Creating custom activity items

This walkthrough explains how to create a custom masking activity in your BizDataX project.

If you have a big and complex main workflow, custom activities allow you to break down your workflow into small segments (activities) or to reuse the same activity multiple times in your workflows. Your main workflow will be easier to understand and manage.

Preconditions

• BizDataX Package (Visual Studio project) is created.
• Designer data model is created (Microsoft SQL Server database BizDataXDemo).

Creating custom activities

1. Select your project in the Solution Explorer. Right-click Add -> New item -> BizDataX group -> BizDataX Masking Activity. Enter a name for the new custom masking activity, for example CustomerMasking, TransactionMasking, etc.
   Note: naming the custom activity should be unique and should not be in conflict with other names in the project.

2. The Type selection dialog, as shown on Figure 1, appears. Select the table for which you want to create a custom masking activity and click OK.

Figure 1: Type Selection dialog

3. This generates a new XAML file with a masking iterator for the table you selected in the last step. The generated workflow should look similar to the one shown on Figure 2. Now you can add masking activities to the generated Masking block. Build the solution to register changes.

Figure 2: New custom masking activity

Note: Make sure that in the properties of the added Masking block activity, there is a value Masking in the Result field. If the Masking block activity is removed and replaced with some other activities, the first activity in the workflow must have the value Masking assigned in the Result field.

Using custom activities

1. Open your main workflow file (Package.xaml). You should see the new custom activity in a new group with the name of the project, as shown on Figure 3.

Figure 3: Custom activity in a new group

2. Add a table masking activity of the same type as your new custom activity to the workflow. Add your new custom activity inside the table masking activity. The workflow should now look similar to the one shown on Figure 4.

Figure 4: Main workflow

The entire masking logic is implemented in the custom activity and is used inside the handler of the table.