You can use triggers to create services, and to define whether the orchestration must
be time-driven or event-driven
When controlling the processing of workflows and
task in
workflows
using triggers, you can create services, and you can also define if the orchestration
must be time-driven or event-driven. You can add triggers to workflows both from
the Orchestration CLI and
the UI.
Services
A service can be enabled when defining workflows. Users
can log in to the Self-Service Catalog
interface to start the services linked to the workflows. By
simply launching a service, mobile users can submit the linked workflows. For
information about this feature see Self-Service Catalog.
Time-driven orchestration
You can define a time-driven orchestration by adding run cycles and excluding run
cycles to your
workflows, which
are mutually exclusive with event triggers.
- Run cycles
- A run cycle specifies the days and times when a workflow is scheduled to run.. Run cycles and event triggers are
mutually exclusive.
- When defining a run cycle, you need to specify the following
properties:
- Rule
- Run cycle rules are based on lists of ordinal numbers, types
of days, and common calendar intervals. For example, the
first Monday of every month. Rule-based run cycles are based
on conventional periods, such as calendar months, weeks of
the year, and days of the week. There are four different
types of available rules:
- Simple
- By selecting a simple rule type, you can specify
the run cycle days directly from the calendar
widget.
- Calendar
- By selecting a calendar rule type, you can
reference an existing calendar that is saved in
the database and the days that are defined on that
calendar are used as a base for the excluding run
cycle.
- iCalendar Recurrence Rule
- By selecting an iCalendar Recurrence Rule type,
you can enter an iCalendar Recurrence Rule (RRule)
expression and use it as base for the run
cycle.
- Cron expression
- By selecting a Cron expression rule type, you
can enter a Cron expression and use it as base for
the run cycle.
- Time restrictions
- You can use time restrictions to define the time properties
of the run cycle and the actions to take if the latest start
time defined for the workflow elapses.
-
- Excluding run cycles
- An excluding run cycle specifies the days
and times when a workflow must not run. Excluding run cycles take precedence
over run cycles.
- Excluding run cycles and event triggers are mutually
exclusive.
- When defining an excluding run cycle, you need to specify
the following properties:
- Rule
- Excluding run cycle rules are based on lists of
ordinal numbers, types of days, and common
calendar intervals. For example, the first Monday
of every month. Rule-based excluding run cycles
are based on conventional periods, such as
calendar months, weeks of the year, and days of
the week. There are four different types of
available rules:
- Simple
- By selecting a simple rule type, you can
specify the excluding run cycle days directly from
the calendar widget.
- Calendar
- By selecting a calendar rule type, you can
reference an existing calendar that is saved in
the database and the days that are defined on that
calendar are used as a base for the excluding run
cycle.
- iCalendar Recurrence Rule
- By selecting an iCalendar Recurrence Rule
type, you can enter an iCalendar Recurrence Rule
(RRule) expression and use it as base for the
excluding run cycle.
- Cron expression
- By selecting a Cron expression rule type, you
can enter a Cron expression and use it as base for
the excluding run cycle.
- Time restrictions
- You can use time restrictions to define the time
properties of the excluding run cycle.
Cron expressions arguments
HCL Universal Orchestrator
accepts both Crontab and CronTrigger expressions, but when you enter a
Crontab expression, it is converted into a CronTrigger
expression.
Crontab and
CronTrigger expressions have different structures, and
sometimes the differences might change the original meaning of the expression:
- Specifying month and week days
- In CronTrigger expressions, you cannot specify both the day of
the month and the day of the week, while in Crontab expressions
you can specify both.
- Day of week
- Both CronTrigger and Crontab expressions accept the 3
characters day name format and the number of the day format.
- In Crontab expressions, you can specify the day of the week using
the 0-6 (Sunday to Saturday) or 1-7 (Sunday to Saturday) format, but in
CronTrigger expression the only number of the day format that
is accepted is 1-7 (Sunday to Saturday).
Event-driven orchestration
You can define an event-driven orchestration by using event triggers, that are
mutually exclusive with run cycles and excluding run cycles.
- Event triggers
-
Before you can add event triggers to your workflows, you need to define at least one event
source.
Event triggers can contain either a single
event or a collection of sequential or unordered events, for
which can be specified correlations and timeouts. If you
set a correlation among events in an event trigger, all the received
events must have the same value in the specified common fields to
satisfy the event trigger and trigger the launch of the
workflow. An event trigger can contain events from different event
sources. All the events within an event trigger contain the
conditions that determine if a matching event is received or not.
When an event trigger is satisfied, the
workflow is submitted. Event triggers are mutually exclusive with run
cycles and excluding run cycles.
- Single event in event trigger
- When an event trigger contains a single event, the
reception of the event submits the workflow, which proceeds to READY
status and it is launched.
- Multiple events in event trigger
- When an event trigger contains multiple events, the
workflow is submitted upon the reception of the first event
from the event source, and it is set to
ADD status. If a
timeout time is specified, a
workflows in ADD changes status to
SUPPR if all the events in
the event trigger are not received by the
timeout time. If all the
events are received before the
timeout, the workflows proceeds to READY status and
is launched. If the trigger on
timeout option is selected and the a
timeout time is specified, the workflow is launched if the events in the event triggers are
not satisfied within the specified timeout.
Note: When defining event conditions, all
the relative fields are case insensitive.
- Plug-in event types
- There are five types of plug-in events that can be
defined in an event trigger:
