Pick OS and User at Runtime

[Kenneth Kordisch]

Right because I work at a few companies, when I make a MDS workflow, I have to basically make it 3 times with 3 different Users… and if they want a different OS that is qualified for the same exact version of the software… then that is 6 different workflows. It is a lot of duplicate data to put on a thumb drive. I propose the ability to make a workflow with multiple user (which can already be done) but then at Imagr runtime, you can select which User you want to be installed. The same thing with OS. A selectable OS at Imagr runtime.

[timothy perfitt]

i like the idea. waiting on more upvotes to prioritize.

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[pexner]

Similar to issue #445 - nested workflows?

[timothy perfitt]

i understand that duplicating 3 workflows is not a great way to do it, but it also would make the imagr interface more complex (have to provide a way to “override”.

I have been thinking about this a bunch lately, and nested workflows don’t see to to completely solve the problem either. I have been thinking about “tags” and how resources (like users) could be “tagged” and then those tags referenced in other workflows. I am not sure this will actually solve your problems because you’ll still have the same number of workflows.

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Can you explain a bit more about what is different in each workflow? Is it that the user is the same and you have to enter it again? or that you have a large number of workflows? If most of the resources are the same, you could duplicate the workflow and it keeps all the settings the same and you just update. Or is it difficult to make a change to one that doesn’t affect the others?

[Kenneth Kordisch]

The users for each workflow are different. One is for one company, one of for another, one is for resale with predefined user. Wallpapers are different for each user.

Some clients still want to use older OS’s like 10.13.6 because they have the cheese grater Macs and those won’t go up to Mojave or higher without updated GPU’s. Some have the trash can Macs which will we put 10.14.6 on. Etc.

I’ve thought about possibly just making one workflow with all the users and deleting the users that aren’t needed for each job.

[Kenneth Kordisch]

What about some type of separate variable set template in the deployment section (like workflows and remote logs) that can have sets of variable items (like different users, OS, etc) that can then be set in a workflow? For instance, I could make a variable set called “User Selection” to add as many different users that I want. Then I could make a workflow that instead of making a user, I would point to this new variable section.

Same for OS, new variable section could point to a few different OS versions and in the workflow we would tell it to look at the new variable set.

Could also use something like that to point to say a folder of most used pkgs that get installed and in the workflows, have it point to this section to install the items in that folder. It would save having to have those pkgs in each workflow repository folder.

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[Kenneth Kordisch]

Or a grouping or folder feature in the workflows pane where we can add different workflows to segment specific ones.

[timothy perfitt]

nesting involves some risks since it changes the basic operation of how workflows work. perhaps it is better to allow user creation at runtime? or just select? Still don’t see a clear path.

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[Kenneth Kordisch]

Allowing user creation or making a batch of selectable users at runtime would be great. It would cut the number of workflows that I have to have but a lot. That is just a small portion of what we use too. I removed a bunch of workflows and just left the “most used” ones.

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