When developing custom workflow activities and actions for SharePoint 2013, you might soon find out that deploying the actions to SharePoint and Workflow Manager 1.0 is a pain and not possible without some manual configuration.
You might get following error, when you try to deploy the SharePoint solution without adding your actions to the workflow manager:
Workflow XAML failed validation due to the following errors:
invalid type(s)…
You have to create an XML file that tells the workflow manager which types to allow in activities:
<AllowedTypes>
<Assembly Name=”MyAssembly”>
<Namespace Name=”MyNamespace”>
<Type>MyActionClass1</Type>
<Type>MyActionClass2</Type>
</Namespace>
</Assembly></AllowedTypes>
MyAssembly = Name of your assembly
MyNamespace = Namespace of your custom actions
MyActionClass1, MyActionClass2,.. = Class names of your custom actions
Name this XML file AllowedTypes.xml and copy it and the according assembly to the following directories:
1. C:Program FilesWorkflow Manager1.0WorkflowWFWebRootbin
2. C:Program FilesWorkflow Manager1.0WorkflowArtifacts
After this, restart the workflow manager service using following powershell commands:
PS C:Usersuser> net stop “Workflow Manager Backend”
PS C:Usersuser> net start “Workflow Manager Backend”
Now you should be able to deploy your SharePoint solution!