Activity

In OpsChain, an activity is an umbrella term that covers both changes and workflow runs:

• A change is the application of an action from a specific Git revision to a particular project, environment or asset. Each change is made up of one or more steps that execute the action and any prerequisites or child actions it defines.
• A workflow run is the execution of a workflow - an ordered series of changes, wait steps, approval steps and other workflows organised into stages.

The activity screen lists every change and workflow run available to you across all projects, environments and assets.

Understanding the activity screen

A table view is presented upon accessing the activity screen. This view organises changes and workflow runs into a structured table that displays key information at a glance.

Activity details

Each row includes:

Column	Description
Target	Indicates the project, environment or asset against which the activity was run.
Action	The action that was executed.
Status	Shows the current status of the activity with colour-coded indicators.
Scheduled	Whether the activity was triggered by a schedule or manually by a user.
Started by	The user who initiated the activity.
Last updated	Timestamp for when the activity was last updated - its last status transition.
Metadata	The metadata for the activity.
Revision	The Git reference used for the activity either as Git repository + revision name or the template version name for changes. It shows the workflow version for workflow runs.

Buttons & links

Buttons & links	Function
Bulk actions	Allows you to cancel multiple activities at once.
Search bar	Filter the contents of the table with free text search based on multiple criteria, such as metadata, parent code, created by, Git revision, etc.
Filters	Filter the contents of the table with dedicated filters for each column.
Apply button	Applies the filters to the table and refreshes the table contents.
Clear button	Clears all the filters and refreshes the table contents.
Columns	Hide or display columns in the table.

Combining filters

You can combine all these filters to find specific activities. After applying the filters, the URL is easily shareable with other users to allow them to see the same filtered view.

Note that each user will only be able to see the activities they have access to.

Navigating to activity details

Click on a specific activity row in the table and you will be taken to the details screen for more in-depth information about that activity. See the activity details UI reference guide.

Searching by metadata

The filters at the top of the activity table allows you to search by various criteria, so you can find every change tagged with (for example) a particular ticket number. Metadata is attached to a change in the Metadata tab of the run-change dialog and is also accessible from inside your actions.rb via the OpsChain context. See change metadata for the underlying concept.

Running an activity

Run change

To initiate a new change:

1. Click the run -> run change button.
2. If you open the run change dialog from within a project, environment or asset, its details will be automatically populated in the form. You can still modify any of these details in the form:
   • Project, environment or asset - the target the change will run against. Properties and settings cascade from project to environment to asset, so the target you pick determines the configuration the change will see.
   • Action - the action defined in your actions.rb (or in a MintModel template) that this change will execute.
   • Git remote and Git revision - required when running a change on a project or environment. Assets are already linked to a Git remote and Git revision through their asset template version, so these fields are not shown for asset changes.
3. After selecting a project, the environment and asset dropdowns will be populated with the available environments and assets for the project. If an environment is selected, the asset dropdown will be populated with the available assets for the environment.
4. If you'd like to schedule the change, you can do so by using the Schedule tab.
5. You can add custom notification settings for the change using the Notify tab.
6. You can add properties overrides for the change using the Properties overrides tab. These overrides apply only to this change and do not modify the target's stored properties.
7. You can add settings overrides for the change using the Settings overrides tab. These overrides apply only to this change and do not modify the target's stored settings.
8. Also, you can add comments and other information in the Metadata tab. You can later use the metadata to filter the activity table.
9. Confirm the creation by clicking the Run change button.

Once the change is created, it will automatically appear in the activity or scheduled activity tables. You will be able to see the change being executed and the progress of the execution. You can also view the specific details for any change that is running.

Run workflow

To initiate a new workflow run:

1. Click the run -> run workflow button.
2. Fill in all the mandatory details in the form, such as project, workflow, and published workflow version.
3. After selecting a project, the workflow dropdown will be populated with the available workflows for the project. Only workflows that have been published at least once will be available.
4. Once a workflow is selected, the published workflow version dropdown will be populated with the workflow's published versions.
5. If you'd like to schedule the workflow run, you can do so in the Schedule tab.
6. You can add custom notification settings for the workflow run using the Notify tab.
7. You can add properties overrides for the workflow run using the Properties overrides tab. These overrides apply only to this workflow run and do not modify the target's stored properties.
8. Also, you can add comments for this specific workflow run in the Comments text area. You can later filter the activity table by the text in the comments.
9. Confirm the creation by clicking the Run workflow button.

Once the workflow run is created, it will automatically appear in the activity or scheduled activity tables. You will be able to see the workflow run being executed and the progress of the execution. You can also view the specific details for any workflow run that is running.