Freestyle Orchestrator

Use Omnissa Freestyle Orchestrator in Omnissa Intelligence (using Workflows) to automate actions from third-party services and connectors you've integrated and registered with Omnissa Intelligence. To use workflows, register your service or connector and then configure the workflow with specific triggers and actions.

What is Freestyle Orchestrator?

Freestyle Orchestrator is a low code, no code workflow platform that helps IT admins automate complex business use cases by sequencing tasks based on a trigger. Triggers initiate manually, on a schedule, or automatically caused by events from a number of connectors (Omnissa Workspace ONE or third-party services).

Before you use Freestyle, ensure your Workspace ONE instance is fully configured by setting up all your data source and workflow connectors. Authorize your Workspace ONE and third party connectors in the Integrations section.

Workflow components

To get the most out of your workflow experience, it's important to have an understanding of the building blocks within a workflow. A workflow consists of a trigger caused by a state change or trend that initiates a set action through Workspace ONE or an integrated third-party service.

Triggers

The Freestyle capabilities in Omnissa Intelligence monitor incoming and existing data that trigger a workflow. You can customize the workflow to act on unique scenarios in your Workspace ONE environment and third-party services. The triggers act on states that reflect their configuration immediately after you save them. Workflows can then monitor data for state changes and act as configured.

Actions

Workflows offer many actions that help solve problems related to daily IT tasks, deployment, and compliance across Workspace ONE and third-party products. The workflow engine executes actions in a sequential order based on the configuration within the workflow canvas.

Conditions

Workflows use conditions to add further evaluation and alternate execution paths mid-workflow.

Groups

Workflows offer groupings so that you can organize workflow actions into groups. The workflow engine executes actions in the group in parallel rather than sequentially. Each group gets a unique name which is convenient for filtering in logs. You can have a maximum of five actions in a group.

The failure of an action in a group does not affect the other actions in the group. However, the workflow engine cancels actions defined outside and after the group that included any action failure.

Wait

Workflows offer the ability to pause a workflow to account for extra time needed after an action or a condition.

Workflow limits

• You can add up to 10 actions to your workflows. If you add more than 10 actions, the system displays an error and you cannot save and use the workflow.
• You can have a maximum of 100 workflows in your organization.

Advantages to using the Automatic trigger setting

The Automatic trigger setting is effective for acting on both time series data and on snapshot data. The table illustrates the advantage of using the Automatic trigger setting over the Schedule trigger setting. The workflow that uses the Automatic trigger setting gets a single notification for all devices immediately. However, the workflow that uses a Schedule trigger setting receives notifications when the workflow executes.

Warnings for changing attributes

Certain attributes, such as Device Last Seen, change frequently and are ignored for automatically triggered workflows.

• Changes to these attributes will not trigger a workflow run.
• During workflow creation, the UI displays a warning message if you use an affected attribute so that you know to select another attribute.
  

Creating workflows

To create workflows, ensure the services and connectors you want to use are registered with Intelligence. Then, set up a workflow using the registered services and connectors.

Step 1: Register services and connectors

Add third-party services, managed connectors, or custom connectors so that you can use their actions in workflows. See the applicable topic to learn how to register the connector.

• Data Sources: Some available data sources include Omnissa Workspace ONE UEM, Trust Network integrations, and Horizon.
  
• Workflow Connectors: Some available connectors include Custom Connectors, Workspace ONE Hub Services, Omnissa Access, ServiceNow, and Slack Web API.

Step 2: Set up a workflow

Start automating your IT environment by setting up a workflow using the workflow canvas.

1. In Intelligence, navigate to Workspace > Freestyle > General > Add Workflow.
   
2. Enter a name for your workflow.
3. Set up the trigger with the desired data source or explore templates for new ideas.
   • If starting from a template, use the filters or search to narrow the template based on your use case.
   • For example, you can select the options Devices > Battery and select from the listed templates.
4. Select the Trigger Settings.
   Important:When you use Manual or Schedule trigger types, a Run button displays to allow manual execution as needed. Due to throttling limits, you cannot perform this action more than once per hour for the same workflow.
   • Automatic: Automatically execute the workflow when incoming events match the trigger rule. Select whether this trigger should execute on existing data upon save or only on new incoming data.
     • This menu item is supported for all integration types.
     • Automatic triggers act on real time event data as it is received from the selected data source.
     • See the section Advantages to using the Automatic trigger setting for details on the advantages of this trigger setting.
   • Schedule: Define when the workflow runs.
     • The data from the reports data warehouse provides snapshot and historical data for Freestyle when setting up scheduled workflows.
     • Scheduled workflows do not run until the Starts At time is reached. After that, they execute based on the configured recurrence interval, including when you resave an existing scheduled workflow.
   • Manual: Execute the workflow on-demand (good for one-time actions).
     • The data from the reports data warehouse provides snapshot and historical data for Freestyle when setting up manual, one-time workflows.
5. Work with the Potential Impact results for Manual or Schedule Trigger Settings in the Workflow Settings area.
   • Select Evaluate Potential Impact.
   • Select View Details to access the Potential Impact panel.
   • Use Group by to group the data by data attributes. For example, you can group data by device data or app data.
   • Use the arrow to close the Potential Impact panel.
   • Access the panel anytime during the creation of the workflow to help fine tune your filters.
6. Configure the Trigger Rule with the desired attributes. This step is critical because the workflow targets the data set based on the selected data source and data filter.
   
