external activities don't support workgroups

I believe they used to at some point but they
don't anymore.
the GSE setting isn't needed here anymore

The code bases its decisions on whether there are GSEs
in the database not whether the setting is enabled.
conditionalize external db connections

this removes extraneous output when they aren't needed
use tags to set properties using cucumber Around
verify capybara visit to remove random db conflicts

these conflicts happen when a page load is still doing a db query
and then another step tries to do a db lookup.
This also required adding a "try to" step since some urls
cannot be confirmed.
this test requires adhoc workgroups be disabled
one more unverifiable url