Self-Service Catalog: a business-oriented interface to submit on-demand business flows

A new and improved version of the Self-Service Catalog is available in Workload Automation 10.1 Fix Pack 1. Now, you can launch services quickly and easily; You do not need knowledge about Workload Automation: any user can submit service requests at any time by accessing the Self-Service Catalog from any device.

Through this interface, you can leverage various services based on automation capabilities in no time, provided you are connected to the Dynamic Workload Console in Single Sign-On (SSO).

The scheduler can now define services directly from the Workload Designer by marking a job stream as a service and specifying the parameters.

Everything defined in a job stream can be done with a service. Let’s see an example of use: Creating a new virtual machine.
The scope of the example is to create a service to request a new virtual machine.

Thus, Philip, the scheduler, must create a job stream to request the creation of a new virtual machine, and a service with the variables that correspond to the fields that the Self-Service Catalog user must complete.

To create the service, Philip proceeds as follows:

During the job stream creation, he adds a service and defines the parameters:

• He enables Publish as a service. To make the service visible, the checkbox must be selected.
• In Name, he types “New Virtual Machine”.
• In Description, he types “This service allows you to create new virtual machine”.
• In Tags, he uses the existing tag virtual_machine, and creates a new tag Creation_VM.
• In Support contact, he types the email [email protected]

To create the service variables, he selects Variable + and he can choose several types of variables, such as:

For the virtual machine creation, Philip creates a string variable for the operating system configuring the following parameters:

• In Name, he types “OS”.
• In Display name, he types “Operating system”.
• In Description, he types “Specify the operating system for virtual machine”.
• In Type, he selects String.
• He enables Required.
• In Default value, he types “Linux”.

​Then, he adds other variables of different types useful for the service.

He saves the job stream.

Now, Emily, the operator, has to request a new virtual machine, so she accesses the Self-Service Catalog from her mobile at this link:

https://host_name:port_number/console/ssc

Where host_name and port_number are the host name and port number of the Dynamic Workload Console she is connecting to.

To find the service she needs, she can use the search bar or filter the services by using the tags.

​She clicks on the send icon of the “New Virtual Machine” service to complete the fields and submit it.

When submitted, a success message appears.

​Emily wants to monitor the status of the service, so she goes to the “My requests” section and check the submission status.

​Emily successfully submitted the service.
 
Self-Service Catalog is a solution to automate routine business tasks and run them from mobile devices without having to install and learn about the whole HCL Workload Automation product.
Thanks to the new interface, you can launch services quickly and easily, at any time, from any device.

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Authors Bio

Matteo Liotta
Software Engineer, Workload Automation 
He joined HCL in May 2022 as a member of the Verification Test team.
He works as verification tester for the Workload Automation suite on distributed environment.
He has a Master's Degree in Electronic Engineering at Sapienza University.

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Maria Teresa Caira 
Senior Software Engineer

Maria Teresa is a Software Engineer with a long standing experience in software development. Currently Maria Teresa works as Software Test Engineer in the Workload Automation team, where she takes the ownership of Dynamic Workload Console Test Automation project. Maria Teresa has a University Diploma in Computer Science and she is currently based in the Rome Software Development Laboratory HCL Products and Platforms.

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Agnese Berellini
Senior Technical Writer
Agnese is an enthusiastic information developer for HCL Workload Automation in Rome, Italy. She likes to analyze new features, describe them and improve her knowledge about technical components. When she doesn’t have to deal with developers and software, she loves spending her time travelling around the world.