Installing and configuring the Office Web Application (WAC) Server

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Install Pre-Requisites
Run Powershell as Admin:

Enter the following command:

Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server,Web-Mgmt-Tools,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-WebServer,Web-Common-Http,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Static-Content,Web-Performance,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Security,Web-Filtering,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-App-Dev,Web-Net-Ext45,Web-Asp-Net45,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Includes,InkandHandwritingServices

The server configuration will now run.

When prompted, restart the computer

Install Office Web Application Server

Run Setup

 

Accept the license agreement and click Continue

Select the installation directory and click Install Now

Configure Office Web Applications Server

Open PowerShell and run as admin

Run the following commands:

1. Import-Module OfficeWebApps

2. Get-Command “*Office*”

The first command imports the OWA cmdlets, and the second verifies they are available for your use.

Now, we can create the actual OWA server farm:

New-OfficeWebAppsFarm –InternalURL http://yourserver –AllowHttp -EditingEnabled

Let’s break down the New-OfficeWebAppsFarm parameter:

–InternalURL : Use the FQDN of the server to run OWA

-AllowHttp : This command tells OWA which protocol to use when communication occurs between the two entities. HTTP can also be used, but it is recommended that it is used for Dev purposes.

-EditingEnabled : Allows documents to be edited using OWA

To verify that the OWA farm was built correctly, run the following command in Internet Explorer or Edge:

http://yourserver/hosting/discovery

Log into your server, and run the following PowerShell command.

New-SPWOPIBinding -ServerName <WacServerName> -AllowHTTP

The –ServerName is the FQDN of the OWA farm server you just created. It should be the same as the –InternalURL you used earlier. Don’t use ‘Http://’ in the server name parameter, just the FQDN of the server.

By default OWA server farm wants to use HTTPS. You can force it to recognize HTTP with the following PowerShell OWA command:

Set-SPWopiZone –zone “internal-http”

Change the AllowOAuthOverHttp setting in SharePoint 2013 to True

To use Office Web Apps with SharePoint 2013 over HTTP in a test environment, set AllowOAuthOverHttp to True. Otherwise Office Web Apps will not work. You can change the current status by running the following example:

(Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig).AllowOAuthOverHttp

$config = (Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig)

$config.AllowOAuthOverHttp = $true

$config.Update()

Test whether the installation was successful:

(Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig).AllowOAuthOverHttp

 

You should receive the following output:

Install and configure the Workflow Manager for SharePoint 2013 and 2016

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SharePoint Server 2013 brings a major advancement to workflow: enterprise features such as fully declarative authoring, REST and Service Bus messaging, elastic scalability, and managed service reliability.

SharePoint Server 2013 can use a new workflow service built on the Windows Workflow Foundation components of the .NET Framework 4.5. This new service is called Workflow Manager and it is designed to play a central role in the enterprise. Processes are central to any organization and workflow is the orchestrator of processes.

The SharePoint 2010 Workflow platform has been carried forward to SharePoint Server 2013. All of your workflows that were built by using SharePoint Server 2010 will continue to work in SharePoint Server 2013.

In SharePoint Server 2010 the workflow engine installed automatically with the product. This continues to be the case with the SharePoint 2010 Workflow platform in SharePoint Server 2013. If you simply install SharePoint Server 2013 and do not install and configure Workflow Manager then you will have a nearly identical experience with building workflows as you did in SharePoint Server 2010.

The SharePoint 2013 Workflow platform only becomes available to you, and your tools, after you download and install the new Workflow Manager service and configure it to communicate with your SharePoint Server 2013 farm.

SharePoint Designer 2013 includes new functionality designed specifically for Workflow Manager. In SharePoint Designer 2013 this new platform is known as the SharePoint 2013 Workflow platform. These new features include:

  • A visual workflow development experience that uses a Visio 2013 add-in
  • A new action that enables no-code web service calls from within a workflow
  • New actions for creating a task and starting a task process
  • New coordination actions that let you start a workflow built on the SharePoint 2010 Workflow platform from a workflow built on the SharePoint 2013 Workflow platform
  • A new Dictionary type
  • New workflow building blocks such as Stage, Loop, and App Step

Workflow Manager brings a new class of workflow to SharePoint Server 2013. Workflows built by using Workflow Manager can take advantage of several new capabilities. These include enterprise features such as:

  • High Density and Multi-Tenancy
  • Elastic Scale
  • Activity / Workflow Artifact Management
  • Tracking and Monitoring
  • Instance Management
  • Fully Declarative Authoring
  • REST and Service Bus Messaging
  • Managed Service Reliability
    [Source]

*This configuration is for HTTP only. The HTTPS configuration will be covered in later posts.

Preparation
Before you install the Workflow Manager, make sure that the corresponding SharePoint farm is up and running. Use the same setup user as you did for the SharePoint installation.

*Note that the below result is also applicable to Project Server.
Download WorkflowManager.exe here. Click on the WorkflowManager.exe to setup by a Web Platform Installer 4.5

*This is the latest version at the time of writing. The below steps will be identical when a new version is released.

 

Workflow Manager

Prerequisites for installing Workflow Manager

Installing the Workflow Manager

Choose Configure Workflow Manager with Default Settings (Recommended)

Complete fields to indicate SQL server and generate a Certificate Key

Created and Configured Service Bus farm, Service Bus gateway and farm management database

Workflow Manager, Service Bus 1.0, Execute ASP.NET iis Registration tool and Workflow Client were successfully installed

Service Bus and Workflow database were created

WorkflowMgmtPool and Workflow Management Site

Install Windows Azure SDK, PowerShell, Cross-platform Command Line Tools

Items Installed.

Register Workflow:

Open Sharepoint management shell as administrator:

Register-SPWorkflowService –SPSite “http://YourSQLServer” –WorkflowHostUri “http://YourSQLServer:12291” –AllowOAuthHttp

Installation done.

To test, open SharePoint designer and connect to the SharePoint Site:

To verify, create a new site workflow. If the SharePoint 2013 workflow option is listed, then the installation was a success:

And DONE!

How to fix SharePoint 2010, 2013 and 2016 Workflows that “Failed on Start”

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By Tiaan Rossouw, Office 365 Practice Lead for Intervate

After a recent .NET Framework security update is run on servers, SharePoint on premise workflows have stopped running.

The security update is the .NET Framework September 2018 Security and Quality Rollup. It is designed to fix the identified CVE-218-8421 .NET vulnerability, but this has the side-effect of also not allowing SharePoint workflows to talk to .NET on the servers.

To check if this is happening in your environment, open the workflow details for a list or document item where a workflow was started on. If you see the following, you have a problem:

The good news is that it is easily fixed with a minor change to your web.config file for all web applications on all your SharePoint servers in the farm. Please contact Intervate on enquiries@intervate.com for assistance on this issue.