Intro to Ops Manager & Automations
  • 15 Apr 2025
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Intro to Ops Manager & Automations

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Article summary

Operations Manager ("Ops Manager") provides a single, unified view into all automations inside of Itential Platform. The automations feature in Ops Manager allows users to control when, how, and with what data a workflow should run. Moreover, Ops Manager is designed to replace Automation Catalog at some point in the future. For that reason, users can migrate existing automations from Automation Catalog or create new automations within Operations Manager.

Operations Manager UI

The main icons and features of the Operations Manager home page are referenced in the table below.

Figure 1: Operations Manager Home Page
Operations Manager Home

Label UI Element Function
1 Icon Bar Shortcuts to commonly used actions and features. These are, from left to right: Create, Import, Home, Search, and Job Metrics. Further information is provided the Icon Bar section below.
2 Automations Menu Lists available automations. For more detail, refer to the Automation Details section below.
3 Jobs Menu Lists recently opened jobs and job category filters.
4 Quick Start Card Contains links to finding an automation, creating a new automation, and searching Itential documentation.
5 Actionable Tasks Tab Lists workable tasks and retryable tasks.
6 Jobs Tab Lists jobs and allows several common job management actions to be performed.

Icon Bar

The following table provides a brief description of the features accessible through the Operations Manager Icon Bar.

Icon Feature Description
25_create_icon Create Create a new automation.
26_import_icon Import Import an automation in .json file format.
27_home_icon Home Navigate to the Operations Manager home page.
28_search_icon Search Displays the Automations Collection view.
29_job_metrics_icon Job Metrics Displays the Job Metrics Overview window.

Automations Collection View

The Automations Collection view is where you can view all of your automations, perform bulk actions, and run automations that have manual triggers. To access this view, click the search icon (magnifying glass) in the top-left toolbar of the Operations Manager UI.

Figure 2: Automations Collection View
11_automation_collection_view_22.1

Label UI Element Function
1 Collection Toolbar Action icons from within the Automation Collections view. These icons (from left to right) are: Refresh, Create, Select All, Clone, Export, and Delete.
2 Search Bar Search and filter automations by name.
3 Sort Dropdown Sort automation names in ascending or descending order.
4 Select Box Checked when automation is selected by user.
5 Menu Button Action icons from within the automation card menu button. These icons (from top to bottom) are: Run, View, Clone, Export, and Delete.

Action Icons in Automations Collection

The action icons from the menu button within the Automations Collection view are referenced in the table below.

Icon Description
21_refresh_icon2 Refreshes the current automations in the grid.
19_create_automation_icon2 Opens the create automation modal.
22_multi_select_icon Selects or deselects all automations in the collection view.
07_clone_icon1 Clones the selected automation.
08_export_icon2 Exports the selected automation. One .json file is downloaded per automation selected to export.
23_delete_icon2 Deletes selected automations.

Automation Card Menu Options

The actions available within the menu button (stacked dots icon) of the automation card are referenced in the table below.

Figure 3: Automation Card Menu Options
24_menu_options_22.1

Menu Item Description
Run Runs the automation.
View Opens the Automation Details view for the automation.
Clone Clones the automation.
Export Exports the current automation and assigned triggers to a .json file.
Delete Deletes the automation.

Automation Details in Ops Manager

The Automation Details view in Operations Manager is the hub for managing your automation and its associated triggers. To access this view, select any available automation listed in the Automations menu on the left.

Figure 4: Automation Details View
Automation Details View

Label UI Element Function
1 Workflow Dropdown used to select and assign a workflow to the automation.
2 Validation Check/View Errors Tracks and displays automation errors.
3 Menu Button Displays action icons for the current automation. These icons (from top to bottom) are: Run Now, Clone, Export, and Delete. For more detail, see the next section on Action Icons for Automation Details.
4 Triggers Toolbar Displays action icons to run automations using Triggers. These icons (from left to right) are: Create Trigger, Run Now, and Delete Selected Triggers.
5 Automation Properties Panel used to display and edit automation properties.
6 Trigger Cards Cards used to manage the Triggers used to run an automation.
7 Save Changes Saves any changes made to Automation Properties.
8 Undo Changes Reverts any unsaved changes made to Automation Properties.

Action Icons for Automation Details

Referenced below are the action icons within the Automation Details menu button perform operations on the current automation.

Icon Description
Run Now Button Opens the Run Automation panel, from which you can select a manual trigger.
07_clone_icon1 Clone the current automation, including any assigned triggers.
08_export_icon2 Export the current automation and assigned triggers to a .json file.
23_delete_icon2 Delete the current automation.

Automation Properties

The Automation Properties panel provides an interface to view and edit detailed information about the automation along with updating permission groups for the automation.

Figure 5: Automation Properties Panel
Automation Properties Panel

Label UI Element Function
1 Run Now Opens the Run Automation panel, from which you can select a manual trigger to run the current automation.
2 Name Input or edit the name of the automation.
3 Description Optional. Add or change a description for the automation.
4 Read Group Optional. Select Read permission groups for the automation. Read-only groups have permission only to view and execute an automation.
5 Write Group Optional. Select Write permission groups for the automation. Groups with write permissions are authorized to change, view, and execute an automation.
6 Save Changes Save any changes made to Automation Properties.
7 Undo Changes Revert any unsaved changes made to Automation Properties.

Migrating an Automation from Automation Catalog

ⓘ Note:

Automation Catalog is a legacy functionality only in version 2022.1 of Itential Platform. For users migrating to newer versions of Itential Platform, see related notices:

To migrate an existing Automation Catalog automation:

  1. Click the Migrate option in the action dropdown menu (Figure 6).
  2. After confirming the migration, you will be redirected to a newly-created Automation Details page in Operations Manager.

Figure 6: Migrate Existing Automation
01_migrate_existing_automation

 

Figure 7: Automation Details
Automation Details

Migrating Automation Triggers

Each migrated automation will automatically have a manual trigger created. This preserves the existing manual run functionality in Automation Catalog using the play button.

If the migrated automation ran on a schedule, a scheduled trigger will also be created with the scheduled options for that migrated automation. Please note, the migrated schedule trigger must be enabled in Operations Manager post-migration. If form data was assigned to the scheduled automation, it will also be added to the newly-created scheduled trigger.

The migrated Automation Catalog item will be preserved in Automation Catalog. Make sure to delete the Automation Catalog item or turn off its schedule if no longer needed post-migration.

Figure 8: Migrated Automation Trigger Cards
Migrated Automation Trigger Cards

Cloning an Automation with API Triggers

An important limitation must be recognized when cloning an automation with one or more API triggers; the routeName property of an API trigger must be unique among enabled triggers. For this reason, Operations Manager will disable all API triggers when cloning an automation, and the user must manually choose new route names for the cloned API triggers in the new automation before they can be re-enabled.

Automation Error Handling

Your automation is continuously evaluated for errors as you work (e.g., references to non-existent access groups; misconfigured triggers; missing documents such as forms, JSON Schema Transformations (JSTs), and workflows). When no such errors are detected, the Passed Validation pass icon icon is displayed near the top-right corner of your automation.

Figure 9: Validated Automation
Validated Automation

If your automation does not pass validation, the View Errors error icon icon is displayed instead. Clicking this will open the Errors Panel, a full list of the problems affecting your automation. When appropriate, items in this list contain a hyperlink to the affected component, creating a centralized hub for error remediation.

Figure 10: Errors Panel
Errors Panel

ⓘ Note: Automation components in an error state will additionally be marked on the UI via the Error ![icon].

Enabling Optional Features in Ops Manager

Optional features can be enabled (or disabled) for Operations Manager ("Ops Manager") by setting the appropriate properties via its service configuration. This section demonstrates how to use Admin Essentials to set those properties and provides a reference list of configurable properties.

Configuration Properties

To enable or disable optional features in Ops Manager:

  1. Launch Admin Essentials from the Itential Platform dashboard.
  2. Select Operations Manager from the Applications list displayed on the side navigation menu. The Configuration tab displays, showing a checklist of configurable properties (Figure 1).
  3. Enable or disable a property (feature) by clicking its checkbox.
    1. If a blank screen displays, toggle the “Advanced View” switch on the right to open the Service Config editor to add the property.
  4. Save your changes by clicking the Save ( ) button located above the Properties list.

Figure 11: Operations Manager Configuration (Tab)
Operations Manager Configuration Tab

 

Figure 12: Operations Manager Service Config Editor (Advanced View Toggle)
Operations Manager Service Configuration Editor

Configurable Properties

The following property features can be enabled or disabled for Operations Manager.

Property Description
maximizeJobTasksOnLoad Maximizes the Job Details panel by default when opening job visualizations (the Job Details view).
actionableTasksInJobsTable Adds an Actionable Tasks column to the Jobs table which lists all of the actionable tasks present in each displayed job. Users may also claim actionable tasks from this column. For performance reasons, enabling this feature limits the maximum number of rows displayed on the Jobs table to 50.
finishManualTaskEnableAnyType Ops Manager service property that enables the finishManualTask API to finish non-manual tasks.

Service Config Editor

Using the toogle switch in the upper-right, properties can also be enabled or disabled via the Advanced editing view, which displays the current service configuration in JSON format. For example, to enable the maximizeJobTasksOnLoad property, you can define it under the properties key as follows:

"properties" : {
    "maximizeJobTasksOnLoad": true
}

The maximizeJobTasksOnLoad property is a feature flag to help users who are accustomed to seeing all running jobs and automations, including the workflow canvas, as it is being worked. When this feature is enabled, it displays the workflow within the Job Details view. Users can also enlarge the workflow canvas for better visualization.

Figure 13: Job Details View
Figure 2


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