General activities

The General activities tab in the Workflow Editor displays the default activities and product-provided predefined activities.

Wait until a situation is True

Opens a list of the situations distributed on your managed network. When you select the situation and click OK, the icon with the name of the situation is displayed in the grapher view. When the policy encounters this object in the workflow, it suspends execution until the situation is true. You then must add an activity to perform when the situation fires.

All policies except those that are uncorrelated must begin with this activity.

End code choices for starting the next activity: Situation is true; Error.

Evaluate a situation now

Examine the status of an existing situation. Select a situation from the scroll box that is displayed after you drop the activity into the Graphic view. Click OK to confirm your selection. Note that the evaluation interval is based on the monitoring interval of the selected situation. There are some special considerations related to the evaluate situation activity described in Using IBM® Tivoli® Monitoring.

End code choices for starting the next activity: Situation is true; Situation is false; Error.

Take action or Write message

Enables you to issue a system command from a policy or generate a universal message that can be seen in the Universal Message console view.

When issuing a system command, keep in mind that there is a timeout period of 50 seconds. If the command does not complete within that time, an error is issued. As well, the command must be valid on the operating platform on which it will execute.

You can send Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) requests. See the Cloud Pak System Software Monitoring Server Administrator's Guide for details. If the action command is a SOAP request, the policy must be distributed to the hub_ hostname managed system (or *HUB managed system group).

End code choices for starting the next activity: Error; Action succeeded.

Make a choice

Not editable

This option is displayed when any of the policies in the list was created in the Candle Management Workstation (predecessor user interface to the Tivoli® Enterprise Portal) and includes a Make a choice activity. However, it is not available for adding to policies.

Suspend execution

Specifies a unit of time, expressed in seconds, that you want a policy to wait prior to running. This is a useful feature if, for example, you issued a command, and you want to give the system administrator time to resolve the problem prior to continuing to run the policy.

Start/Stop a policy

Use this activity in a policy to stop another policy from running while the current policy is executing. You can also use to start another policy while the current policy is executing.

End code choices for starting the next activity: Policy started; Error.

Start/Stop a situation

Stops a situation from running while the current policy is executing. You can also use this option to start another situation while the current policy is executing.

End code choices for starting the next activity: Situation started; Error.

Connector

Adds connecting lines from one activity to the next to control the workflow of the policy.

You can have a single connector from an activity, and you can have multiple connectors from an activity so long as each connector links to a separate activity. Multiple connectors from an activity are processed using AND logic.

When you join activities using the Connector tool, you assign an end code to each connection. As you click and drag from one activity to the next one in succession, a window opens from which you select a link condition. The possible conditions (end codes) resulting from the source activity that will invoke the target activity are listed in the window. For example, if you are connecting a Wait until a situation is True activity and choose Situation is true as the link condition, the target activity will begin executing when the situation becomes true.

Available end codes include the following types:

Action succeeded: The action completed without errors.
Error: The activity failed to complete successfully. The reason might be that a referenced object does not exist or a command returned an error status from the operating system.
Resume: The Suspend execution activity waits a specified period of time, then resumes executing the policy.
Situation is false: The Evaluate situation now and Wait until a situation is False activities return this end code if the situation is not currently true.
Situation is true: The Wait until a situation is True and Evaluate situation now activities return this end code if the situation is currently true.
Choice: The Make a choice activity uses this end code to indicate that the linked activity is a potential choice offered to the user when a work item is opened.
Timeout: The Make a choice activity uses this end code to indicate the next activity is to run if the user choice times out before a user selects an option.
Action Succeeded: The Take action or Write message activity uses this endcode to indicate the action completed without errors.