Pressing the "New Project" button will open a wizard for the creation of a new Workflow Project. A name has to be provided for the project. By default the project's files will be saved in the workspace folder. You have the possibility to choose an external folder. Projects can be organized in working sets. A working set may contain several projects. A project may belong to several working sets as well. This may be useful if you're working with lots of projects and need to organize them. See the project explorer section for more information about the working sets.

Once you press the "Finish" button, a workflow project will be created for you and you will be able to start designing your workflow using the palette. This will be treated further in Section 2.3, “Designing Workflows ”

Workflows for the ProActive Scheduler may be specified in XML format. This can be achieved by using the Workflow Studio (although you won't have to see the xml, the studio will generate it each time you save your project) or by writing the xml file by hand. The Workflow Studio can create a workflow project and generate a diagram starting from a workflow defined in the xml file. When you press the button "Create ProActive Workflow Project starting from an xml file" you will be asked to browse your local files and choose an xml file representing a workflow. Then you will have to give a name for the project to be created. That is all, press finish and you will have the new project created and your diagram generated for you. Note: this will not change your initial xml file.

You can use this if you have a project on your disk (a folder containing a Workflow Project) and want to make it visible in the workspace. You will be asked to navigate to your project folder.

You can use this if you need to export the project as a workflow archive. You may need this if you need, for instance, to share your workflow with somebody else. An archive can also be sent for execution to the ProActive Scheduler using any of the available scheduler clients.

When your Workflow is finished and ready to run you can send it to the ProActive Scheduler in order to be executed in a distributed environment (a local network, a grid or a could, for instance).

Note: If the job is not valid you will not be able to send it for execution. In this case take a look at the "Problems" view.

When you click on the run button, you will be asked to provide information in order to establish a connection to the ProActive Scheduler Server. You can contact the scheduler in two different ways.

Once you created a new project, or double click on a workflow file in the project explorer, you will be able to see a withe board and a tools palette.

In order to put an element on the white board just click on it on the palette and then click on the white area.

You can only put task elements and connections directly on the white area. The other elements on the palete are to be put inside tasks.

You can double-click on a task or click on the white-blue arrow at the bottom-right in order to expand or collapse it.

In order to draw a connection, click on it on the palete, then click on the desired connection tool (flow connection, for instance). Then, click on one task and drag the connection to another task.

Modeling Assistant

When clicking on a task, 2 graphical elements appear around it:

All elements proposed by the modeling Assistant are also available in the Palette.

When an element is selected, the Properties View will allow the editting of its properties. You can browse the different properties of an element by selecting the tabs in the left of the view.

In order to see the properties of the Workflow itself, click on the white area.

Each time you save the workflow (by clicking on the save button or Ctr-S) a validation is performed on the workflow. You can also trigger a validation by selecting the Edit -> Validation from the main menu.

If, during the validation, some problems are detected in your workflow, a red cross will be put on the element concerned by the problem. For instance, in the Figure 2.11, “The Palette and the White Board” we can see red crosses on the "Average1" task and its Selection-Script sub-component.

If you drag the mouse over the red cross you will see a message explaining the problem.

In the Problems view (see figure bellow) you can find a line corresponing for each red cross en all projects. Double click on a line in order to navigate to the element concerned by the respective problem.