Answering my own question here, I found a post describing the same issue here: https://linuxlabrat.wordpress.com/2015/04/19/using-falcon-in-hdp-for-backup-ongoing-work/
The suggestion there was:
“In the HDFS–>config to the right user permissions.
I’ve just put “*” (asterix) so it will grant all
then restart HDFS and other services”
Whether this is the proper choice I can’t say but it allowed me to submit the two process XML files. Now I’m dealing with a similar issue dealing with scheduling, it all seems to be permissions issues though.