Editing an Automation Plan

You can change an Automation Plan by editing it in the Automation Plans dashboard. Typically, you might want to copy an existing plan or sample plan and then customize or update it for a different automation scenario by changing steps or by assigning different targets. You can make changes to a plan quickly and easily. You can easily replace an existing step with a new step, move a step to a new position in the plan, or add a new step before or after an existing step. If you replace an existing step with a new step, the replacement step maintains the targeting and failure step settings of the original step.

Before you begin

You must log on to the BigFix console as a master operator or a console operator. You must have Custom Content permissions to create or edit an Automation Plan.

About this task

When you edit an Automation Plan, the list of available Automation Plans in the Automation Plans dashboard is automatically refreshed. To manually refresh the list of available Automation Plans, click the Refresh icon in the dashboard.

Each Automation Plan step is a Fixlet, Task, or Baseline. The steps are run in the order that they are displayed in the Flow tab in the Automation Plans dashboard. You can view the BigFix console Task, Fixlet or Baseline panel for a step by clicking the Go to source icon for the step in the Steps tab. You can view the BigFix console Task or Fixlet panel for a Component in a Baseline by clicking the Component name in the Steps tab. To return to the Steps tab, click Back in the menu bar.

Important: When you add a step to an Automation Plan, you are adding a copy of a Fixlet, Task, or Baseline to the plan. If the Fixlet, Task, or Baseline changes after it is added to the Automation Plan, the changes are not reflected in the copy in the Automation Plan. When the source content has changed, an icon is displayed in Server Automation to indicate that the source content has changed. You must then update your Automation Plan to include the latest changes. If you have access to the source content, you can update the Automation Plan by clicking the update content icon that is displayed when source content has changed. You must be in edit mode to update the Automation Plan and you must click Save to save the updates.

Complete the following steps to edit an Automation Plan.

Procedure

Open the Server Automation domain and from the navigation tree in the Domain Panel, click Automation Plans. The Automation Plans dashboard is opened. A list of available Automation Plans is displayed in the dashboard. To sort the list, click any column title. To filter all columns in the list, use the filter field.
Select an Automation Plan from the list. The Automation Plan data is displayed as read-only with the Steps tab selected by default.
Click Edit to edit the selected Automation Plan. The plan pane displays the selected Automation Plan data as editable fields.
To change the Automation Plan name and description, click the Details tab and update the Name and Description fields. From the Details tab you can also change the Domain, Category, Source, Source Release Date, and Category Source Severity fields.
Click the Steps tab. If the plan type is a sequential plan, you can change the plan to a parallel plan by selecting the Parallel radio button for Plan type. You then need to set the dependencies between the steps to control the processing flow of the plan. For information about how to set the dependencies, see Parallel step processing. If the plan type is a parallel plan, you cannot automatically change it to a sequential plan type by changing the Plan type radio button. If you want to change a parallel plan type to a sequential plan, you must manually change the dependencies so that there are no parallel steps in the plan. Complete the following procedure to edit the steps in the Automation Plan:
1. If the plan is a parallel plan type, to change the dependencies for a step, expand Depends on for the step. Then check the box for each step on which you want this step to depend. Review the Flow tab to verify that the plan processing flow.
2. To remove a step from an Automation Plan, click the Remove Step icon for the step. If the plan is a parallel plan and if you remove a step on which other steps were dependent, you are notified with a message in the user interface. Review the Flow tab and check if you need to make changes to dependencies before running the plan.
3. To remove a failure step from a step, click the Remove Failure Step icon for the step.
4. To change the action for a step that is a Fixlet or a Task, select one action from the Action list. An action with a Script Type of URL is not displayed in the Action list.
Click Add Step to add new steps to the end of the Automation Plan. If you want to move existing steps or insert new steps into the plan or replace existing step, see step 7 below. Complete the following procedure to add steps:
1. In the Add Step panel, select Fixlets, Tasks, or Baselines from the Include list to view Fixlets, Tasks or Baselines. The default value, All, displays Fixlets, Tasks and Baselines.
2. To filter the list of Fixlets, Tasks and Baselines, use the lists and the input box. To add or remove filters, use + - .
3. After you add the relevant search criteria, press Enter to search for Fixlets, Tasks and Baselines.
4. From the list of Fixlets, Tasks and Baselines, select one or more to add to the Automation Plan.
5. When you finish selecting Fixlets, Tasks and Baselines, click Add. The name and summary of each step in the Automation Plan is shown in the Steps tab. For sequential plans, the sequence is shown.

You can easily change the order and sequence of steps by moving steps up or down in the Steps list. You can also replace an existing step with a new step, whereby the new step is included in the same location as the replaced step and maintains the targets and settings of the replaced step. You can also insert a new step before or after an existing step. The following table describes the expected behavior.

Table 1. Editing a step and associated rules and behavior
Option	Expected outcome
Move step	There are two move options, you can move the currently selected step before another step or after another step by selecting either Move Before... or Move After.... When you move a step, the step you move keeps all of its default targets, parameters, failure steps, and associated criteria if these have been set. The step that you move is effectively deleted from its original position in the plan. For parallel plans, any steps that are dependent on the step you are moving will have the moved steps dependencies added to their existing dependencies. Any circular dependencies are ignored. The Move Before... and Move After... options follow exactly the same rules for Insert New Step Before and Insert New Step After.
Insert step	When you insert a step, the newly inserted step does not have any targets set. The expected outcome is essentially the same as when you add a new step to a plan. However, for parallel plans, if a step is inserted before a reference step, the step you are inserting gains the reference steps dependencies and the reference step becomes dependent on the new step. If a step is inserted after a reference step, the new step will depend on the reference step and any step dependent on the reference step will now be dependent on the inserted step. When multiple steps are inserted, each one is sequentially inserted before or after the same reference step.
Replace step	When you replace a step, the replacement step keeps the original step ID, default targeting, failure step (if set) and associated criteria. Any parameters set are not maintained. For parallel plans, the replacement step maintains the dependencies of the original step.

