Upgrade SP2013 Farm to 2013 Worklow Engine

Question

Looking for a bit of advice from the community on what seems to be an unusual situation from my searches for a guide - updating an on-prem SP2013 farm from the 2010 to 2013 workflow engine.

Background: we got the farm handed over for support from another company, who built it as SP2013 Standard but for some reason didn't install the 2013 workflow engine.

All I've been able to find on doing the update to 2013 WF is for an SP2010 farm being updated to 2013 in full, or enabling it from a scratch-built 2013 farm.

Can anyone point me in the right direction for this one? Not even done a farm build before so a bit wary and making sure I plan correctly as we have no staging farm to test it on first!

Answer 1

There is no "upgrade" to workflow 2013 engine. It's an optional addition to a SharePoint 2013 farm. Even after setting up workflow manager 2013, you will still have the 2010 workflow engine available. You will just also have the 2013 workflow engine available.

Since Workflow Manager 2013 is not currently installed on your 2013 farm, you must begin installation. Details for installation are here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj193448.aspx

After installation, you must configure Workflow Manager 2013 based on your environment setup either through the configuration wizard or through PowerShell.

Details for configuration wizard: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj193510.aspx You will be using the "Creating a new farm" option on this page.

Details for PowerShell config: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj193506.aspx

Please be aware that "farm" in this context is referring to the Workflow farm, not the SharePoint farm. This can be a point of confusion if you are not aware.

Hope this helps!