Overview of the Orchestration console

Important

This version of Orchestrator has reached the end of support, we recommend you to upgrade to Orchestrator 2022.

The Orchestrator console is a Single Page App that helps you monitor and execute your Orchestrator deployment. This article details the supported features in the Orchestrator 2022 console.

Navigation pane

The Navigation pane on the left shows the Runbook and Folders tree, like the one shown on the Runbook Designer. Unlike the console in earlier versions, you cannot click the Folders, but can click the Runbooks and view their jobs and execute them.

The Navigation pane is always visible on all screens to allow quick navigation to other runbooks and folders, while remaining on the same screen.

To the right of the navigation pane, you can see the chosen screen. The Dashboard screen is shown by default.

Note

Currently, auto-refresh is not supported for any of the screens. Reload the page manually.

Dashboard

The Dashboard shows Active jobs on the top followed by a table of all Completed jobs (history). The Completed jobs (history) pane is collapsed by default, allowing focus on the active jobs.

Each row in both the panels corresponds to a unique job. A job may have one or more runbook instances. Each row shows:

• Job ID: Link to the Runbook
• Timestamps: The number of successful and failed instances is shown in one of the columns for all rows.
• Action buttons: Stop job or View Job details

You can click and expand each of the job rows and view the instances of the job.

Runbooks

When you select a runbook on the navigation tree or click a runbook link, the app navigates to the Runbook screen. The top panel lists out runbook metadata (editing status, timestamps, etc.,). The Run button available on the screen allows you to queue the runbook for execution on the desired subset of runbook servers. The Run button is disabled for runbooks that are not in Published state.

Below this panel is a tabbed view:

• View, for the Runbook graphical image.
• Jobs, for listing the active and completed jobs of the runbook (see below).
• Instances, for listing active and completed instances of the runbook across all its Jobs (see below).

You can click the rows in the Jobs view just like the ones on the Dashboard screen. Jobs that are running can be stopped using the buttons on the right of the running row.

While this screen is active, you can choose a different runbook on the Navigation tree. This will not change the selected tab, you can quickly look at Jobs of different runbooks by selecting the jobs tab and navigating to the desired runbooks in the Navigation tree.

Jobs

When you select a job (using the (i) button), the app navigates to this screen. The top panel shows the job’s metadata (timestamps, parameters).

A table that shows the Instances of this job follows the panel.

Most jobs have a single Instance. If the runbook has a Monitor/Event trigger activity, then each trigger starts a unique job instance. The screenshot below shows a Job with more than one Instance.

Note

A Job can have at most one running Instance at any time. But, since a Runbook can have many concurrently running Jobs, a Runbook can have more than one running Instance.

The status of the job is shown visually with the icons:

• Three dots: Job is queued
• Hourglass: Job is running
• Circle with slash: Job was canceled
• Tick: Job completed successfully
• Red exclamation: Job completed but failed
• Warning: Job completed with warning(s)

Instances

When you select an Instance (using the (i) button), the app navigates to this screen. The top panel shows the Instance’s metadata (Job ID, timestamps, parameters, server which executes this instance).

The top panel also has three navigation buttons:

• Previous: View Instance that ran before this one.
• Next: View Instance that ran after this one.
• Latest: View most current instance

Note that the job ID is same, and since the second instance is still running, the job is also still running.

Below the panel, you see the runbook diagram. You can click each runbook activity to view activity outputs. An icon dedicated for each activity denotes the status of that activity. When you click any activity, an overlay is shown on the right that lists the activity’s outputs.

Since an activity may be executed more than once within an instance (because of looping), each execution of the Activity has a unique Sequence number. The overlay lets you choose the Sequence # using the dropdown on the top.

Note

To ensure fast load time, only the first 10 activity outputs are loaded for the activity. The Load more button shows how many times this activity was executed, and you can click it to load more outputs.

The Instance and Activity status follow the same format as Job Status.

Execute runbooks

Navigate to the Runbook screen of the desired Runbook and click Run . An overlay form opens to the right where you are asked to:

• Set values to all input parameters (required)
• Choose the set of Runbook servers on which this Job can be scheduled.

