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wft vs wfm

maddy

I'm looking for technical datapoints on benefits of using wft or wfm one over the other ?

Any pointers?

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jagadesh

I'm looking for technical datapoints on benefits of using wft or wfm one over the other ?

Any pointers?

points to consider wfm
1. Easy to design the workflow using tool(drag and drop)
2. URL task is new in wfm
3. Based on branch we can customize values for workflow variables

karel

wfm inside iwstore --> versioning (although, be carefull with the config files)

Adam Stoller

points to consider wfm
1. Easy to design the workflow using tool(drag and drop)
2. URL task is new in wfm
3. Based on branch we can customize values for workflow variables

be quicker, at least up to a point.For most customers the selling point of Java instead of Perl is a big one (even though it is a false difference since you could call the same Java programs from a WFT and the same Perl programs from a WFM)

Surender

This is awesome. You are always helpful.
Thanks Fish.

vpatel

Just adding one more item to Adam's list: WFT is legacy (still fully supported) technology. Newer features MAY be limited to WFM only in the future. Newer implementations should strongly consider WFM over WFT.

jbonifaci

Just adding one more item to Adam's list: WFT is legacy (still fully supported) technology. Newer features MAY be limited to WFM only in the future. Newer implementations should strongly consider WFM over WFT.

This should be taken with a grain of salt, as I am skeptical whether new features will ever be added at all...

nipper

This should be taken with a grain of salt, as I am skeptical whether new features will ever be added at all...

Yea well you are just a malcontent.

jbonifaci

Hey Adam, here are my thoughts on your thoughts,

1. The ease of designing the workflow using the WF Modeller decreases with the complexity of the workflow - designing a WFT using the WFConstructor.pm module, IMO, maintains a fairly consistent rate of ease/difficulty

I have only found this to be true if you have more than 3-4 transitions to/from a single task. The only scenario I can recall is a task I had that was transitioned to from any external task that errored or timed out and could also transition to any task in the workflow. I have since refrained from doing this (although it was nice) and all of the workflows I've developed since look very good in the modeler. I do admit, the system I now use for laying out tasks so that they are easily readable took a while to work out, but now seems to fit most of my needs.

3. However, WFM doesn't [currently] allow you to skip the instantiation screen altogether, while WFT (perl/javascript) does.

This is annoying, yes, but can be done with some simple (unsupported) javascript.

I think there's potential for improvements in the WF Modeler UI, and while WFM is going to be Autonomy Interwoven's recommendation for future development, I have to wonder how much improvement will actually ever happen to the WFM GUI (I believe it's OEM'd 3rd-party software). Things I'd like to see:

* lock/magnet handles on task boxes (a la Visio / OmniGraffle) so you can make your transition links go from a specific point on one task box to a specific point on another task box and thus help control the transition link line routing.
* transition link line crossing options (e.g.: hop-over, bridge-under, etc.) that allow for clearer depiction of which line is "above" another
* real task alignment options that understand real grid options
* Non-GUI: The ability to skip the instantiation screen altogether (as in WFTs)

After playing around with WFM a bit, I haven't had too much of an issue with the positioning of links, you can get them to look ok once you get the hang of it (but the fact that you need to work at it is annoying).

When I first started using WFM, I put together a list of things I'd like to see (although likely never will):

* Be able to specify the order of successorsets. They currently appear to be random. I had once thought they were controlled by the order the links were added and/or the order they appear on the task, but have since revised my opinion. I have seen workflows in production that change the order of the successorsets all the time, without any code ever changing. I used to rely on my error transitions being successorset 0, but I now do all of my transitions based on the name of the successorset, rather than the index.
* Be able to use configurable variables for task names.
* Have the ability to combine hard coded text with a configurable variable. For example: 'My Text - CONFIGURABLE(MyConfigurableVariableName)'.
* Add a place for comments at the ipm level for each node in the WFM tree. These comments would for development purposes only and would not need to be accessible anywhere within TeamSite.
* Be able to order job and task variables. It may not matter in the end, but being able to group similar variables without having to play with updating/removing/adding to get them in the right order would be nice.
* Ability to hide certain tasks from the users view of the model (and all links to those tasks).
* Have an option to output the IPM to Visio.

