Working with the SharePoint 2013 Workflow Services Client Side Object Model

The implementation of workflows in SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010 remained largely the same from version to version. Microsoft did add some new functionality in SharePoint 2010, such as the ability to associate workflows with sites, and improved the workflow authoring tools, SharePoint Designer 2010 and Visual Studio 2010, from their predecessors. However, the implementation of workflow tasks, workflow forms, and the workflow server-side APIs remains largely unchanged.

In SharePoint 2010, Microsoft introduced features and capabilities that encouraged customers to move their customizations into sandboxed solution. These would run in an isolated process and were friendly to both types of SharePoint deployments: on-premises, where the SharePoint was installed on company servers and maintained by the company , and to the cloud, or more specifically, Office 365.