Only one of these servers will actually execute this Job. To execute a Runbook on many servers you will have to run those many number of Jobs and explicitly set the servers one-by-one.

Note

Enter the parameters in the form, else the form will not be considered.

When the form is submitted, a disappearing popup is shown on the top right to notify whether the job was successfully queued or not.

Stop running Jobs

The Stop button is shown on the Dashboard and the Job screen. disappearing popup on the top right notifies whether the Job is stopped or not.

FAQ

The Console does not load, error “Uh oh! Trouble connecting to WebApi [status 0]” appears

1. Check the browser’s developer console (Console tab), look for CORS errors (blocked by CORS policy)

   

2. If there are no CORS errors, look at the Event Viewer logs (Application) on the Web API computer.

To fix CORS errors, you must ensure that the API’s web.config file must have a suitable CORS configuration. The browser error shows the origin value it is expecting in the web.config. See this document for details about how to configure CORS in web.config.

How do I update the Web API URL?

The Console loads {install_dir}\assets\configuration.json to find the API URL. You can edit it using a plain text editor. Make sure that there is no trailing / at the end of the URL!

The Orchestration console is a single webpage made up of multiple panes and workspaces. This topic describes those panes and workspaces and includes procedures for accessing the console and managing runbooks.

Navigation pane

The navigation pane is the left pane in the Orchestration console where you can click the workspace that you want to use. Depending on the workspace you click, you can view specific data and use specific options. The following workspaces are available in the navigation pane.

Runbooks workspace

The Runbooks workspace lets you start and stop runbooks. You can also view information such as the jobs and instances created for each runbook and their definition.

Summary

The Summary tab is displayed for any folder or runbook selected in the Runbooks workspace. This tab displays summary information for the jobs and instances of the selected runbook or for all of the runbooks in the selected folder. The statistics that are displayed are updated every 10 minutes so that activity performed within that time might not be reflected in the numbers until they are updated.

Each column in the Summary displays the number of jobs and instances that finished with a particular status (Succeeded, Warning, or Failed) within the last hour, the last day, and the last week. For instances, the number of instances that are currently in progress are also displayed. For jobs, the number of jobs that have been created and that are currently queued are also displayed.

Runbooks

The Runbooks tab is displayed when you select a folder in the Runbooks workspace. It lists the runbooks contained in the selected folder and specifies the status of any running jobs and instances from each. To select one of these runbooks and control their actions, click an option in the Actions pane. If you have a large number of runbooks, you can refine the list by specifying a filter.

Jobs

The Jobs tab is displayed when you select a folder or runbook in the Runbooks workspace. This tab lists the jobs created for a given runbook and the completion status. For a folder, it lists the jobs created for all runbooks in the folder and their completion status. A job is a request for a runbook server to run a runbook and is created every time a runbook receives a request to run. If a runbook starts with a monitor, it creates a job that runs continuously until the runbook is stopped. In this case, the status of the job shows an hourglass that indicates it is currently running.

Instances

The Instances tab is displayed when if you select a folder or runbook in the Runbooks workspace. For a runbook, this tab lists the instances that have been created for the runbook and their completion status. For a folder, it lists the instances that have been created for all runbooks in the folder and their completion status. An instance is a running copy of a runbook and is created each time that a runbook runs. If a runbook starts with a monitor, it creates an instance that continues to run until the monitor condition is met. In this case, the status for the instance shows an hourglass. When the monitor condition is met, the instance continues with the subsequent activities and then shows a completion status. The runbook then creates a new instance that also runs until the monitor condition is met.

Runbook Servers workspace

The Runbook Servers workspace lets you view the status of current and completed jobs and instances for each runbook server.

Jobs

The Jobs tab lists the jobs that have been run on the runbook server and their completion status. A job is a request for a runbook server to run a runbook and is created every time a runbook receives a request to run. If a runbook starts with a monitor, it creates a job that runs continuously until the runbook is stopped. In this case, the status of the job shows an hourglass, which means that it is currently running.

