Workflow States: To Define a Workflow State

The following activity will walk you through the process of defining a state.

Story

Suppose that on the Repair Work Orders (RS301000) form, you need to add the On Hold and Ready for Assignment states to the workflow. The On Hold state should be the initial state of the workflow.

Process Overview

To define the states, in the Configure method of the RSSVWorkOrderWorkflow class, you will сall the WithFlowStates method in the lambda expression specified for the AddDefaultFlow method and provide the set of states in the parameter. You will define each state by calling the Add method and specifying the state identifier string as a generic parameter. As a parameter of the Add method, you will specify a lambda expression where you can configure the state.

System Preparation

In an instance with the T100 dataset, make sure that you have done the following:

Prepared an instance with the PhoneRepairShop customization project and enabled the workflow validation by performing the prerequisite activities in the Preparing an Instance for Workflow Customization chapter.
Prepared the screen configuration and defined the set of states by performing the prerequisite activities in the Preparing a Screen Configuration chapter.

Step: Defining the On Hold and Ready for Assignment States

To add the OnHold and ReadyForAssignment states, do the following:

In the RSSVWorkOrderWorkflow class, in the Configure method, locate the AddDefaultFlow method. (You have added this method in Step 3: Overriding the Configure Method.)

Call the WithFlowStates method, as the following code shows.

                .AddDefaultFlow(flow => flow
                    .WithFlowStates(fss =>
                    {                    }))

Inside the lambda expression of the WithFlowStates method, add the OnHold state by calling the Add method, as the following code shows.
```
                        fss.Add<States.onHold>(flowState =>
                        {
                            return flowState
                            .IsInitial()
                            .WithActions(actions =>
                            {
                                actions.Add(g => g.ReleaseFromHold, a => a
                                .IsDuplicatedInToolbar()
                                .WithConnotation(ActionConnotation.Success));
                            });
                        });
```
In the code above, you have added the OnHold state by specifying the States.onHold value as the generic parameter of the Add method. In the lambda expression passed to the Add method, you have done the following:
- Specified that the OnHold state is the initial state of the workflow by calling the IsInitial method.
- Specified the actions that are available in the OnHold state by calling the WithActions method and adding the action definition in the lambda expression. In this case, the ReleaseFromHold action is available in the OnHold state. By calling the IsDuplicatedInToolbar method, you have specified that the action should be shown as a button on the toolbar for this state.
- Specified the Success connotation for the action by calling the WithConnotation method. The button corresponding to this action will be highlighted in green when it is displayed on the form toolbar. For details, see Action Customization: Connotation for an Action.

After the OnHold state, define the ReadyForAssignment state, as the following code shows.

                        fss.Add<States.readyForAssignment>(flowState =>
                        {
                            return flowState
                            .WithFieldStates(states =>
                            {
                                states.AddField<RSSVWorkOrder.customerID>(state
                                    => state.IsDisabled());
                                states.AddField<RSSVWorkOrder.serviceID>(state
                                    => state.IsDisabled());
                                states.AddField<RSSVWorkOrder.deviceID>(state
                                    => state.IsDisabled());
                            }); ;
                        });

In the code above, you have added the ReadyForAssignment state by specifying the States.readyForAssignment value as the generic parameter of the Add method. By calling the WithFieldStates method, you have specified the states of DAC fields in this states. In this case, you have specified that the customerID, serviceID, and deviceID fields of the RSSVWorkOrder DAC should be disabled in this state.

Save your changes.