Workflow GetLastManualActivityInstance

Sometimes in practice, you need to get the last manual activity of a workflow. This is the last activity that was performed before the current activity and that is not automatic (i.e. was performed by a user).

A use case is to retrieve the message that the user completed his manual activity with.

/// <summary>

/// Return the last manual activity instance from the current process instance

/// </summary>

/// <returns></returns>

protected ActivityInstance GetLastManualActivityInstance() {

    ActivityInstance activity = CurrentWorkItem.Activity as ActivityInstance;

    ProcessInstance processInstance = activity.Process as ProcessInstance;

    List<ActivityInstance> activities = new List<ActivityInstance>(processInstance.Activities);

    for (int i = activity.Position - 1; i >= 0; i--) {

        ActivityInstance lastActivity = activities[i];

        TridionActivityDefinition activityDefinition = lastActivity.ActivityDefinition as TridionActivityDefinition;

        if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(activityDefinition.Script)) {

            return lastActivity;

        }

    }

    Logger.Warn("AbstractHandler.GetLastManualActivityInstance: Cannot find previous manual Activity Instance");

    return null;

}

For the code-above we need to know the CurrentWorkItem, which is the WorkItem of the current item in the workflow.

/// <summary>

/// Return the finishMessage of the last manual activity in this workflow process

/// </summary>

/// <returns></returns>

protected String GetLastManualActivityMessage() {

    ActivityInstance lastActivity = GetLastManualActivityInstance();

    if (lastActivity != null) {

        return lastActivity.FinishMessage;

    }

    Logger.Warn("AbstractHandler.GetLastActivityMessage: Cannot find previous manual Activity message");

    return String.Empty;

}

The code above is part of YAWF (Yet Another Workflow Framework).