TFS 2010: Custom workflow activity. Cannot add activity to workflow.

Question

I've downloaded Jim Lamb's ActivityPack and built it successfully.  I can see both ReplaceInfile and UpdateVersionInfo activities show up in General tab in ToolBox.  HOWEVER, I cannot drag and drop ReplaceInFile activity into the DefaultTemplate work flow, it just won't allow the activity to be dropped and inserted into the default workflow.

 

I notice that if I add the DefaultTemplate workflow into the ActivityPack solution, then the activities can be inserted into the workflow.  However, doing this will cause errors when building a team build against this workflow when I merged the build process template back into TFS to replace the default one.

 

What is going on?  It's so frustrating ...

 

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Cuong Hoang

Answer 1

Hi Cuong Hoang,

If you want to use designer to design the work flow, you need to import the assembly to GAC.

1 Sign the assembly

2 Import the assembly to GAC: gacutil /i TeamFoundation.Build.ActivityPack.dll

3 Add the activities to tool box

4 drop the activity to work flow.

5 Import the assembly to Build machine GAC

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Best regards,
Ruiz
MSDN Subscriber Support in Forum
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Answer 2

See http://www.ewaldhofman.nl/?tag=/build+2010+customization for some helpful articles. Especially http://www.ewaldhofman.nl/post/2010/05/26/Customize-Team-Build-2010-e28093-Part-7-How-is-the-custom-assembly-found.aspx might be useful.

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Ewald - Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help.


Blog: www.ewaldhofman.nl

Answer 3

Hofman - Thanks so much for your tutorials on these topics.  I'm now flying through custom activities for tfs 2010 team build.  Many many thanks.

 

Cuong.

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Cuong Hoang