Configuring Workflow Manager in SharePoint 2013 – Step by Step Guide

Introduction
By default, SharePoint 2013 doesn’t come with the SharePoint 2013 workflow engine. We get only SharePoint 2010 workflow platform type in SharePoint Designer 2013. So, we got to manually configure SharePoint 2013 workflows. This implementation guide walks through configuring Workflow Manager 1.0 step by step.

sharepoint 2013 workflow manager

Steps summary:

  1. Download and install Workflow Manager
  2. Register Workflow Manager with SharePoint

Step 1: Download and install Workflow Manager

SharePoint 2013 introduced isolation of Workflows from SharePoint. Meaning we can install workflow components either on server(s) which is part of the SharePoint farm or we can have workflow components on server(s) which is NOT part of the SharePoint farm (even to Azure – Cloud)! Here, let’s install workflow Manager in one of the SharePoint Application server. Its a best practice to use dedicated accounts for Workflow setup and workflow service. Workflow Setup account must have SysAdmin access rights on SQL Server and local administrator on workflow server.

In Short: Workflow Engine can be hosted outside SharePoint 2013 Farm!
  1. To begin with installation, Log in to your target server where you are going to install workflow components by opening below download link.
  2. Workflow Manager uses the Web Platform Installer from Microsoft. So, opening this link https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=287166 for the first time will install “Web Platform Installer”.
  3. Installing Workflow Manager is pretty straight forward. Accept License agreement and click on “Install” button
    sharepoint 2013 workflow manager install
  4. Wait for the installation to compete.  
    sharepoint 2013 workflow manager download
  5. Once installed, open it again to start Workflow Manager Installation.  
    sharepoint 2013 workflow manager tutorial
  6. Click on “Install” button
    sharepoint 2013 workflow manager client
  7. Install the prerequisites by clicking “I Accept”
  8. Wait for the installation to be completed
  9. Once installed you will need to configure the Workflow Manager. Clicking Continue will pop up the configuration screen. 
  10. Choose the “Configure Workflow Manager with Default Settings (Recommended)” option
    sharepoint 2013 workflow manager Configuration
  11. In the New Farm Configuration wizard, enter the required fields, such as: Database Server, Service account user name & password, Make sure you remember or keep safe the Certificate Generation Key, as it’s needed when you want to add more servers to the WM farm. Make sure the service account is under the local administrator group of the server. 
  12. Verify the configuration summary and proceed next.
  13. Wait for the installation to be completed  
    sharepoint 2013 workflow manager installation
  14. Click on the “Finish” button to complete installation on the screen states that the installation successfully installed.
      

Install Workflow Manager Client on All other servers of the Farm:
If you have multiple servers, download and install Workflow Manager Client on every WFE Server: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=287166

Verify the Workflow Manager Installation
Let’s verify the workflow manager Installation by accessing: https://localhost:12291 or https://<host url>:12291 (if host header configured).

sharepoint 2013 workflow manager install verification

Step 2: Register Workflow Manager

Alright, We’ve Workflow components installed. Now, the next step would be registering workflow service with SharePoint 2013. Open SharePoint Management Shell and run as Administrator:

Register-SPWorkflowService -SPSite "https://intranet.crescent.com" -WorkflowHostUri "https://G1SPWFE03:12291/" -AllowOAuthHttp

Where

  • https://intranet.crescent.com – is my web application URL
  • G1SPWFE03 – is one of my WFE in the SharePoint 2013 farm. 12291 is the port where the Workflow Manager is configured (Get it either during installation summary or from IIS). You can also use: Get-WFFarm | ft HttpPort
    sharepoint 2013 workflow manager port
  • AllowOAuthHttp – I’m using HTTP protocol here to allow the communication between SharePoint and Workflow Manager over HTTP.

