SharePoint 2013 Workflow: Programmatically Access Workflow Properties

SharePoint 2013 workflow introduced a new API to interact with SharePoint 2013 workflows. The old workflow API will not work for this new workflow model. The most basic API is available as part of the DLL (Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowServicesBase.dll) and the basic entry point for accessing workflow data is WorkflowServicesManager class. I’ll explain few uses of API but you can browse the API to find out more details usage.

 

Get all Workflows associated with a list

You need to create a new instance of WorkflowServiceManager and using the list id, you can ask WorkflowSubscriptionService to find all workflows associated with the list as shown below:

WorkflowServicesManager workflowServiceManager = new WorkflowServicesManager(web);
var workflowSubscriptionService = workflowServiceManager.GetWorkflowSubscriptionService();
var subscriptions = workflowSubscriptionService.EnumerateSubscriptionsByList(listId);

You can get subscription properties as shown below. If you association form has any custom properties, you can retrieve these property values by passing property name.

foreach (var subscription in subscriptions)
{
    var assocationName = subscription.Name;
    var propertyValue = subscription.GetProperty("Property_Name");
}

 

Get Workflow Instance

To get workflow instance details we need get the instance of WorkflowInstanceService from WorkflowServiceManager class as shown below:

WorkflowServicesManager workflowServiceManager = new WorkflowServicesManager(web);
var workflowInstanceService = workflowServiceManager.GetWorkflowInstanceService();
var workflowInstances = workflowInstanceService.EnumerateInstancesForListItem(listId, itemId);

Once we get the workflow Instance, we can get the instance properties as shown below. Any properties in Workflow Initiation form will also be available:

foreach (var instance in workflowInstances)
{
    var propertyValue= instance.Properties["Property_Name"];
}

The table below shows few common properties, but you can find out more properties by debugging code:

Property Name	Description
Microsoft.SharePoint.ActivationProperties.ContextListId	List Id
Microsoft.SharePoint.ActivationProperties.CurrentItemUrl	Current Item Url
Microsoft.SharePoint.ActivationProperties.InitiatorUserId	Initiator User login name, for example i:0#.w|domain\username
Microsoft.SharePoint.ActivationProperties.ItemId	List Item Id

 

Send Custom Notification to Workflow

In SharePoint 2013 workflow, there’s a activity ‘WaitForCustomEvent’. Using this activity you can keep your workflow wait for a custom event. In this activity you can pass the event name. To send the custom event to the workflow you can use workflow API as shown below. First you need to find out the workflow Instance.

WorkflowServicesManager workflowServiceManager = new WorkflowServicesManager(web);
var workflowInstanceService = workflowServiceManager.GetWorkflowInstanceService();
workflowInstanceService.PublishCustomEvent(workflowInstance, "CustomEventName", "");