Automatic Workflow Activities
Automatic Workflow Activities can be added to Workflow Process Definitions. These activities are performed by the Content Manager and do not require user input.
Automated Workflow activities are written in VBScript, and because of that, they can only call the deprecated TOM (Tridion Object Model) API. If you want to interact with .NET from an Automatic Workflow Activity, you can do so by creating a .NET object with a COM interface. If you choose to do this, always use the Core Service, never the TOM.NET API.
The Workflow Agent Service executes the scripts using the identity of the user NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. This identity is an internal account that has system administration privileges. This setting can be configured in the SDL Tridion MMC Snap-in. You can access the Snap-in to MMC from the option in your Windows Start menu.
It is possible to create two types of automatic workflow activities:
- Automatic activity—this type of activity goes to a special list used only by the Workflow Agent. The agent executes the VBScript code of this activity, then finishes the activity.
- Automatic decision activity—this type of activity instance is similar to the automatic activity instance. Automatic decision activities choose the next activity.
- Contains VBScript that performs the automatic activity
- Starts the next activity
- Contains VBScript that performs an automatic activity
- Decides what the next activity will be
The Tridion Object Model contains the Workflow classes depicted in the following diagram: