Use Automation Steps

You can use automation steps in your process if you would like to add or invoke an individual connector to perform an automation task. Adding an automation step provides the following functionality:

• Add automation connector operations.
• Configure and edit an automation step.
• Automate tasks.
• Ticket is updated with the mapped information.

For example: A process flow is designed with an appropriate entry criteria. The entry criteria dictates that a ticket created to Provision an EC2 instance, automatically moves into an approval phase. On approval, an automation step that is named Provision EC2 instance is triggered. On rejection, the ticket is closed.

Once the entry criteria is defined, you can automate tasks by adding an automation step to the workflow.

Follow these steps:

1. Navigate to MANAGE> ADMINISTRATION> Tools> Process Workflows, and open the desired process workflow.
2. Click Process Designer>  Add Step tab.
3. Select the Execute Automation Connector step.
   The step gets added to the canvas.
4. Click Execute Automation Connector. The edit step tab opens.
5. Specify the Basic Properties of the operation in the Define tab and click Save.
   
   1. Add the step name
   2. Describe the connector and explain what the connector does.
   3. Select the connector that you would like to use in the automation step.
   4. Select a credential specific to the connector is used when the automation step is triggered from the ticket
      Note: Recommendations are populated based on the tags that you select under Choose Tags to Categorize This Connector. You can tag connectors by navigating to Automation center, Setup, Connectors tab.
   5. Select the operation that you want the connector to perform.
   This information is added to the process workflow action.
6. Click the Map tab and map the mandatory parameters. The additional parameters of the operators can be mapped as either mandatory or optional for the automation step. Click Save.
   The fields that are mapped in the Map tab are updated on the ticket under Additional Information.
   For example, to reset the password for a Google app, the mandatory parameters are user name and password. The Mandatory optional parameter is the Email id.
7. Click the Permission tab; add the permissions to the participant such as who can trigger this step and Users. Click Save.

8. Click the Set tab and define the ticket parameters.
   The Map Automation Output section allows you to configure the outputs of the automation step that is updated back on the ticket. Click Save.
   The defined information updates the corresponding ticket fields when the execution is triggered. 

   Tip

   Use operators ++ or -- to increment or decrement values of an attribute set in any previous step of the workflow. 

9. Click the Notify tab to select the communication templates to be sent out when this workflow action is triggered. Click Save.
   The automation step is added to the process flow.

Note: Verify that the input parameters names are unique for automation connectors that are used to create process workflow. For example, if two automation connectors, JIRA and VMware have a mandatory input parameter with name Instance ID. If you add JIRA to a process workflow and VMware to another or the same, though the Instance ID is different for both the connectors, it is considered as a single attribute in Tools, Custom Attributes.

Examples of automation steps you can use within each ticket context: