Task definition

A task definition is a unit of work that specifies an action to be performed on specific workstations in the HCL Universal Orchestrator network.

You can use task definitions to perform many actions, such as call a REST API, run a Kubernetes task, or extract data from the database.

In HCL Universal Orchestrator, you can use different task types to perform your operations. Some tasks are deployed at runtime, so you can use this kind of tasks soon after the deployment. For more information, see:You can find other plug-ins on Automation Hub, as well as related information and instructions about importing them in your environment.

Tasks can either be an embedded task, or they can reference a task template.

An embedded task is defined within the workflow, and that definition can only be used within that workflow.Task templates are preset definitions that can be referenced multiple times by different tasks. You can reference a task template many times inside the same workflow or in different workflows.

Task definitions can be modified either before or after their run. When you update a task in the plan, the change affects all the following runs of that specific task in the plan. If you want to save a change to a task in the database, you must modify the task template definition in the database.

If you submit a single task, a workflow with the same name is created and submitted. The workflow contains only the task you submitted.

A task definition can be managed from the Orchestration CLI and from the UI. For information about how to define tasks, see:

For more information about available task types, see Automation Hub.

For information about how to define variables in task definitions, see Using variables in tasks.

You can also manipulate and transform the data resulting from the task execution. For more information, see Data exchange and transformation