Enabling the monitoring of workflows on observability tools

You can gain deeper insights into the performance and business impact of your workflows.

Integrating HCL Universal Orchestrator with observability tools enhances monitoring possibilities by providing a unified dashboard that displays aggregated KPIs of orchestrated business processes alongside other application and network data, allowing users to easily distinguish business-critical flows from technical ones. Upon workflow completion, data is captured in the audit log and turned into meaningful performance indicators.

Enabling observability view: workflow definition flags

To enable monitoring on observability tools, workflow definitions must be designated as business-related using the business flag, which filters them from purely technical workflows.

Furthermore, specific output properties of tasks or workflows can be tracked as key performance indicators on observability tools by marking them with the kpi flag, ensuring their data is captured in the audit log upon completion.

Customizing tasks output properties

Beyond the output properties defined in task plug-ins, you can also create custom output properties and mark them with the kpi flag to track them as indicators on observability tools. Upon task completion, these custom properties are resolved and their values are captured.

Note: Custom output property names override any identically named output properties already defined within the task plug-in.

Setting up workflows for observability

You can define workflows that can be tracked on observability tools both from the Orchestration CLI and the UI.

Workflow definition from the Orchestration CLI

To be monitored on observability tools, workflow definitions that are created from the Orchestration CLI must contain the -business keyword.

To use an output property as KPI, you must set the kpi property value of that output property to true.

The following example shows a business-relevant workflow that contains a task definition with a custom output property. The EVALUATION_PROP output property is used as KPI:

---
kind: JobStream
def:
  folder: /
  name: WF_WITH_JD_FOR_ICONTROL
  workstation: /WS_AGT_1
  options:
  - business
  jobs:
  - name: TASK1
    jobDefinitionRef: /WS_AGT_1#/TASK1
    workstation: /WS_AGT_1
    jobDefinition:
      workstation: /WS_AGT_1
      folder: /
      name: TASK1
      description: Sample executable job definition
      type: executable
      task:
        executable:
          interactive: false
          suffix: ""
          script: ls
          credential: {}
      recovery:
        action: STOP
    outputProperties:
    - name: EVALUATION_PROP
      value: useful condition
      kpi: true

In the following example, the custom output properties flagged as KPIs for the workflow are derived from the output properties of the task. Upon completion, the output property data is visible on the observability tool.

kind: JobStream
def:
  folder: /
  name: JS_KPI_FROM_JOB
  workstation: /WS_AGT_1
  options:
  - business
  outputProperties:
  - name: VALUE
    value: "${jobs.TASK_JSONATA.result.value}"
    kpi: true
  - name: RESULT
    value: "${jobs.TASK_JSONATA.result}"
    kpi: true
  saturdayIsFree: true
  sundayIsFree: true
  priority: 10
  asap: false
  perJobLatestStart: false
  matchingCriteria:
    type: previous
  resourceDependencies: []
  jobs:
  - name: TASK_JSONATA
    jobDefinitionRef: /WS_AGT_1#/TASK_JSONATA
    workstation: /WS_AGT_1
    jobDefinition:
      workstation: /WS_AGT_1
      folder: /
      name: TASK_JSONATA
      type: jsonata
      task:
        jsonata:
          Action:
            queryInfo:
              format: json
              document: "{\n  \"value\": \"20\" \n}"
              variablelist:
                result: $
      recovery:
        action: STOP

Workflow definition from the UI

To mark a workflow as business-relevant on an observability tool, perform the following steps:

From the UI, open the Graphical Designer.
From the Blocks tab, drag a workflow and drop it into the workspace.
Define mandatory information such as Folder, Name and Workstation.
From the Options drop-down menu, select Business.
Deploy the workspace.

The workflow is now ready to be monitored from the chosen observability tool interface.

Creating new output properties and using them as KPI from the UI

You create a new output property, both for workflow or tasks, and use it as KPI on an observability tool.

Creating a new output property for a workflow and using it as KPI on an observability tool

To create a new output property for a workflow and use it as KPI, perform the steps described below on the workflow that you previously defined as business-relevant :

From the workflow properties panel on the right, expand the Output properties section and click Add new +.
Define mandatory information as the Name and the Value of the output property.
Toggle the KPI button.
Deploy the workspace.

Upon completion, the data of the output property flagged as KPI is captured in the audit log.

Creating a new output property for a task and using it as KPI on an observability tool

To create a new output property for a task and use it as KPI, perform the steps described below on the workflow that you previously defined as business-relevant:

From the Blocks tab, drag a task into the workflow on your canvas.
From the task property panel on the right, define mandatory information about the task, whether you decide to reference an existing task template or to create an embedded task.
Expand the Output properties section and click Add new +.
Define mandatory information as the Name and the Value of the output property.
Toggle the KPI button.
Deploy the workspace.

Upon completion, the data of the output property flagged as KPI is captured in the audit log.