Creating Client-side automations

Client-side automations provide a mechanism to launch out from the Netcool® Operations Insight® user interface in the user's browser to any third-party website.

The Client-side automation provider allows you to build a URL from a core URL string and some optional parameters. The URL must use the HTTPS protocol. To run a client-side automation (for example, as an automated step within a runbook) click the Launch button. When running a client-side automation, the parameters are replaced with the actual values, and the resulting URL is launched in a new browser tab. You can review the resulting URL in the automation output area and launch it again by clicking the displayed URL hyperlink.

Client-side automations are composed in the runbook back-end service but they are run in the browser context. Therefore, all runbooks that contain automated steps with client-side automations are considered as manual runbooks. Runbooks that are intended to be run fully automated must not contain client-side automations.

If the third-party website requires authentication then it will typically ask to provide login credentials before opening the requested page. It is not recommended to use parameters within the client-side automation to contain sensitive information (such as user passwords), as they can be seen in clear text in the resulting URL. Therefore password-style string parameters are not supported for client-side automations.

  1. To create a client-side automation, click Automations > Create automation and complete the following fields:.
    Type
    Select Client-side.
    Name
    Provide a name that describes what this automation does. For example, IBM homepage search.
    Description
    Provide any helpful additional information so that the user can immediately understand which problem this automation solves. For example, Search the IBM home page for the given subject.
    Automation client URL
    Configure the URL for your automation. It is mandatory to use the HTTPS protocol, so the API endpoint URL must start with "https://". You can use parameters. Parameter names need to be prefixed with the $ character. For example, https://www.ibm.com/search?q=$query. Alternatively, specify a parameter that contains a full valid URL of the third-party website at the time when the client-side automation is started. For example: $openTicketWebPageURL.
    Automation parameters
    Add input parameters to run the automation. Those input parameters can be referred in the URL. For example, a parameter query can be referred as $query. The parameter query can be defined as follows:
    • Name: query
    • Description: The subject to be searched on the IBM home page
    • Type: A single string value
    • Minimum length: 1
    • Maximum length: not selected
    • Password: not selected
    • Set a default value: selected
    • Default value: runbook
  2. Add the automation to the runbook, see Adding automations.
  3. Run the runbook, see Run a runbook.