Cisco UCS Director Orchestrator offers a list of well-defined input types for custom tasks. Cisco UCS Director also enables you to create a customized workflow input for a custom workflow task. You can create a new input type by cloning and modifying an existing input type.

Before writing custom tasks, you must meet the following prerequisites:

• Cisco UCS Director is installed and running on your system. For more information about how to install Cisco UCS Director, refer to the Cisco UCS Director Installation and Configuration Guide.

• You have a login with administrator privileges. You must use this login when you create and modify custom tasks.

When you create a custom task, rather than typing in the custom task code into the script window or cutting and pasting code from your favorite editor, you can import the code from a file stored in a Git repository. To do this, you:

1. Create one or more text files in a Git repository, either in public Github or your own private enterprise Git repository.

2. Register the repository in Cisco UCS Director.

3. Select the repository and specify the text file that contains the custom task script.

To Register the repository in Cisco UCS Director, see Adding a Git Repository in UCS Director.

To select the repository and text file, see Downloading Custom Task Script Code Using Git.

You are prompted to save the file.

Edit the custom workflow task to ensure that the proper name and description are in place for the cloned task.

The following code example demonstrates how to implement the controller functionality in custom workflow tasks using the various methods — beforeMarshall, afterMarshall, beforeUnmarshall and afterUnmarshall.

/*
Method Descriptions:

Before Marshall: Use this method to add or set an input field and dynamically create and set the LOV on a page(form). 
After Marshall: Use this method to hide or unhide an input field.
Before UnMarshall: Use this method to convert an input value from one form to another form, for example, when you want to encrypt the password before sending it to the database.
After UnMarshall: Use this method to validate a user input and set the error message on the page.

*/

//Before Marshall: 

/*
Use the beforeMarshall method when there is a change in the input field or to dynamically create LOVs and to set the new input field on the form before it gets loaded.
 In the example below, a new input field 'portList' is added on the page before the form is displayed in a browser.
*/
importPackage(com.cloupia.model.cIM);
importPackage(java.util);
importPackage(java.lang);

var portList = new ArrayList();
var lovLabel = "eth0";
var lovValue = "eth0";

var portListLOV = new Array();
portListLOV[0] = new FormLOVPair(lovLabel, lovValue);//create the lov input field
//the parameter 'page' is used to set the input field on the form
page.setEmbeddedLOVs(id + ".portList",  portListLOV);// set the input field on the form
=============================================================================================================

//After Marshall :
/*
Use this method to hide or unhide an input field.
*/
page.setHidden(id + ".portList",  true); //hide the input field 'portList'. 
page.setValue(id + ".status", "No Port is up.  Port List is Hidden");
page.setEditable(id + ".status", false);

=============================================================================================================

//Before Unmarshall :

/*
  Use the beforeUnMarshall method to read the user input and convert it to another form before inserting into the database. For example, you can read the password and store the password in the database after converting it into base64 encoding, or read the employee name and convert to the employee Id when the employee name is sent to the database.
  
In the code example below the lun size is read and converted into an ASCII value.
  
*/
importPackage(org.apache.log4j);
importPackage(java.lang);
importPackage(java.util);

var size = page.getValue(id + ".lunSize");
var logger = Logger.getLogger("my logger"); 

if(size != null){
                logger.info("Size value "+size); 
                if((new java.lang.String(size)).matches("\\d+")){
                                var byteValue = size.getBytes("US-ASCII"); //convert the lun size and get the  ASCII character array
                                var asciiValueBuilder = new StringBuilder();
                                for (var i = 0; i < byteValue.length; i++) {
                                                asciiValueBuilder.append(byteValue[i]);
                                }
                                var asciiValue = asciiValueBuilder.toString()+" - Ascii value"
                                //id + ".lunSize" is the identifier of the input field
                                page.setValue(id + ".lunSize",asciiValue); //the parameter 'page' is used to set the value on the input field .
                                pojo.setLunSize(asciiValue); //set the value on the pojo. This pojo will be send to DB or external device.
                }
} 

=============================================================================================================
// After unMarshall :

/*
Use this method to validate and set an error message.
*/
importPackage(org.apache.log4j);
importPackage(java.lang);
importPackage(java.util);

//var size = pojo.getLunSize();
var size = page.getValue(id + ".lunSize");
var logger = Logger.getLogger("my logger"); 
logger.info("Size value "+size); 
if (size > 50) { //validate the size
                page.setError(id+".lunSize", "LUN Size can not be more than 50MB "); //set the error message on the page
                page.setPageMessage("LUN Size can not be more than 50MB");
                //page.setPageStatus(2);
} 

You can use the output of a previous task as an input for an another task in a workflow directly from the script of a custom task and an Execute Cloupia Script task of the task library.

To access this output, you can use one of the following ways:

• Retrieve the variable from the workflow context using the getInput() method.

• Refer to the output using system variable notation.

To retrieve an output using the context getInput() method, use:

var name = ctxt.getInput("PreviousTaskName.outputFieldName");

For example:

var name = ctxt.getInput("custom_task1_1684.NAME"); // NAME is the name of the task1 output field that you want to access

To retrieve an output using system variable notation, use:

var name = "${PreviousTaskName.outputFieldName}";

For example:

var name = "${custom_task1_1684.NAME}"; // NAME is the name of the task1 output field that you want to access