Cisco Cisco Process Orchestrator 3.1 User Guide

Page of 786
 
1-16
Cisco Process Orchestrator 3.1 User Guide
 
Chapter 1      Introduction 
  Process Orchestrator System Elements
Automation Summaries are a key integration tool. For example, they can be placed in incidents in the 
Service Desk to reveal the analysis of the automation that was performed, or they can show how an 
incident was resolved.
Conditions
Many workflow logic elements perform tests to control execution. Conditions implement these tests. For 
example, a Condition Branch can split execution to take one path if a condition exists, and another if it 
does not. A While Block can iterate execution while a condition exists.
Conditions can also be placed on a process trigger, allowing control of situations in which the process 
can run. For example, a scenario might require the process to run during two different time ranges, which 
would require two triggers: one trigger with an 8am-5pm condition and a totally different trigger with a 
5pm-8am condition.
There are two basic types of conditions:
  •
State conditions
State conditions evaluate some state. The Process Orchestrator provides a number of state conditions 
that can be perceived as a part of the base product, but technically are part of the adapter. For 
example, it provides a test to see if a variable has some value.
  •
Composite conditions
A composite condition builds a compound condition from individual conditions. It allows 
combining conditions with AND logic, where all of the conditions must be TRUE for the composite 
condition to be TRUE, or OR logic, where any of the conditions can be TRUE for the composite 
condition to return TRUE.
Compound conditions can be used in other compound conditions to produce complex logic, such as 
((X AND Y) OR (A AND B)).
Processes
Use Process Orchestrator to automate an IT processes by defining a process, then running instances of 
the defined process. 
An element of the process is the process workflow. The workflow defines the automation steps 
(activities), the logic or flow between these steps, and how to flow data from one step to the next.
The engine manages the state and lifecycle of a process, bringing it into existence, running its steps, and 
finally terminating it. During and (by default) after process execution, the engine retains information so 
that operators can view the status of their running processes.
Related Topics
Runtime Users
A runtime user record stores information about the user security context and passes this information to 
the adapters for activity execution, event monitoring, and some target operations (such as availability 
monitoring and discovery). Runtime user instances can be shared across targets and processes. For 
example, if a single set of credentials can be used to access a set of network devices, only one runtime