How to Create a Custom Workflow Activity in Adobe Campaign Classic

Adobe Campaign Classic offers a powerful set of workflow activities out of the box – from data queries to email deliveries. But what if your business logic requires something Adobe didn’t anticipate? That’s where custom workflow activities come into play.

Custom activities allow developers to extend the platform with their own logic – whether it’s calling external APIs, integrating with tools like Slack or Discord, implementing complex data operations, or even adding a custom push notification service. These activities behave like any native activity, appearing in the workflow palette with a custom icon, configurable UI, and support for inputs and outputs.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to build your own custom workflow activity in Adobe Campaign Classic – step by step. We’ll cover everything from setting up the XML definition and writing your own JS logic, to adding a custom icon and testing/debugging the activity.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many resources available online on how to create custom activities. In fact, the only example widely shared is a PowerPoint presentation on the Adobe Community forums. Surprisingly, it connects the dots, showing how all the pieces come together in a real use case. This article builds on that foundation and takes it further with a hands-on, step-by-step guide.

To create a custom activity, we need to extend the xtk:workflow schema, modify the xtk:workflow form, and implement a JavaScript library to host the custom activity logic.

Extension of xtk:workflow schema

<srcSchema label="workflows">
  <element img="nms:activities/delivery.png" label="Custom Activity" name="customActivity" template="xtk:workflow:activity">
    <attribute default="nms:activities/delivery.png" name="img"/>
    <attribute default="cus:customActivityLibrary.js" name="library"/>

    <!-- attributes used by your activity -->
    <attribute label="Label" name="label" type="string"/>
    ..
    <!-- define transitions -->
    <element name="transitions">
      <element name="done" template="xtk:workflow:transition">
        <attribute name="label" translatedDefault="'Ok'"/>
      </element>
      <element name="error" template="xtk:workflow:transition">
        <attribute name="label" translatedDefault="'Error'"/>
      </element>
    </element>
  </element>
  
   <element desc="Workflows definitions" img="xtk:workflow.png" label="Workflows"
           labelSingular="Workflow" name="workflow">

	<!-- register activity under activities -->
    <element name="activities">
      <element name="customActivity" ref="customActivity" unbound="true"/>
    </element>
  </element>
</srcSchema>

Changing the xtk:workflow form

<!-- add activity in the coresponding activity section -->
<container applicableIf="$(entityPath)=='/operation'" codepage="1252" img="nms:miniatures/mini-delivery.png"
                 label="Deliveries" name="delivery">
  <input img="cus:customActivity-mini.png" label="customActivity" xpath="customActivity"/>
  
 </container
 <!-- add activity's form -->
  <form name="customActivity" type="notebook">
    <container img="cus:customActivity-mini.png">
      <input required="true" xpath="@label"/>
      ..
    </container>
  </form>
  ..
</container>

Implementing library cus:customActivityLibrary.js

//entry point for activation
function customActivity_call(){
  //do something for the first time
  return 0
}

//entry point for reactivation
function customActivity_recall() 
{

  //do something for consecutive times
  try {

    task.postEvent(task.doneTransition()) //we decide that a single call by the scheduler is enough, we activate the normal output transition
    task.setCompleted()
    
  }
  catch(e)
  {
    logError(JSON.stringify(e))
    task.postEvent(task.errorTransition()) //enable error transition
    task.setCompleted()
  }
  return 0
}

In the next section, I’ll dive deep into building custom activities, with a full step-by-step explanation on how to create one.

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