Cisco Cisco Process Orchestrator 3.1 User Guide

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Cisco Process Orchestrator 3.1 User Guide
 
Chapter 1      Introduction
  Process Orchestrator System Elements
All new targets are created based upon a target type. Some target types are ‘abstract’, meaning they 
cannot be directly instantiated into targets but are only available for inheritance by other target types. In 
Process Orchestrator, these target types are marked as either ‘creatable’ or ‘not creatable’.
A target type:
  •
Exposes (and inherits from its ancestor target types) properties and inter-target named relationships 
that can be read and set either manually or by an Update Target activity. 
  •
Defines property default values.
Tasks
Tasks allow a process to create an IT record or perform human interaction, and provide ownership and 
lifecycle. Process Orchestrator provides a list of tasks in the operator console. Managers can then set or 
change assignments to those on their staff. Assignment changes, state changes, and all other changes are 
audited, so one can definitively tell exactly who did what in the system. 
There are two types of tasks: IT process records and human interaction.
IT Process Records
IT process records tasks include the alerts, incidents, and change requests. These records represent the 
core records within IT; they are the core ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) records. While Process 
Orchestrator does provide a list of these records so that one can, for example, look at a list of alerts which 
automation created and manage their lifecycle, more often these records are used to synchronize the 
records out of Process Orchestrator to a separate tool. 
For example, alerts typically need to be pushed to an enterprise event manager so that the alerts can be 
combined with others to present a view of IT system health. Incidents and change requests are typically 
the domain of service desks. Rather than managing these records in Process Orchestrator, many 
customers prefer to manage these records elsewhere. 
This construct allows processes to be independent of the event manager or service desk. For example:
1.
A process such as one in a network best practice automation pack simply creates an alert, incident, 
or change request. 
2.
Optionally, this process can block waiting on the task to enter a completed state. 
3.
Separately, a Remedy automation pack includes a process that triggers when a new incident task is 
created, and creates the corresponding entry in the Remedy system.