You are free to add any references, types, member variables and other project entities as required.

For Maps, the VSTA class (ThisMap) is constructed at the start of the map execution, and disposed at the end of the map execution.

For Workflows, the state management is more complicated,  and if you wish any member variables of your ThisWorkflow class to be persisted automatically (and not be potentially reset between Workflow states) you should mark the class as Serializable – see topic Advanced Workflow Constructs for further details.  In Workflows, a member variable is automatically created for every Workflow Message or Variable, and note also that Message variables in VSTA have a BodyModel property, which provides an object model based on the Message schema.  This allows you to craft an XML message using properties with Intellisense.

You can debug both Maps and Workflows by simply using the Debug | Start menu option in Visual Studio for Applications – you’ll be prompted for input data as required.

More information on using Visual Studio for Applications can be obtained from our Web site.