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This document explains the elements for creating a start/stop automation at a high level.

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When creating new start/stop automation procedures, always test on OZsoft OZSoft tenant first.

Elements of Start/Stop

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The process definition is the core and the first step of the start/stop process. It is where the instruction that the automation will follow will be coded. Several process definitions make up a One or more Activities within a Process Definition makes up a template for a workflow.

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Form Templates

The form template is where you instruct which variables, fields, or data will serve as input parameters for the start/stop wizard.

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Execution configs are a list of variables that you pre-configure to use in the future, for example, if you’re going to schedule a process to run in the future. Ad-hoc execution configs won’t appear on this listare transient and are automatically named when created and submitted through a Wizard, then removed later by the system after a default expiration time.

Wizard

The wizard in IT-Conductor is a combination of the form template and the process definition. It’s where the user will launch the start/stop workflow. These wizards can be exposed to the user in many ways such as on a Dashboard panel as a tile or a list item, or they can be part of a Service Catalog.

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Dashboards

You may design a dashboard for start/stop automation like the one for OZsoft OZSoft where the users can see all the elements related to performing a start/stop process, as well as monitoring the execution workflow, checking activity logs, and observing the system status such as Availability when they are stopped/started. Each system object can also be drilled into or zoomed in to visualize the full application stack’s status.

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Configuring the Start/stop

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Process Definitions

Create process definitions and assemble the workflow

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  • The external variables that are going to serve as input

  • The steps that are going to be in the workflow

  • The workflow’s sequence which has been tested manually at each unit/activity to ensure the logic works

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Each step in the workflow represents a process definition. Inside a process definition, you can modify the following fields.

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  • Name: Name of step

  • Owner: All process definitions in a workflow must have a robot user as owner, otherwise the process won’t run. This robot user (aka, technical user) must have assigned on its accounts an OS user that can run sudo commands (for Linux) and SQL commands (for Windows)application user with required roles/privileges to perform the automation action. For example, on Linux the robot user’s assigned application account must be defined on the managed Linux system with appropriate group/s and can run sudo commands planned to be used in the automation action/s.

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  • Work queue: This is where the activity is going to run. For start/stop, make sure to use a dynamic work queue. In this example, it’s running on Linux, so it’s specified in the name DBLINUX. This variable will be used later in the form template

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You can also create a verification process definition, which is effectively an ‘IF’ condition logic to allow branching based on a check of input values or dynamic ITC status or any application attribute such as state.

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In this example, this verification asks for the status of the SAP system. To specify this process definition, you need to add the following:

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In the example, the criteria is asking if the object’s status id is different than 40NOT 40 (which means it’s not ‘In Progress’ and thus is not currently running. If the criteria is true, then it’ll move on the step to the right. If it’s false, it’ll do the final step and end the workflow.

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You can create process definitions for running jobs/programs. This job is launched via the SAPJCO interface with ABAP.

The main requirements for this step are:

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  • Name: Name of step

  • Work queue: The object has to be specified on the “Work queue” field

  • Program name: In this example, it’s BTCTRNS2 to release jobs after the system starts up, since they were suspended when stopped in prior automation during shutdown.

  • Owner and User name: The user name’s account has to be specified under the owner (the automation user)

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The Start/Stop automation dashboard for OZsoftOZSoft has a tile for the Start/Stop Wizards that you can modify by entering the Design Mode(to enter design mode you need to use your admin IT-Conductor account, not impersonate the tenant’s admin), or by going to the dashboard tiles button and selecting the Wizard

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