Introduction to extending HCL Workload Automation

Event-driven workload automation

Event-driven workload automation is a feature of HCL Workload Automation which you use to trigger HCL Workload Automation or external actions when HCL Workload Automation events or external events occur.

Event actions are started automatically when they are triggered because a certain event condition took place. An event condition and the corresponding action are normally defined in an event rule. When a rule is active, this means that a monitoring device runs to detect if the event defined in the rule takes place. When the event is detected, the action defined in the rule is started.

See the section on running event-driven workload automation Running event-driven workload automation for more information.

HCL Workload Automation comes supplied with a useful set of event conditions and actions which you configure into event rules. However, if these are not sufficient for your uses, you can use the Integration Workbench to create Java™ plug-ins for event conditions and event actions to perform the required tasks.

For example, suppose you want to send a Java Message Service message when a job stream fails. You can create a Java plug-in to perform this service, implement it in HCL Workload Automation and combine it in an event rule with the appropriate condition in the Dynamic Workload Console.

Custom job types with advanced options

When you create a job definition you have the choice of job types between those with standard options and those with advanced options. These latter are implemented differently than the job types with standard options, in these ways:

• They require the dynamic agent to be installed on the workstation where they are to be run
• They are implemented by a separate plug-in for each type.

For example, File Transfer type jobs can be run only on workstations where the dynamic agent is installed, and are run by a File Transfer plug-in.

If you have a job with characteristics that cannot be accommodated within the job types predefined in HCL Workload Automation or IBM Workload Scheduler for z/OS (as appropriate), you can create a plug-in with the required characteristics. Once implemented in the product it then becomes available for selection as a job type in the Dynamic Workload Console.

Java jobs

When you define a new scheduling job in HCL Workload Automation or IBM Workload Scheduler for z/OS, one of the job types you can choose is "Java". For each Java job you choose to define, you identify:

• A jar containing the Java classes and methods you want to run on the target workstation (on which the dynamic agent must be installed)
• A set of parameters to be used as input to those classes and methods

The Java project to be run can do more or less what you want it to, but to make this option effective you must follow a set of rules, which are described in this publication.