ASSETS VS BLOCKS

​Welcome to the new Graphical Designer! This interface provides a new way to schedule your orchestration.
We know that moving the first steps into new environments can be challenging, so let’s explore together how the Graphical Designer works.
 
Upon opening the GD, the two most notable elements are a large canvas and a smaller section on the left. This left section is called the Palette and from here we can interact with the model and the canvas. 

Here, we find two different sections called Blocks and Assets.

From the Assets section it is possible to:

• Create all the items, except workflows.

​Whenever an item is created, a side panel opens.
This panel is called Properties and refers to the specific item definition.

It is possible to move inside the fields of the item properties and learn more about each of them by opening the Contextual Help, situated at the bottom of the properties section;

• Retrieve and manipulate all the items saved in the model. You can use the search bar to filter results: all the items are grouped by their types and filtered by their keys.

The displayed items are those which contain the provided string in the search bar.

• By selecting an item, you get access to its actions, including the Edit, Duplicate and Delete operations.

• Retrieved items are updated when a new query is provided, after deploying a workspace or after performing one of the previously mentioned actions.

 
From the Blocks section it is possible to create a workflow by dragging and dropping the icon into the canvas area.

There is also a search widget on top of the blocks section: it filters plugins searching the query string in their name or description, making them easier to retrieve. We will talk about them shortly.
 
Right below the search bar, there is the main blocks area. Here you can find the Workflow, Task, Join condition and Wait blocks.

​As an example, we can drag and drop a workflow block in the canvas to create a brand new workflow. By clicking on it, we can access its properties in the properties panel.

​Since workflows are the orchestration units, we can populate them with tasks, which are the basic executional units, to define the specific operations and their sequence of execution.
Tasks can only be dropped inside workflows, as they cannot exist outside of them.
 
Tasks have a few properties that define general information and scheduling behaviors, but the execution parameters are specified by their plug-in type or their task template. The plug-in properties are displayed only after the task plug-in type is defined.
 
In the “Most used” section you can find the five most used task plug-ins.
After this section, all the plug-ins are grouped by type.
 
With this quick introduction to the palette, you have all the info and tools necessary to start exploring the new Graphical Designer!

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​Riccardo Torres
He joined HCL in October 2022 as a member of the Test Team.
His primary focus is on writing code for Workload Automation tests.
He has a master's degree in electronic engineering, interested in the evolution in the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence and the development of new technologies.

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Matteo Forti
Born as a physicist with a passion for computer science and coding, joined HCL in January 2021 working on Automation suites for the UI component on the Test Team. Science curious, math enthusiast, interest in graphic arts and new technologies

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Federico Pizzari
Federico Pizzari joined HCL in March 2023 as a Software Engineer and works in the UI team on the Dynamic Workload Console and the UnO UI. He has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and is working on his master’s degree.
Strong enthusiast of everything tech, he also loves hiking, skiing and more generally being in contact with nature

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​Giorgio Proietti

He joined HCL in January 2023.
He works on the UnO’s and Workload Automation’s UI as a Software Engineer.
He has a passion for anything computer related, games and music