vRealize Orchestrator 7.6!
vRealize Orchestrator 7.6 is out, so I thought I would write a quick post about a few of the cool new features that I have discovered, whilst working with this version over the last few days.
Debugging Code
One of the newest features in vRO 7.6 is the enhancement in debugging code. You can debug workflow runs by inserting breakpoints in the script of workflow items. Just click on the left hand side of the line you want to break and a red circle will appear, showing that the code will be stopped at that particular point when executing the code in debugging mode.
The Watch Expressions section is available when executing your workflow in debug mode, this allows you to monitor the values of variables over time. As the name implies, Watch Expressions aren’t just limited to variables. You can store any valid JavaScript expression in a Watch Expression
This is very useful when checking the value of variables inside your scriptable task in real time. As a simple example, I can check whether my variable ‘sum’ is a string and whether it ever changes. Note that I use parseInt() method to convert ‘sum’ and we can see the watch expression up date in real time.
I can even edit the values of my variable items in debug mode, to test variations of what the code will do.
One thing to note, is to make sure you either continue through the breakpoints you have selected in debug mode by selecting ‘Continue’ or Cancel the run. Otherwise you will have a-lot of workflow’s staying in the ‘running’ status.
Properties Type
Another useful feature, is that we can inject data into properties at runtime. In previous version of vRO, if you had an input property of type ‘Properties’, you couldn’t inject data as a key/value pair during execution. This was quite annoying when developing a workflow for example that was using the ‘payload’ from vRA via EBS. Being able to test your workflow by injecting data into a Payload properties makes it easier during development. There is also a cleaner view of these properties when looking at the Attribute tab.
Version History
Although you have been able to update versions of workflows & actions into major.minor.revision when appropriate. Now, all changes that are saved, are captured separately, so that you can quickly and easily view the differences in the previous saved version as JSON format and restore to the previous version. Example below is differences in a workflow where a new attribute was created.
