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External Activities and C# script Activities

This topic describes the pros and cons of an External Activity implementation (implemented as a .NET assembly) compared to a C# script Activity when implementing an Automatic Activity script or Activity expiration script.

External Activity

Any non-trivial Automatic Activity or Activity expiration script is best implemented as an External Activity because of the benefits provided by working in .NET:

  • You can use Visual Studio to develop your class.
  • You can use IntelliSense.
  • You can debug your code effectively.
  • Your code is precompiled which results in better performance.
C# script Activity

An Automatic Activity or Activity expiration script that can be implemented in one or two lines (e.g. it finishes without doing anything except logging a string) would be fit to be created as a C# script. The benefits of using C# are:

  • No need to upload a .NET assembly to Content Manager
  • No need to use Visual Studio: you do all your coding in Visio Workflow Designer