OK here is one I had some major issues with. I have to very kindly thank Gary over at http://extendingclouds.com for the help he gave me via a webex after dropping him a line on his blog (that was above and beyond). I also have to tip my hat to Sam at http://www.definit.co.uk/ who was a massive help when working with me, and pointed me in the direction I needed to go…because to be honest I didn’t have a clue!!!

This guide assumes you have already ran the “Configure an Active Directory Server” in vCO and that you are able to browse your domain when you go to the Administer view, and select Active Directory.

So firstly you are going to want to create a Workflow Template, use this step by step here from Gary http://extendingclouds.com/2014/03/08/utilizing-the-vcac-workflow-template/

You can test the Workflow Template is working by assigning the ID of the workflow to a Blueprint in Properties à Custom Properties

This workflow is going to run when we build a machine so this is why we add the workflow to ExternalWFStubs.BuildingMachine

When you provision a machine now from this blueprint if you go into vCO you should see that the workflow has run:

If you then check the logs of the successfully ran workflow, you can see all of the properties that vCO has listed for the VM:

OK so that proves the Workflow Template is running and that you can pull out information required.

What I then did was Duplicate that workflow, and start to edit it so that I could pre-stage the VM to be a member of a specific OU:

Please note there may well be a much more efficient way to achieve this and I would be very happy to hear from someone with an idea, however my coding skills are pretty much non-existent, so this is how I go it to work.

On the newly create (duplicated) workflow click edit:

Give it a name. Then add 3 attributes:

Name            Type                    Value
customOU         AD:OrganisationalUnit            Browse to the OU where you want the VM (please note this is why you must have previously added an AD Server)
machineName        string
domainName        string                    DC=ccrashers,DC=local

Then go to Schema and create a new Scriptable Task:

Assign Local Parameters

IN

Local Paramter: vCACVm
Source Parameter: vCACVm [in-parameter]
Type: vCAC:VirtualMachine
Description: vCAC Virtual Machine

OUT

Local Paramter: machineName
Source Parameter: machineName [attribute]
Type: string

Visual Binding

In Parameters                In        Out            Out Attribute
vCACVm vCAC:VirtualMachine    vCACVm    machineName        machineName

Scripting

machineName = vCACVm.virtualMachineName;

 

Now the scriptable task is complete I then call the built in workflow under all workflow:

IN

Local Parameter            Source Parameter            Type
ou                customOU [attribute]            AD:OrganizationalUnit
computerName        machineName [attribute]        string
domainName            domainName [attribute]        string

OUT

Local Parameter            Source Parameter                    Type
newCOmputer                newComputer.newComputer[out-parameter]        AD:ComputerAD

Visual Binding

In Attributes                    In            Out                    Out Parameters
customOU    AD:OrganizationalUnit        ou            newCOmputer AD:ComputerAD    newComputer.newComputer
machineName    string                computerName
domainName    string                domainName

Now when I assign this workflow to a blueprint, the new VM is provisioning and a computer account is create in an OU call vCAC Servers on my domain.

Please if anyone knows a better way to do this or has any questions drop me a line, I got through this with lots of help from others so if I can help someone else then all the better.

Good bye for now.

Dean

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