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!