Monitoring the Deployment of your Freestyle Workflow and Workflow Process
After you save and publish your workflow, you can monitor the deployment of your workflow on your end user devices. You can navigate to the Freestyle Orchestrator dashboard and select any published workflow to view the status of the workflow on all the devices or you can navigate to Devices > Details View and click the Workflows tab to view the status of the workflow on an individual device.
The workflow status is reported to the Workspace ONE UEM console once the device checks-in and the workflow starts running. Later, the workflow status is again reported in the following scenarios:
- Based on the configuration defined in the Settings > Devices > Windows > Intelligent Hub settings page, the completed step statuses for in progress workflows is reported every 30 minutes for Windows devices and every 1 hour for macOS devices. Note: For macOS devices, you cannot configure the frequency of the completed step statuses from the Workspace ONE UEM console.
- When the workflow completes successfully or fails.
- Along with the devices sample
- When the admin clicks the Workflow sync action from the Device details > Actions section.
You can view the status of an entire workflow on a device, or you can view the status of individual steps within a workflow per device. For all the devices assigned with a workflow, you can identify the devices that have successfully run the workflow, devices that are currently processing the workflow, and for the devices that are currently processing the workflow you can view the status of a workflow step and the number of devices that failed to run the workflow. The status of the individual workflows and the workflow steps are defined in the following table.
Table 6-1. Workflow Status
| Workflow Status | Description |
|---|---|
| InProgress | Indicates that the device has received a workflow and the device is waiting to process the workflow or has actively started processing the workflow steps. See the workflow step details to know which step is actively running. |
| Completed | Indicates that the workflow has completed successfully. |
| Failed | Indicates that the workflow has failed to apply the workflow steps on the assigned devices. See the workflow step details to know which step failed to run. |
| Blocked | Indicates that the workflow is in a blocked state. For example, workflows can be blocked due to compliance actions, Windows App deployment agent missing on the device, invalid access token for a script download and so on. |
| CompletedWithException | Indicates that the workflow has completed successfully with one or more exceptions. The steps that the admins select as skip on error in the Error handling section are an exception in such cases. |
Table 6-2. Workflow Step Status
| Workflow Step Status | Description |
|---|---|
| ConditionNotMet | The condition in the workflow step is not met. |
| NotEvaluated | The workflow step is not evaluated. |
| InProgress | The step in the workflow is in progress state. |
| Completed | The step in the workflow is in the completed state. |
| Failed | The step in the workflow is in the failed state. |
| Blocked | The step in the workflow is blocked from running due to an external condition. |
| WaitingForEvent | The step in the workflow is waiting for an event to continue. |
| WaitingToBeRetried | The step in the workflow is waiting to be retried. You might see this workflow step status during the retry timeout period. |
Note: A device reports the workflow status and the corresponding workflow step status when there is a change in the workflow state or when an admin or an end user initiates a device sync.
Workflow Process
When you publish a workflow, the devices receive the workflow during the next device check-in. By default, both Windows and macOS devices check-in every 4 hours for any device updates. But the check-in time for the devices in your environment might be staggered, so you must observe approximately 30 devices checking in every second.
Note: If a workflow is published to less than 2000 devices, then a notification is sent to the devices to check-in immediately. This enables your testing and pilot programs to run faster without any delays due to staggered check-ins.
Workflow Process upon Device Check-in
When the device checks-in with the Workspace ONE UEM, the device receives all information about the device entitlements and the system identifies the new or updated workflows. The device receives information about the updated or new workflows and starts running multiple workflows simultaneously.
Within a single workflow, the system fetches additional information about each step, depending on the resource, that is, if step 1 of the workflow includes app install, then the system fetches the app manifest. After evaluating the status of the previous step’s completion, the system starts performing the next step in the workflow.
If a workflow step includes installing a group of resources, then all the resources within the group will start installing simultaneously. If a step in a workflow fails, the status of the step and the workflow will be marked as Failed unless the admin configured the option to Skip step on error. In this case, the workflow status is marked as Completed with exceptions.
If a step contains conditions, the conditions are evaluated to decide the next workflow path. The sensors are also re-run before evaluating the condition.
The workflow engine evaluates any time window conditions before starting each step under the time window branch.
Running Workflows without an Active User
The Windows devices check-in, fetch, and run the workflows even when there is no user actively logged in. All the resources that are configured on the admin console as System context are run even without an active user. When the workflow step contains a User context resource, the workflow will stop running and the status is updated as Blocked, and the status is sent to the admin console with a message Waiting for user login. In a workflow if there is a condition with Evaluate without user option then the condition is evaluated without an active user enrolled otherwise, the status of the workflow is updated as Blocked.
### Workflow Status Updates
When the workflow starts running on the device, the first status is sent to the Workspace ONE UEM admin console immediately. In addition to the first workflow status, the completion (successful or failed) alerts are also sent to the Workspace ONE UEM admin console immediately. Additional step status updates of in-progress workflows are sent to the Workspace ONE UEM console at a default rate of 30 minutes for Windows devices and 1 hour for macOS devices.
Note: The beginning and completion alerts of workflows are grouped every 3 to 7 minutes on each device.
Coexistence of Direct Assignments and Workflow Assignments for Resources
Resources such as apps, profiles, and scripts are deployed to the devices through the workflows or direct resource assignments. Admins can select a smart group and assign any app, profile, or script directly or admins can create a workflow of multiple resources and assign the workflow to a smart group.
VMware recommends you deliver your resources to the devices either through direct resource assignments or by workflows, but not both. However, Workspace ONE UEM is built to support assignments from both the delivery systems. Devices receive the resources if the devices have assignments from at least one system.
### Applications in Workspace ONE Intelligent Hub App Catalog
Applications are visible to the end-users only when the apps are directly assigned and the Show in catalog option is enabled. Using the workflow assignment, an admin can choose to display the entire workflow on an end-user catalog but cannot display the individual apps.
### Deleting a Workflow
When a workflow associated with a resource is deleted but the direct app assignment still exists, then the app is not removed from the device and the assignment status shows as Assigned.
Note: If a device only had a workflow assignment, the resource is not removed from the device, but the assignment status gets updated to Not Assigned.
Deleting a Resource Assigned through Direct Assignment
When a direct assignment associated with a resource is deleted but the workflow assignment still exists, the resources are not removed from devices and the assignment status shows as Assigned.
Device Details and App Details Page
Admins can trigger install and remove actions for apps and profiles from the Device Details page and the Apps Details page when the assignments are made directly or through workflows.
