Key Components of Automation Policies

Automation policies have the same key components.
Key components of automation policies
Component
Description
Trigger
Initiates the evaluation of an automation policy.
Notification Server provides the following triggers:
  • Schedule
    Any Notification Server schedule, such as a shared schedule or a specified custom schedule. You cannot use maintenance windows (which are defined on the managed computers) as automation policy triggers.
  • Message
    An internal Notification Server message. These are sent when events of interest occur. For example, a resource created, a resource discovered, a resource deleted, a new computer discovered, or a Notification Server service started.
Data Source
Provides information that the automation policy uses after it has been triggered. The data source is typically a report or a query that returns a list of computers, along with information about the state of each computer and its current settings that are relevant to the policy. The report or query is run when the policy is triggered to ensure that the most recent data is extracted.
The data source defines the managed computers that are targeted by the policy and the actions that are performed on them. An automation policy may also extract parameters from the data source and use them as input parameters for tasks or jobs.
Notification Server provides the following data sources:
  • Report
  • Raw SQL Query
    If you select this option, you need the
    Edit SQL Directly
    privilege to be able to edit the data source query and view the query results.
  • Resource Query
  • Message
  • None
Solutions may add additional data sources.
Evaluation Rule
Evaluates the data that is contained in the data source and determines whether or not an action needs to be performed.
Notification Server provides the following evaluation rules:
  • Run for non-empty data
  • Run for each record
  • Message processing
  • Run always
Action
Specifies the task or job that the policy runs. These are standard agent or server-side tasks. The action may include input parameters that are passed from the data source.