Many custom properties are supplied with vRealize Automation. You can also define new properties to create unique custom properties and provide greater control for provisioning machines.

When you add a property to a blueprint or reservation, you can determine if a user must be prompted for a property value and if the property value must be encrypted.

You can specify how a property is rendered, for example if should display as a checkbox or as a drop-down menu with values obtained from a custom vRealize Orchestrator workflow.

You can also use properties to control how your custom workflows function. For information about using vRealize Automation Designer to define and work with custom workflows, see Life Cycle Extensibility.

Best Practices for Naming Property Definitions

To avoid naming conflicts with supplied vRealize Automation custom properties, use a standard and meaningful prefix for all property names that you create. Use a prefix such as a company or feature name followed by a dot for all new property names. VMware reserves all property names that do not contain a dot (.). Property names that do not follow this recommendation may conflict with vRealize Automation custom properties. In that event, the vRealize Automation custom property takes precedence over property definitions that you create.

Limitations

If you create a property definition where Type equals String, Display as equals Dropdown, and you use a vRealize Orchestrator action that returns properties that populate the drop-down list, the list is in random order. You cannot specify the order.

General Procedures

The following steps describe the general procedure for creating and using new property definitions:

  1. Create a new property definition and associate it with a data type that allows for a specific type of content, such as boolean or integer content. Use a standard naming convention for the new property name such as my_grouping_prefix.my_property_name.
  2. Associate a property definition with a display type, such as a check box or drop-down menu. Available display types are derived from the selected data type.
  3. Add the property to a blueprint either individually or as part of a property group.

    Add the property to a blueprint and specify if the property value must be encrypted.

    Add the property to a blueprint and specify if the user should be prompted to specify a property value.

  4. As a machine requestor, specify required values as prompted.

You can also populate the property value in a drop-down menu by using vRealize Orchestrator script actions. Using vRealize Orchestrator script actions also enables you to populate a drop-down menu value based on the values specified for another property.

You can use the vra content list --type property-definition vRealize CloudClient command to list all property definitions in the current vRealize Automation instance tenant. You can also use the vra content list --type property-group vRealize CloudClient command to list all property groups. You can add some or all of the property definitions and property groups to a package and export the package to a zip file. You can then import the package into another vRealize Automation instance tenant. For more information about vRealize CloudClient and its uses, see the VMware Developer Center at https://developercenter.vmware.com/tool/cloudclient.