from one activity to another by firing a matching transition.
- Condition A condition is a guard on a transition that determines whether the process instance can move to the next activity.
- Localization Localization maps Workflow Engine states, commands, parameters, and other scheme names to culture-specific text shown by an application.
- Parameter A parameter is a variable attached to a process instance that carries business data through each step of the workflow from start to finish.
- Persistence Persistence connects Workflow Engine to a database through separate contracts for runtime process data and workflow scheme data.
- Process Instance A process instance is one execution of a scheme - it tracks the current activity, parameters, and history for a single business object.
- Process Logs Process logs are an optional diagnostic trace of actions, conditions, transitions, and errors during process execution.
- Rule A rule is a named check that WorkflowRuntime evaluates to decide whether a specific user is allowed to execute a command at the current activity.
- Scheme A scheme is the workflow blueprint that Workflow Engine parses and builds into the process definition followed by each process instance.
- Subprocess A subprocess is a child process instance created by a ForkStart transition and optionally merged into its parent through a ForkEnd transition.
- Timer A timer fires a transition automatically after a delay or on a schedule, without user interaction. Supports five timer types, calendar options, and recovery.
- Transition A transition connects two activities and defines what causes a process instance to move between them, including trigger types, conditions, and restrictions.
- Work Calendar A work calendar defines which days and hours count as working time, so that timers configured with calendar-aware notation fire only during business hours.
- Workflow Engine Concepts All Workflow Engine concepts: schemes, instances, activities, transitions, commands, timers, conditions, actions, rules, parameters, runtime, persistence.
- Workflow Runtime Workflow Runtime is Workflow Engine's main API facade for configuring services and creating, executing, querying, and persisting processes.
- Create Your First Workflow Design a minimal workflow scheme with two activities, one transition, and one command, then save it and create a process instance.
- Framework-Agnostic Install Install Workflow Engine in a console app, worker service, or non-ASP.NET host using NuGet, configure the persistence provider, and start the runtime directly.
- Get Started with Workflow Engine Get started with Workflow Engine: define a scheme, then run it as a process instance with persistence, timers, rules, and actions.
- Install Workflow Engine Add Workflow Engine to an ASP.NET Core application using NuGet, register services, map endpoints, and verify the setup.
- Integrate the Designer Run the Workflow Designer standalone via npx for quick visual editing, or embed it as a frontend component into your React, Angular, Blazor, or vanilla JS app.
- Glossary Workflow Engine Glossary defines product, design, runtime, API, operations, and plugin terms together with accepted aliases.
- Workflow Engine .NET Workflow Engine is an embeddable .NET library for workflow automation - add durable, auditable business process automation to any .NET or ASP.NET application.
- Approval Plugin ApprovalPlugin records approval history, maintains inbox entries, and derives outbox summaries for Workflow Engine processes.
- Approval Plugin Overview Register ApprovalPlugin, configure its actions and settings, and connect WorkflowRuntime to approval persistence.
- HTTP Requests Call external APIs from your workflow using HTTPRequest action and route based on responses using CheckParameter condition.
- Basic Plugin BasicPlugin adds workflow actions and conditions to WorkflowRuntime - HTTP requests, email, subprocesses, parameter manipulation, and role-based authorization.
- Managing Parameters Use SetParameter, RemoveParameter, and CheckParameter in BasicPlugin to store, delete, and branch on process parameter values.
- Managing Subprocesses Use fork transitions, CheckAllSubprocessesCompleted, and DeleteSubprocesses in BasicPlugin to coordinate child workflow processes.
- Basic Plugin Overview Register BasicPlugin with WorkflowRuntime to add HTTP requests, email, process and parameter management, and role-based authorization.
- Parallel Approval Use FillApproversUsers and IsApproveComplete in BasicPlugin to implement multi-user parallel approval workflows.
- Predefined Actors Register predefined actors with BasicPlugin and resolve their identities to restrict Workflow Engine commands from application code.
- Process Control Use SetState, SetActivity, and ExecuteCommand in BasicPlugin to control process execution flow and coordinate between process instances.
- Role-Based Authorization Use the CheckRole rule in BasicPlugin to restrict workflow command execution to users who belong to specific application roles.
- Sending Emails Use SendEmail action in BasicPlugin to send email notifications at specific workflow stages using SMTP configuration.
- Plugins Workflow Engine plugins extend the runtime with pre-built actions, rules, and custom activities for approvals, file operations, BPMN support, and more.
- Release Notes Browse Workflow Engine release notes by version and date to review new features, improvements, bug fixes, breaking changes, and migration steps.
