Customize workflow notifications: Implement custom workflow activity

To implement a custom workflow activity, You need to create a new class that holds the custom workflow and generates the assembly. You inherit and extend Sitefinity's built-in workflow activity that notifies approvers there is content pending for their approval and enhance it.

In order to send messages, Sitefinity CMS uses the For developers: Notification service. The service implementation provides reliable message job execution and notification server scalability. Thus, the progress of each job is logged. Even if the notification server restarts, the job is resumed or if there is more than one notification server (NLB), another server resumes the job.

To implement the custom workflow activity:

1. Open the context menu of your solution and navigate to Add » New Project...
2. Under Visual C#, click on Class Library and enter Telerik.Sitefinity.Samples.Workflow as the name of the new library.
3. Copy and paste the following code:
   using System;

   using System.Activities;

   using System.Collections.Generic;

   using System.Linq;

   using System.Text;

   using System.Threading.Tasks;

   using Telerik.Sitefinity.Fluent.AnyContent.Implementation;

   using Telerik.Sitefinity.Services;

   using Telerik.Sitefinity.Services.Notifications;

   using Telerik.Sitefinity.Versioning.Comparison;

   using Telerik.Sitefinity.Workflow.Activities;

   using Telerik.Sitefinity.Workflow.Model;

      

   namespace Telerik.Sitefinity.Documentation.CodeSnippets.DevGuide.HowTo.CustomizeWorkflowNotifications

   {

       public partial class CustomizeWorkflowNotifications

       {

      

       }

      

       public class CustomNotifyGroup : NotifyGroup

       {

           List<string> emailList = new List<string>();

           string messageBody = null;

      

           protected override void Execute(CodeActivityContext context)

           {

               try

               {

                   OnExcecuting(context);

                   var dataContext = context.DataContext;

                   var workflowDefinition = (WorkflowDefinition)dataContext.GetProperties()["workflowDefinition"].GetValue(dataContext);

                   if (workflowDefinition != null)

                   {

                       if (workflowDefinition.WorkflowType == WorkflowType.StandardOneStep && !workflowDefinition.SendFirstLevelEmailNotification)

                       {

      

                           return;

                       }

      

                       if (workflowDefinition.WorkflowType == WorkflowType.StandardTwoStep)

                       {

                           var approvalState = (((AnyDraftFacade)(dataContext.GetProperties()["masterFluent"].GetValue(dataContext))).Get() as IApprovalWorkflowItem).ApprovalWorkflowState;

      

                           if (approvalState == "AwaitingPublishing" && !workflowDefinition.SendSecondLevelEmailNotification)

                               return;

      

                           if (approvalState == "AwaitingApproval" && !workflowDefinition.SendFirstLevelEmailNotification)

                               return;

                       }

                   }

      

                   //get the item sent through workflow

                   var masterFluent = dataContext.GetProperties()["masterFluent"].GetValue(dataContext) as AnyDraftFacade;

                   //check if it has an already published version

                   var live = masterFluent.GetLiveIfExists();

                   emailList = GetEmails(context);

      

                   //if there is published version construct the comparison

                   if (live != null)

                   {

                       StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

                       //use ContentComparator to compare two versions of the same item. The class returns a comparison of each property

                       ContentComparator contentComparator = new ContentComparator();

                       contentComparator.Settings.DateTimeDisplayFormat = "dd MMM, yyyy; hh:mm tt";

                       //get only different results

                       var compareResults = contentComparator.Compare(live.Get(), masterFluent.Get()).Where(cR => cR.AreDifferent == true);

                       sb.Append("<table>");

                       //construct comparison table with styling

                       foreach (var result in compareResults)

                       {

                           string diffHTML = result.DiffHtml;

                           if (diffHTML.Contains("class='diff_new'"))

                               diffHTML = diffHTML.Replace("class='diff_new'", "style='color: #008000; text-decoration: underline;'");

                           if (diffHTML.Contains("class='diff_deleted'"))

                               diffHTML = diffHTML.Replace("class='diff_deleted'", "style='color: #FF0000; text-decoration: line-through;'");

                           if (diffHTML.Contains("class=\"diff_new\""))

                               diffHTML = diffHTML.Replace("class=\"diff_new\"", "style='color: #008000; text-decoration: underline;'");

                           if (diffHTML.Contains("class=\"diff_deleted\""))

                               diffHTML = diffHTML.Replace("class=\"diff_deleted\"", "style='color: #FF0000; text-decoration: line-through;'");

                           sb.AppendFormat(@"<tr>

                                                 <td style='font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.1; width: 100px;'>{0}</td>

                                                 <td style='font-size: 11px; margin-left: 20px; overflow: hidden; width: 375px;'>{1}</td>

                                                 <td style='font-size: 11px; margin-left: 20px; overflow: hidden; width: 375px; '>{2}</td>

                                              </tr>", result.PropertyName, result.OldValue, diffHTML);

                       }

                       sb.Append("</table>");

                       //add the table to the original message body

                       messageBody += sb.ToString();

                   }

                   //uses the notification service to send a message

                   SendMessage();

               }

               catch (Exception ex)

               { }

           }

      

           public void SendMessage()

           {

               var serviceContext = new Telerik.Sitefinity.Services.Notifications.ServiceContext(null, null);

               var messageTemplate = new Telerik.Sitefinity.Services.Notifications.MessageTemplateRequestProxy() { Subject = "Subject", BodyHtml = messageBody };

               var messageJob = new Telerik.Sitefinity.Services.Notifications.MessageJobRequestProxy()

               {

                   Description = "Sending message through workflow",

                   MessageTemplate = messageTemplate,

                   Subscribers = new List<SubscriberRequestProxy>()

                           {

                               new SubscriberRequestProxy()

                               {

                                   Email = emailList[0],

                                   ResolveKey = Guid.NewGuid().ToString()

                               }

                           },

               };

               SystemManager.GetNotificationService().SendMessage(serviceContext, messageJob, null);

           }

       }

   }
4. Save your changes.

The retrieved item is the one passed through the workflow from the DataContext property. For more information, see DataContext Property on MSDN.