I'm looking for some advice. I need to develop some custom workflow activities for a SharePoint 365 online solution. To that extent I do not have a local install of SharePoint 2013. I am using Visual Studio 2012, and have the office developer tools for VS 2012 installed.
When I try to create an empty project for SharePoint 2013, I get the error stating:
SharePoint not installed. The required version of SharePoint foundation 2013 or SharePoint server 2013 is not installed on this system. To develop SharePoint solutions or browse SharePoint connections in server explorer, SharePoint must be installed on the local system. Make sure that the local server referenced by the SharePoint project exists
Now, I understand that for SharePoint projects in the past that a local install was required, but with this being online, I do not have that luxury.
Ideally I'd like to identify a way in which I can create an empty project without the need for said local install.
Further to this, I have been able to create an "Apps for SharePoint 2013" project, into which I can create a custom workflow activity. I'm working through some excellent blog posts on how to develop custom activities and it seems to be working file to a point. What I am now struggling with is that VS2012 is supposed to create an .actions4 file which I can edit to reflect what the workflow activity requires etc. I do not have this file, nor do I understand how I get it.
I would also appreciate information on how I can deploy this custom workflow activity to SharePoint Online so that I can use it in SharePoint designer workflows.
Appreciate there is a lot of asks here, but appreciate any help that people can provide.
Many Thanks,
Grant
Hope this link will help you to create workflows in office 365 . you cannot degug but you can allow visual studio to think that SP is installed on your machine. https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/59065/how-visual-studio-checkes-that-sharepoint-has-been-installed-on-my-local-pc