Although the parameter -SPSite sounds like workflow manager will get activated only for the given site collection, It’s actually get activated all site collections in the given web application

Done! Let us see the output in action:
Restart SharePoint Designer 2013 and see “SharePoint 2013” listed under Platform type in addition to “SharePoint 2010 Workflow”.

sharepoint designer 2013 Platform type sharepoint 2013 workflow

Still not getting “SharePoint 2013 Workflow”?
This could be because, “Workflow Service Store” hidden Feature is not enabled (such as when you use the “Blank” site template, This feature may not be activated! )

Activate it with PowerShell:

Enable-SPFeature -Identity WorkflowServiceStore -Url <your-site-collection-url>

Technet Workflow Configuration Videos: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn201724%28v=office.15%29.aspx
Install and configure workflow for SharePoint Server 2013: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj658588%28v=office.15%29.aspx

Salaudeen Rajack

Salaudeen Rajack - SharePoint Expert with Two decades of SharePoint Experience. Love to Share my knowledge and experience with the SharePoint community, through real-time articles!

5 thoughts on “Configuring Workflow Manager in SharePoint 2013 – Step by Step Guide

  • Hello Salaudeen,
    Can you help out with this issue on SP 2013 workflow
    RequestorId: d6e488d7-415a-5450-0000-000000000000. Details: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the workflow instance. Exception details: System.ApplicationException: HTTP 401 {“error_description”:”The server was unable to process the request due to an internal error. For more information about the error, either turn on IncludeExceptionDetailInFaults (either from ServiceBehaviorAttribute or from the configuration behavior) on the server in order to send the exception information back to the client, or turn on tracing as per the Microsoft .NET Framework SDK documentation and inspect the server trace logs.”} {“x-ms-diagnostics”:[“3001000;reason=\”There has been an error authenticating the request.\”;category=\”invalid_client\””],”SPRequestGuid”:[“d6e488d7-415a-5450-a297-5c44d3c91f4f”],”request-id”:[“d6e488d7-415a-5450-a297-5c44d3c91f4f”],”X-FRAME-OPTIONS”:[“SAMEORIGIN”],”SPRequestDuration”:[“10″],”SPIisLatency”:[“0″],”Server”:[“Microsoft-IIS\/8.5″],”WWW-Authenticate”:[“Bearer realm=\”8b98a946-349a-49a6-bfb9-e7a300131517\”,client_id=\”00000003-0000-0ff1-ce00-000000000000\”,trusted_issuers=\”[email protected]*,[email protected]300131517\””,”Negotiate”,”NTLM”],”X-Powered-By”:[“ASP.NET”],”MicrosoftSharePointTeamServices”:[“15.0.0.5297″],”X-Content-Type-Options”:[“nosniff”],”X-MS-InvokeApp”:[“1; RequireReadOnly”],”Date”:[“Tue, 22 Feb 2022 17:02:19 GMT”]} at Microsoft.Activities.Hosting.Runtime.Subroutine.SubroutineChild.Execute(CodeActivityContext context) at System.Activities.CodeActivity.InternalExecute(ActivityInstance instance, ActivityExecutor executor, BookmarkManager bookmarkManager) at System.Activities.Runtime.ActivityExecutor.ExecuteActivityWorkItem.ExecuteBody(ActivityExecutor executor, BookmarkManager bookmarkManager, Location resultLocation)

    Reply
  • Hi salaudeen its a nice article… I have facing issue while installing Workflow manager CU 3 … ERROR:: some of the custom solutions are missing…plz help me how to fix this

    Reply
  • HI Nice article, I did follow all the steps but i am not successful in registering this service. Here is my environment (2 App Servers, 2 Web Front End Servers and Linux Load Balancing Server). I installed Workflow Manager 1.0 on App1 and configured, Installed Workflow Manager Client on APP2, WEB1, WEB2. I am seeing https:localhost:12291 & https://localhost:12290 under IIS Manager. I am getting error when i try to register using SharePoint Powershell. Please help me..
    Thanks
    hary

    Reply

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