{"id":4353,"date":"2013-01-09T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-09T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2013\/01\/09\/powershell-workflows-nesting\/"},"modified":"2013-01-09T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-09T00:01:00","slug":"powershell-workflows-nesting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/powershell-workflows-nesting\/","title":{"rendered":"PowerShell Workflows: Nesting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary:<\/strong> Windows PowerShell MVP Richard Siddaway talks about nesting Windows PowerShell workflows.\nMicrosoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. Today, we have the third in a series of guest blog posts written by Windows PowerShell MVP Richard Siddaway dealing with Windows PowerShell workflow.<\/p>\n

Note<\/strong> The first article, PowerShell Workflows: The Basics<\/a>, <\/em>introduced the basic concepts of Windows PowerShell workflow. The second article, PowerShell Workflows: Restrictions<\/a>, <\/em>discussed the restrictions encountered with working with Windows PowerShell workflows. You should read those articles prior to reading today’s article.\nRichard has written a number of guest Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog posts<\/a>, and he has also written two books on Windows PowerShell. His most recent book, PowerShell in Depth<\/a>, is co-written with fellow MVPs Don Jones and Jeffrey Hicks.\nNow, take it away, Richard …<\/p>\n

PowerShell Workflows: Nesting<\/h2>\n

So far you have seen only a single workflow being used at a time. If you think for a minute about how you use your Windows PowerShell scripts, you probably notice that you build a number of functions that you re-use and call from other functions and scripts. The whole concept of re-usability should permeate your Windows PowerShell code so that you maximize the return from the time and effort you put into developing your code.\nThe techniques you should adopt to ensure maximum re-usability are best left to another article, but for now, we’ll concentrate on how Windows PowerShell functions and Windows PowerShell workflows can be used inside other workflows.\nThe whole topic of how you should design your workflows will be covered in a later article. Before you can do that design, you need to understand the mechanisms you can use to re-use existing functionality. That functionality breaks down into three broad groups:<\/p>\n