Prerequisites for Creating Remediation Workflows

Workflows rely on other objects to execute successfully. For this reason, before you start designing a remediation Workflow, you must make sure that those other objects are in place. If they are not, you must create them. This topic outlines the objects that you must be aware of when you create remediation Workflows. Some of them are required while others are optional and simply provide additional functionality.

Note: With Automic Intelligent Remediation you have access not only to the objects and functions that you need to create and monitor remediation Workflows, but to the full Automic Automation functionality. For this reason, your system has many more objects than the ones that are strictly necessary for Automic Intelligent Remediation.

This topic refers only to the objects that you need for Automic Intelligent Remediation (otherwise the Workflows and their Jobs will not work), and to the most important optional ones.

This page includes the following:

Required Objects

Workflows and their tasks need the following objects to execute:

Agent

Agents are programs that run on the target system, which can be either an Operating System or an application. They establish the connection between Automic Intelligent Remediation and those target systems, start the execution of tasks and make both their monitoring and the corresponding reporting possible. Agents create log files that record what occurs. As an administrator user, you install and deploy them. As a developer and object designer, when creating executable objects you assign Agents to those objects.

Login

Required for Jobs, File Transfers, DB Events

As a developer and object designer, you define executable objects (for example Jobs and File Transfers) that need access to third-party applications and operating systems (for example Windows). The Agents that are installed on those systems execute the objects. Login objects store the login information that Agents need to execute the objects on the target systems. You assign Login objects to executable objects.

Usually, Login objects are created by administrator users.

Executable Objects

Executable objects are objects that you can process manually or that are processed through control mechanisms of parent objects, such as Workflows.

Jobs

An Automic Intelligent Remediation Job is a specific unit of work that is Agent-specific. A Job executes commands on computers or in enterprise business solutions. These solutions differ from each other, therefore specific Job templates are available for each of them.

Jobs are always assigned to Agents. They always need a Login object that submits the necessary credentials to the target system (Agent).

As a developer and object designer, you create Job objects (JOBS) to execute processing steps in a target system. You specify their attributes using the Automic Web Interface on the Job definition pages. Alternatively, you can use the Automation Engine scripting language to add functional logic on their Process pages, where their JCL is stored.

Scripts

Script objects let you write and reuse scripts that provide internal processing instructions. The scripts in Script objects are executed in Automic Intelligent Remediation itself, and not on target systems.

Optional Objects

The following objects are not mandatory:

Notification

Notification objects are customized messages and requests that can be assigned to other executable objects. When the execution of an object triggers a Notification, either an e-mail or an online message is sent. The Notification provides information or requires user interaction as a reaction to the execution of the object.

As an administrator or as a developer and object designer, you create Notifications and assign them to executable objects. There are four different templates for creating Notifications, depending on the type of content you need. For each template you can choose the message type

As an operator, you receive Notifications and react to them accordingly. They are either e-mails or online messages. You access the online messages through the Requests area in the menu bar or by clicking the link on the web notification sent by your browser.

Example: A Job usually needs few minutes to finish. If it takes longer, something might have gone wrong. You want to be informed of this situation as soon as possible. For this purpose, you create a Notification object and assign it to the Job. You assign it in the Actions on Runtime Deviations section on the Runtime page of the Job definition.

Include

Use Include objects to store blocks of code that you need frequently and that you want to reuse in multiple scripts. Include objects help you ensure that your scripts are consistent. They reduce your design and maintenance efforts. You reuse those blocks of code by entering :INCLUDE or :INC in the scripts of executable objects and selecting an Include object. This inserts the Include object in the script.

Other

There are more objects that you can use to configure your Jobs and Workflows. This is a list of the most relevant ones, but there are more:

PromptSets

PromptSets are interactive forms that you assign to executable objects. When these objects are executed, the forms are generated as requests. The objects stop executing until the forms (PromptSets) are populated with the required values.
VARA objects

VARA objects are placeholders that you can use in executable objects. They retrieve values from specific sources and insert them in the executable object in which they are used.
Connection objects

Connection objects contain the data that make the communication with target systems possible.