7. Add an action by dragging and dropping the Action icon from the components on the left or using the + Add Step icon on the canvas.
   • The workflow performs this action when it identifies the trigger.
   • You can add up to 10 actions.
   • You can also add conditions and groups depending on how you want the workflow to execute.
     
8. Select a Connector and choose an available action from that connector.
9. Save the workflow. See the activation toggle for the workflow near the name. You can activate the workflow at any time.
   • Save: Use this menu item to save your work for when you are ready to execute the workflow. Saving does not start the workflow mechanism.
   • Enable Workflow: Use this menu item to activate the workflow. It immediately scans data and acts on filters that match the configured criteria. It then continues to monitor data for the criteria and continues to execute actions accordingly.
     

Potential Impact

The potential impact is the number of all targets that match the filter at the moment, and its results depend on the Trigger Settings selected.

• Automatic - The potential impact displays all targets, but the workflow executes only for new targets that haven't been included in a previous run.
• Schedule - The potential impact includes all targets at the time of execution.
• Manual - The displayed number of potential impacts are the actual number of targets for which the automation runs.

Where to find it

During the creation of a workflow, you can access potential impact results in the Workflow Settings area for workflows set with Schedule and Manual Trigger Settings.

You can also find the Potential Impact as a tile on the Overview tab of your workflows or use the Potential Impact tab in your workflows to see targets that match your filters.

Behaviors

• Upon saving a workflow with Trigger Settings set as Automatic with a one-time manual run, Schedule, or Manual, the system evaluates the potential impact.
• If it detects an excessive target count, it displays a warning message to alert you to revisit the filter so that you can rework the filter.
• You have the option to accept the warning and proceed if you determine the workflow is configured to operate as desired.
• Although a target displays in the potential impact preview, if its status changes and it no longer matches the trigger rule, it is no longer a target and Intelligence does not include it when the workflow runs.

Wait

Omnissa Intelligence offers the Wait function to use in Freestyle Orchestrator so that you can define a delay step within workflows, offering precise, built-in control over execution timing.

Limitations

• The maximum total wait time per workflow is 1 hour.
• You cannot place a wait as the last step in a workflow.
• You cannot use a wait in a Group.

Benefits

Add a wait step in your workflows to allow time for a device to reboot, to wait for a configuration to propagate, or to space out actions to avoid overwhelming downstream systems.

Behaviors

• Add a Wait step anywhere in the workflow canvas, except as the last step in a workflow or inside a Group.
• Specify a duration up to 1 hour per workflow.
• The workflow pauses after the preceding step completes successfully, then continues automatically.
• The Wait step displays as a Service Type of SYSTEM_WAIT in run history and is fully tracked in execution logs.

What is the difference between Workflows and a compliance engine?

• Workflows - Its decision engine acts on triggers from devices and applications to automate actions across the digital workspace environment.
  • You can extend the decision engine to third-party services. Use the Freestyle platform to define workflows for device-category scenarios like battery percent and ownership and to install applications and other resources in your Workspace ONE deployment.
  • You can also use it in scenarios that encompass various facets of your Workspace ONE deployment. Use it to install or remove applications and profiles for security, notify interested teams about workflows, and extend these capabilities to third-party solutions.
• Compliance - Its engine acts on closed-loop workflows where a user can have resources returned after becoming compliant again.
  • Use compliance in scenarios focused on remediation and device state.
  • Use it to force devices to comply with mandated security policies. Remove resources until devices comply with set compliance rules that return them to a working state.

FedRAMP consideration

The NIST Special Publication 800-47 Rev.1: Managing the Security of Information Exchanges defines a system interconnection as the direct connection of two or more IT systems for the purpose of sharing data and other information resources.

Connecting IT systems is a customer configured capability. Before you connect IT systems in Omnissa Intelligence, discuss the risks of connecting non-FedRAMP accredited information systems with your Authorizing Official. Workspace ONE on AWS GovCloud, and by extension, Intelligence is a FedRAMP High, accredited information system. When you connect information systems to other systems with different security requirements and controls, carefully consider the risks.

Contact the Federal Support line (877-869-2730 OPTION 2) or submit a support request using Customer Connect for more details and to enable customer-controlled third party connections to other systems.