Overview of Custom Activities
You can package a process definition into a custom activity so that its implementation details are not shown to users. This allows you to create easy-to-use resources that appear as activities in a custom palette, and users can drag and drop these activities into their own process definitions.
For example, your organization may have several internal processes for handling human resources functions, such as setting up office space, creating payroll records, or initiating benefits coverage. For security purposes, the details of how these processes are executed should not be known to the entire company.
You can develop a set of process definitions that automate these business processes and reference them in Custom Activity resources. You can then store the custom activities in a custom palette and distribute that palette to application developers. You could hire outside contractors or use internal resources to develop a larger application such as a corporate human resources portal that uses the custom activities.
The following figure illustrates an example of using custom activities.
An example of packaged process definitions