Binding parameters to Windows Workflow instance & ignoring unused ones

Question

I have a bunch of named value parameters in a Dictionary<string, object>, which I want to pass into different workflows. The catch is that each workflow will only need a subset of the properties in the dictionary, and I don't know beforehand which workflow needs which properties.

The problem is that when I call WorkflowRuntime.CreateWorkflow with the dictionary to bind with, it fails with:

The activity '<workflow name>' has no public writable property named '<property name>'

I know what this means. The property in the workflow is not defined because this particular workflow does not need that particular property (other workflows might).

Is there anyway to bind a dictionary to workflow properties, and IGNORE properties that are not defined on the workflow?

Answer 1

Why don't you pass your dictionary into the workflow instances? Your workflow definitions then just have to have a property for that dictionary.

var inputs = Dictionary<string, YOUR_CUSTOM_TYPE>();
// ...
// fill your dictionary according to the context
// ...
var inputParams = new Dictionary<string, object>();
inputParams["WF_PROP_NAME"] = inputs;
var wfInstance = wfRuntime.CreateWorkflow(WF_TYPE, inputParams);

This way your workflows just get the dictionary items of interest from the dictionary.