Overview
You use the Queue Manager to manage the queues of approval tickets and Units of Work (UOWs). A UOW is any item of work or task that a user requests.
The Queue Manager processes each UOW with its own priority, type, and approval state. UOWs can be scheduled for immediate or future execution. Depending on the level of access granted to the user, a UOW can approve or reject work, reschedule work, or cancel work from the Queue Manager.
Security
A user submitting a UOW with a policy set of 0 (zero) does not need to provide approval. The UOW status automatically goes to "Executing" (if it has been scheduled for immediate execution). If the UOW is scheduled, its status changes to "Ready for Execution". A user submitting a UOW with a policy set of 1 or more needs to provide approval, and the UOW goes into the "Work Pending Approval" queue. Some UOWs which appear in the "Work Pending Approval" listing may have been submitted by users who have membership to other groups. A user may only approve/reject those tickets that list your group in the Approval column.
Please note however, if the "Manage Work" privilege is removed from a group which previously had the activity, that groups' users will retain the ability to approve work without having the "Manage Work" permission. This condition is true for all UOWs created during the time that the user previously had this activity. The reason being - once the UOW has been passed on for approval, it will stay in the Work Pending Approval queue to be approved/rejected. However, any subsequent UOWs created after the removal of this activity, can NOT be approved by the user without "Manage Work".
Display
The Queue Manager environment consists of a number of fields, providing a range of UOW information. The following table details the information available:
| Information | Description |
|---|---|
| Type | Either UOW, recurring UOW or Approval. |
| UOW ID | When a UOW is submitted, a UOW ID is generated thus providing unique identification. |
| Submitter | This is the login name of the user who submitted the UOW. |
| WINDOW START/WINDOW END | The window start/end is a timestamp indicative of the start/end time of UOW execution. The window start/end represents the period of time for which the UOW is valid. |
| Request Type | Each UOW has a request type, which indicates the type of action created in the UOW. |
The Request Types are outlined in the following table:
| Request Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Apply Search Sets | Refers to the ability to search network resource configurations for specific command criteria |
| Autodiscovery | Refers to the ability to use the Auto-Discovery feature to discover the VTMOS of a network resource, when only the IP address is known |
| Command Set | Refers to a configuration change executed using a command set |
| Command Set (Report Only) | Refers to a configuration change executed using a command set in report only mode i.e. no changes will be applied to the device |
| CommandSetCollection | Refers to a configuration change executed using a command set group |
| Configuration Change | Refers to a change of configuration |
| Configuration Synchronization (ITNCM to Device) | Refers to the synchronization of a configuration from Netcool Configuration Manager to resource |
| Configuration Synchronization (Device to ITNCM) | Refers to the synchronization of a configuration from resource to Netcool Configuration Manager |
| Configuration Synchronization (Report Only) | Refers to the logging of any differences between the managed and running configurations |
| Extraction | Refers to an extraction of commands performed on a network resource configuration |
| Import Configuration | Refers to a configuration that is being imported via the GUI or the API. This request type is also used for Bulk Imports |
| Native Command Set | Refers to the application of native command sets against a resource |
| OS Upgrade | Refers to the application of an OS image to a network resource |
| Remove Network Resource | Refers to a resource that has been deleted from Netcool Configuration Manager |
| Service | Refers to a service that has been executed via NSM |
| Update Configuration | Refers to updating the operating system of one or more network resources |
WORK STATE Each UOW in the Queue Manager has a work state, which describes the status of UOW. Searches may be conducted on the basis of any, or all of these states. The information in the following table describes the UOW Work states available.
| Approval State | Description |
|---|---|
| Cancelled | UOW was either dequeued or removed from the queue manager before execution began. |
| Expired | The scheduled execution window for the UOW has expired before it could be approved or rejected. |
| Ready for Execution | UOW has not began executing because a) the worker server has not picked the UOW up, or b) if it is scheduled, the execution time is in the future. |
| Pending Approval | UOW is awaiting approval. |
| Finished | Indicates the request made to the UOW was completed successfully. |
| Executing | UOW is currently executing the request. |
EXECUTION STATUS When a UOW executes and reaches completion it is assigned an execution status, which reflects how the UOW reached completion. The information in the following table describes the different Execution states available.
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Success | UOW completed successfully. The UOW can be shown as a success even if some of the individual changes failed. The description will show how many individual work components succeeded, and the total number of components. Successful simply means the UOW ran without errors. |
| Failure | UOW was approved and executed. However, one or more errors occurred. See the Log file for details. |
| Approved | UOW has been approved. |
| Rejected | UOW was rejected, and did not execute. UOW will be in the "Finished" queue. |
| Expired | The scheduled execution window for the UOW has expired before it could be approved or rejected. If a UOW expires while the system is paused, the UOW stays in its current state until the system is resumed, at which time the UOW is moved to the Expired state. |
| Dequeued | UOW was removed from the Queue Manager before it began to execute. A UOW can be dequeued while it is executing. If you cancel a UOW that is executing, it will not process any more tasks within the UOW; however it will finish processing all the tasks it is currently executing. |
DESCRIPTION The description field is a short narrative entered by the user to explain the UOW. The description field shows a condensed version of the description. To view the full description properly, click the 'View Description' button in the Tab.
PRIORITY Each UOW is assigned a priority which, alongside the scheduled execution time determines when the UOW is processed. If two or more UOWs are scheduled for execution at the same time, the one with the highest priority shall be executed first. By default, all UOWs have a priority of Low when submitted. The priority may be altered at execution time if necessary.
FAILURE CATEGORIES When a UOW fails to execute successfully it is assigned failure category, which reflects how the UOW failed to reach completion.
RESOURCES This specifies the hostname or IP address of the resource that the UOW was run against. If the UOW was applied against multiple devices, the text "Multiple Devices" will be displayed under this column. A complete listing of device names is not provided when there is more than one device due to performance. However, a full list of device names and their status can be found by selecting the Resource tab.
APPROVALS REQUIRED This indicates the number of approvals a UOW requires in order to commence execution. This is directly linked to Policy Set security, and operates on the basis of 0-3 approvals. When a UOW is approved, the "Approvals required" figure is readjusted accordingly.
Color Coding
Color coding is employed in the UOW search results and filters to indicate the status of the various UOWs in the Queue Manager.
| Color | Description |
|---|---|
| Green | Successful. Indicates that the UOW successfully ran as scheduled. |
| Red | Failure. Indicates that the UOW was approved, but did not run as scheduled. |
| Black | UOW Executing. Indicates that the UOW was approved and is currently running. |
| Grey | Pending approval. Indicates that the UOW has been submitted for approval. |
| Purple | Indicates that the UOW has been approved and is waiting for its scheduled execution window to run. |
| Yellow | Partial Success. Indicates a mixture of failed and successful resources in the UOW. |