Creating a Hello World Workflow in vRealize Orchestrator (vRO)

Create Your First vRealize Orchestrator Workflow - Hello World

Before we begin creating our first workflow, let’s create a place to put it.  Follow these steps to create a new workflow folder:

1.       Change the view drop-down at the top of the Orchestrator client to Design.

2.       Click the blue Workflows tab (this tab should be selected by default, but ensure it is selected, and click it if necessary)

3.       Right-click the top-level node. This node is named according to the logged in user, for example “administrator @ server-fqdn”

4.       Click “Add Folder…”

5.       Enter the folder name “vRO Examples”

6.       Click OK

Repeat these steps to create a folder underneath the vRO Examples folder named “First Workflow.”  Right-click the vRO Examples folder and click “Add Folder…” to create the folder at this level instead of the top level.

Create the workflow by following these steps:

1.       Right-click the First Workflow folder

2.       Click New workflow

3.       Enter the name “First Workflow”

4.       Click OK to create the workflow

Figure 1. Creating a new workflow in the newly created folders

The workflow is now created, but is empty.  The next step is to modify the workflow definition in the workflow editor window that automatically displays after creating a new workflow.

For this workflow, we will simply create a “Hello World” style example, which when run, logs “Hello World” to the output.

Follow these steps to modify the workflow content:

1.       Click the Schema tab

2.       Click and drag “Scriptable task” from the left pane onto the right-pane canvas area, dropping it on the blue arrow which connects the green start node to the black and white end node.

3.       In the bottom pane, the scriptable task node information is displayed.

4.       Click the Scripting tab in the bottom pane

5.       In the script area, type the following content:

System.log("Hello World");

6.       In the top pane, click the Run button, located directly above the new workflow schema diagram.

7.       A new pane is now displayed on the right side of the workflow editor window, which shows workflow run information, including the General, Variables, and Logs tabs.

8.       Click the Logs tab.

9.       Verify the following information was displayed as a result of the workflow run:

[2018-06-15 13:36:11.209] [I] Hello World

NOTE: the date and time will vary depending on when you run the workflow.

10.   Click the Save and close button located at the bottom right corner of the workflow editor window.

11.   In the Add to Version History popup window, click the Increase version button.

The completed workflow schema should look as follows:

Figure 2. Workflow schema shown after successful execution, with scriptable task selected and script content displayed

Congratulations!  You just created your first, albeit extremely simple, workflow.

As a result of this exercise you should be familiar with the vRealize Orchestrator client user interface on a very basic level.  There are a lot of advanced things you can do, but the workflow tree and editor are two of the most used areas of the client and getting familiar with them early is crucial to success with vRealize Orchestrator.