Getting Started with OO Designer

CloudSlang (CloudSlang.io) is an open source environment for process automation, which provides a textual language (YAML over Python), a lightweight engine (which can be embedded in a Java process or run via a command line), and a content library. All the CloudSlang code, including documentation and content, are available in GitHub CloudSlang repositories.

Score is a general-purpose Java-based open-source orchestration engine, which is process-based, embeddable, lightweight, scalable, and multilingual.

The CloudSlang language is a YAML (version 1.2) based language for describing a workflow that can be run by Score engine. The supported file extensions are: .sl, .sl.yaml and .sl.yml.

For more information about CloudSlang, see:

http://www.cloudslang.io

https://github.com/cloudslang/cloud-slang

https://github.com/cloudslang/score

YAML is a human-friendly data-serialization standard for all programming languages.

For more information about YAML, see http://www.yaml.org/

A flow is a composition of steps that forms a set of actions that are linked by decision-making logic in order to automate tasks. For example, health checks, troubleshooting, remediation, or any other repetitive IT tasks.

See Creating or Editing a Flow.

Projects in OO Designer include CloudSlang flows and operations, and are packaged into OO content packs, which are deployed to OO Central.

The CloudSlang flows are managed, run, reported, and troubleshot in OO Central, side-by-side with the OO flows (which were created in OO Desktop Studio).

A Content Pack is a file containing operations, flows, actions (Java-based or .Net based), localization data, and configuration items. Content packs are deployed to the OO Central server and stored in the database.

A Content Pack can be created in OO Designer, in OO Desktop Studio, or it can be provided by HPE, OO Shell for Authoring, or a third party.

See Creating and Deploying a Content Pack.

OO Designer is an environment for authoring, creating, and modifying CloudSlang flows.

OO Desktop Studio is a separate authoring environment that is used to create OO flows. Note that OO Designer cannot be used to read or modify flows that were created in OO Desktop Studio, or vice-versa.

OO Central is the web-based runtime environment of OO. It is used for running flows, monitoring the various runs, and generating reports.

An operation holds the inputs, outputs, responses, and other properties that are required to perform a certain action. Operations are available for the flow author to use as steps inside a flow. A rich set of out-of-the-box operations are available with OO Designer.

For example, one operation checks a web page to see whether it contains specific text, and another operation copies a file.

See Authoring Operations.

Steps are the building blocks of a flow. A flow author creates a step by dragging an operation, decision, or flow onto the authoring pane.

A step is an instance of an operation, decision, or flow, and it inherits the inputs, outputs, and other properties of the operation/decision/flow. A step can be modified without affecting the original operation/decision/flow.

See Creating Steps in a Flow.

Results are the possible outcomes of an operation. For example, a Read Web Page operation may have three possible responses:

• The web page can’t be found (failure)
• The page is there and the desired text is present (success)
• The page is there but the text isn’t present (partial success - needs another action)

See Results

A Navigation Line is the connection from an operation's response to one of the possible next steps.

See Creating Navigation Lines between Steps in a Flow.

Inputs give the operation the data that it needs to act upon. For example, an operation to check a web page needs to know which page to check and what text to look for.

Inputs can be:

• Set to a specific value
• Obtained from information gathered by another step

• Entered by the person running the flow, at the start of the flow

See Inputs.

Outputs are data produced by steps—for example, success code, output string, error string, or failure message.

See Outputs.

OO Designer provides web access, which minimizes time-to-value and allows for simple management.

Flow authors don't need to install and maintain a Studio application for authoring flows. They can simply log in to CSA and author the flows from there.

Administrators can easily upgrade OO Designer when upgrading the CSA instance. There's no need to upgrade every author’s environment separately.

OO Designer provides a graphical interface on top of the CloudSlang textual language. Every graphical change is immediately reflected in the underlying source code. This source code can be preserved in a GIT repository and is visible from the OO Designer UI.

OO Designer allows collaboration via Git. This means that different authors (Central IT, line of business, operator, or application developer) can contribute to the authoring, while they can each work using their preferred tool. This can be either the OO Designer in which the authoring is graphical, or via ATOM with the CloudSlang plugin which allows authoring the source files directly in a textual manner.

OO Designer and CloudSlang provide enhanced usability for authoring flows, with features such as default errors, sensitive system properties, decisions, input bindings, and direct deployment to OO Central.