Despite what Sales tends to say - the WFM GUI is not meant to be used by non-technical users to develop workflows (it may be used by non-technical users to try to understand a workflow, but not to develop them).

Yeah, that is a load of you know what,

.

~Jeff

Adam Stoller

1. The ease of designing the workflow using the WF Modeller decreases with the complexity of the workflow - designing a WFT using the WFConstructor.pm module, IMO, maintains a fairly consistent rate of ease/difficulty
I have only found this to be true if you have more than 3-4 transitions to/from a single task. The only scenario I can recall is a task I had that was transitioned to from any external task that errored or timed out and could also transition to any task in the workflow. I have since refrained from doing this (although it was nice) and all of the workflows I've developed since look very good in the modeler. I do admit, the system I now use for laying out tasks so that they are easily readable took a while to work out, but now seems to fit most of my needs.

Well, IMO a good workflow design includes a centralized timeout handler and error handler, and as such you run into the problems that we've both seen (more so with timeout handler as that tends to connect to about 95% of the tasks, whereas an error handler might only connect to 25% to 50% of the tasks.

This [trying to skip instantiation screen]is annoying, yes, but can be done with some simple (unsupported) javascript.

Yeah, I just saw your other post on this - nice to know there's at least a reasonable unsupported work-around.

After playing around with WFM a bit, I haven't had too much of an issue with the positioning of links, you can get them to look ok once you get the hang of it (but the fact that you need to work at it is annoying).

If you include things like the timeout handler it's somewhat amusing as each link you draw to/from the timeout handler re-lays out all the links in the diagram.

When I first started using WFM, I put together a list of things I'd like to see (although likely never will):

* Be able to specify the order of successorsets. They currently appear to be random. I had once thought they were controlled by the order the links were added and/or the order they appear on the task, but have since revised my opinion. I have seen workflows in production that change the order of the successorsets all the time, without any code ever changing. I used to rely on my error transitions being successorset 0, but I now do all of my transitions based on the name of the successorset, rather than the index.

As long as you're not using the first release of WFM (1.0.0.0) using the description is the right way to go. I too used to use 0 as my error handling transition, but now I just name all such transitions "error" and it works just fine. If you use Perl code - the WFTask module (as of 6.7.1 I believe) provides the GetPossibleTransitions() method which returns the array of transition descriptions - from which you can find the one you want and use it's index in that array to do the CallBack() - you might be able to use SelectTransition() instead, but I never tried it.

...
* Have an option to output the IPM to Visio.

Preferably to Visio XML -- which can be imported into other such programs (like OmniGraffle which I use on my Mac).
Another thing I'd like to see is the ability to use a generic variable (e.g.: $taskname or %taskname%) as all or part of the value supplied for the name of the variable to set in WF Variable Start Op - this would make the setup for the timeout handler and error handler (the way I do them, anyway) a lot simpler.

Oh well - we can but wish. I'll be doing some WFM development later on in my current project (672SP2P1) and I'm sure I'll run into some other frustrating things ;-)

nipper

Oh well - we can but wish. I'll be doing some WFM development later on in my current project (672SP2P1) and I'm sure I'll run into some other frustrating things ;-)

Yea well if you do much SP/LS work, you have to use WFM. I get the fun of an auto starting WF and unattended. Again in WFT it was easier (we push from a release branch but it is LiveSite so this will be interesting).

jbonifaci

I too used to use 0 as my error handling transition, but now I just name all such transitions "error" and it works just fine. If you use Perl code - the WFTask module (as of 6.7.1 I believe) provides the GetPossibleTransitions() method which returns the array of transition descriptions - from which you can find the one you want and use it's index in that array to do the CallBack()

I assume you're providing this for the benefit of future readers? (I mentioned I use the successorset label as well in my post Smiley Tongue

). But, it is still annoying for user and group tasks, when the transition buttons in the task view don't have a fixed order.

~Jeff

Adam Stoller

I assume you're providing this for the benefit of future readers? (I mentioned I use the successorset label as well in my post ).

Yeah - that's what I was doing.

But, it is still annoying for user and group tasks, when the transition buttons in the task view don't have a fixed order.

~Jeff

Ah - that's a bigger annoyance. I recall hearing about it, but never actually noticed it [thus far]