To modify a step, select the step and click the Move Insert or Replace this Step icon. Make sure to click Save to save the plan after making your changes. From the pop-up menu that appears, select one of the following options:

Move Before...: select this option to move the currently selected step immediately before another step in the Automation Plan. The Move Before... dialog box is displayed. Select the step before which you want the step that you are moving to be positioned. Then click OK.
Move After...: select this option to move the currently selected step immediately after another step in the Automation Plan. The Move After... dialog box is displayed. Select the step after which you want the step that you are moving to be positioned. Then click OK.
Insert New Step Before: select this option to insert a new step immediately before the currently selected step. The Insert New Step Before dialog is displayed. Search for and select a Fixlet, Task, or Baseline that you want to include before the currently selected step. Click Insert to add the new step.
Insert New Step After:select this option to insert a new step immediately after the currently selected step. The Insert New After Step dialog is displayed. Search for and select a Fixlet, Task, or Baseline that you want to include after the currently selected step. Click Insert to add the new step.
Replace: select this option to replace the currently selected step with a new step. The Replace Step dialog is displayed. Search for and select a Fixlet, Task, or Baseline that you want to include in place of the currently selected step. Click Replace to add the replacement step. The replacement step maintains any original step targets and failure step, if configured. It does not maintain any parameters that were set for the original step because the parameters might be different. If the plan is a parallel plan, the replacement step maintains any dependencies set on the original step.
Cancel: select this option to back out of the pop-up menu.

Optional: To save a set of default targets, default parameters, and filters for the step:
1. Click the Default Settings icon for the Action drop-down menu for the step.
2. From the Targets tab, search for and select the computers that you want to save as default targets for the step and add them to the Selected Targets list. You can also save default targets using the The same computers targeted by step or The computers specified in the list of names options. If computers that you save as default targets do not exist when you are running the Automation Plan, the Selected Targets list in the Take Automation Plan Action dialog box is updated to reflect this. Depending on security settings, users running the Automation Plan might not be able to see all of the default targets that you set if they do not have sufficient permissions.
3. If there are parameters that are associated with the action for the step, you can set and save default parameters. However, you cannot save parameters from virtualization or middleware Fixlets. From the Parameters tab, enter the parameters that you want to save as default parameters. You can enter some or all of the parameters associated with the action for the step. Note the parameters that you set as defaults are not validated when you create the Automation Plan, they are validated when you run the Automation Plan. The Parameters tab is displayed only if there are parameters associated with the action for the step. When you move your mouse over the Default Settings icon after you have saved default parameters, a tooltip is displayed providing information that default parameters have been set. This tooltip provides this information for any Fixlet that has default parameters, not just for default parameters that you have saved. If a default parameter was set for the Fixlet when the Fixlet was created, the tooltip displays information that default parameters are set.
4. You can set and save filter criteria, including custom properties, for targets for the step. To save filters, select the filters that you want displayed in the Take Automation Plan Action dialog box when you are running the Automation Plan.
  Note: If you are saving custom properties as filters, these properties must not be reserved or default properties, and they cannot come from an analysis. The custom properties must have been reported by at least one computer. If you export an Automation Plan containing custom properties and then import it on another server, and the custom properties are not specified on the server to which you import the Automation Plan, the custom properties are automatically deleted. If you delete the custom properties, they are also deleted from the Automation Plan.
5. Click OK and then Save to save the default targets, default parameters, and filters.
6. Repeat this process for each step in the Automation Plan for which you want to save default targets or default parameters. If you delete the Automation Plan, default targets, default parameters, and filters are also deleted.
To add a failure step to a step, click the Add Failure Step icon for the step. A failure step is optional and can be a Fixlet, Task, or Baseline. A step can have only one failure step. Complete the following to add a failure step to a step:
1. In the Add Step panel, select Fixlets, or Tasks, or Baselines from the Include list.
2. To filter, use the lists and the input box. To add or remove filters, use + - .
3. After you add the relevant search criteria, press Enter to search for Fixlets, Tasks, or Baselines.
4. Make your selection to add to the step and click Add. The failure step is shown in the step in the Steps tab.
5. To change the targeting for the failure step, expand Failure Step: for the step. To target all endpoints that are targeted by the step action, select All from the Targeting list. The default option is Failed Only. This option targets only the endpoints that return a failure status in the corresponding step action.
6. To choose one action in the failure step, expand Failure Step: for the step. You can select an action from the Action list if you have selected a Task or Fixlet. An action with a Script Type of URL is not displayed in the Action list. If you selected a Baseline, and a component in the Baseline does not have an action selected, you are notified in the user interface. You cannot select an action for the Baseline. To select an action for the component, go to the All Content domain, search for the Baseline and select an action for the component. An out-of-sync icon will be displayed in Server Automation, indicating that the Baseline content in the failure step is different from the source Baseline. Click the out-of-sync icon to re-sync the Baseline in Server Automation.
  
  Note: If any of the components in the Baseline you added as a failure step contain steps that require a restart, an icon is displayed to notify you of this. When you see this icon, review the Pending Restart settings for the step.
Click Save to save all of the changes to the Automation Plan.

Results

The changes that you made are added to the Automation Plan. The list of available Automation Plans in the Automation Plans dashboard is refreshed to display the changes to the Automation Plan. You can run, edit, copy, or delete this Automation Plan.