Instances

The Instances tab lists the instances that have been created on the runbook server and their completion status. An instance is a running copy of a runbook and is created each time that a runbook runs. If a runbook starts with a monitor, it creates an instance that continues to run until the monitor condition is met. In this case, the status for the instance shows an hourglass. When the monitor condition is met, the instance continues with the subsequent activities, and then shows a completion status. The runbook then creates a new instance that also runs until the monitor condition is met.

Events workspace

The Events workspace lets you view log events. By default, log events include all events for the management server and all runbook servers. To limit the events, click Filter and provide criteria to limit the events displayed. If an event is specific to a runbook server, it includes the name of the server in the Source box. In this case, you can select the event, and then click View Runbook Server in the Actions pane. Clicking View Runbook Server opens the Jobs tab in the Runbook Servers workspace for that runbook server.

To start the Orchestration console in a browser

1. Open your browser.

2. In the address bar, type http://computer name/:port number where computer name is the name of the server where the web service is installed, and port is the port number selected during configuration of the web service. By default, the port is 82.

To start the Orchestration console in the Runbook Designer

• Click the Orchestration Console button on the toolbar.

  Note

  If the URL has not been set for the Orchestration console, you will receive an error message. Use the following procedure to set the URL.

To set the Orchestration console URL in the Runbook Designer

1. Select Options, and then select Orchestration Console.

2. In the URL box, type http://computer name:port number where computer name is the name of the server where the web service is installed, and port is the port number selected during configuration of the web service. By default, the port is 82.

3. Click Finish.

Starting and stopping runbooks

In addition to viewing the current status of a runbook, you can also start and stop a runbook from the Orchestration console. When you start a runbook, a job is created and waits for an available runbook server to process the runbook. If the first action in a runbook is a monitor, the job runs continuously, potentially producing multiple instances of a runbook, until the runbook or job is stopped. When a runbook server is available, the job provides an instance of the runbook to the runbook server to process. A running runbook has at least one job and one or more instances associated with it.

When you stop a runbook, the runbook, all jobs, and all instances associated with the runbook are stopped.

To start a runbook

1. Click Runbooks to open the Runbooks workspace.

2. If the runbook is located in a folder, select the folder in the Runbooks pane.

3. Click the Runbooks tab in the results pane.

4. Select the runbook, and then in the Actions pane, click Start Runbook.

5. If the runbook requires parameters, they are listed in the Runbook Parameters pane. Click the Value column for each runbook and type a value for the runbook to use.

6. If you want to run the runbook on a server other than its default, click a server in the Available Runbook Server(s) pane, and then click the right arrow to add the server to the Selected Runbook Server(s) pane.

   Note

   If you add multiple servers to the Selected Runbook Server(s) pane, the runbook runs only on the first server if it is available. The other servers are backup servers where the runbook runs only if the primary server is not available.

7. Click Start.

To stop a runbook

1. Click Runbooks to open the Runbooks workspace.

2. If the runbook is located in a folder, select the folder in the Runbooks pane.

3. Click the Runbooks tab in the results pane.

4. Select the runbook, and then in the Actions pane, click Stop Runbook.

5. Click OK to the message to confirm that you want to stop the jobs.

6. If the runbook was started successfully, you receive a confirmation message that the job was stopped. If the runbook has no running jobs, you receive a message that no job was running.

To view the status of a runbook in the Orchestration console

1. Click Runbooks to open the Runbooks workspace.

2. If the runbook is located in a folder, select the folder in the Runbooks pane.

3. Select the Runbooks tab in the results pane.

4. Select the runbook.

5. To view all jobs that the runbook created, in the Actions pane, select View Jobs.

6. To view all instances that the runbook created, in the Actions pane, select View Instances.

Stopping jobs

A job is a request for a runbook to run. A job is created only when you request a runbook to run. If the first action in a runbook is a monitor, the job runs continuously until the runbook or job is stopped. An hourglass indicates the status of a running job. An instance is a running copy of a runbook.

You cannot start a job; you can only start a runbook.

When you view an instance, you can choose to stop the associated job. Stopping the job stops the instance, the job, any other associated instances, and the runbook.

Next steps

• To learn more about deploying runbooks see Deploy runbooks