Both tasks and
workflows can have any number of input and output variables (inputs and
outputs).
Any task or workflow
input can be either mandatory or optional. A task or workflow cannot run
without all of its mandatory inputs. You define whether an input is mandatory
or optional when you create the task or workflow.
Input and Output
Types
There are many input
types defined in
Cisco UCS
Director representing a broad selection of categorical, numeric, and text
parameters. For example, some existing data types are:
You choose existing
input types from a list that displays a name, type, and category for each
variable. The list can be filtered to make finding a given data type
manageable.
If none of the
existing data types serves your need in a particular application, it is
possible to create custom data types by defining restrictions on existing data
types.
Connecting
Inputs and Outputs
When you construct
workflows, you connect an output of one task to the input of another task. For
example, consider the following two tasks:
-
A
Create
User task that produces a
user
ID as an output.
-
An
Add User
to Group task that takes a
group
ID and a
user
ID as input.
In this instance,
you would position Task 1 before Task 2, feeding the
user
ID output of Task 1 to the
user
ID input of Task 2.
A workflow's inputs
and outputs connect to the inputs and outputs of one or more of its tasks.
User and
Administrator Inputs
Administrator
inputs (admin
inputs) are default values specified at the time a workflow is defined.
When defining the workflow the administrator can also allow users to override a
default value.
Workflow
user
inputs are inputs with values specified by a human user at runtime. User
inputs can have default values. A user has the option of accepting a default
input or overriding it. If the input is mandatory and no default value is
specified, the user must input a value.
Instead of dictating
a specific input value, an administrator can place restrictions on a user input
value when creating a workflow. For example, an admin can restrict the values
of an IP address input to a certain range. In this case the IP address is still
a user input, but with a restricted range of allowable values.
Some workflows must
have admin inputs defined for all of their mandatory inputs. This is the case
when workflows are run without human intervention—For example, when a system is
configured to run a scheduled workflow at a specific time.