PowerShell based batch processing with the Atria Job Runner

Scheduling PowerShell Jobs

Applies to Atria 15.2 or later

Purpose

PowerShell is a popular and powerful scripting language that is well known by  Microsoft administrators.  

Atria has the ability to schedule PowerShell jobs that can be centrally managed from within Atria.

For more information about the Jobs service, please see this KB - Job Management (Batch Processes)

Deployment

If the extension is available, the "PowerShell" job type will appear in the Job Type drop down menu. If it does not appear like the below, follow these steps.

1. log on to the platform provisioning engine

2. Start an elevated PowerShell session

3. Run the following command

       Import-AtriaExtension -Extension PowerShell

This will enable the extension for use.

Configuration

The configuration is in JSON format and has the following parameters:

filename - the filename of the PowerShell script to execute, the path specified must be accessible from the Primary Provisioning Engine server

variables - this can contain any number of parameters that you'd like to feed into your PowerShell script.  

configValues - use to specify any particular value that is stored in the configuration section of the Atria configuration service.

secretValues - use to specify any particular value that is stored in the secrets section of the Atria configuration service - for example, to extract a connection string

environmentConfigValues and environmentSecretValues extract values that are local to the current environment.  

Example Configuration

      
         {
         "fileName": "c:\\helloworld.ps1",
         "variables": {
                "name": "Tester"
         },
         configValues: ["customerid"],
         secretValues: ["connectionstring_OLM"],
         environmentConfigValues: ["environmentid"],
         environmentSecretValues: ["messaging"]
         }
      
   

Secrets

Secret variables are specified using the variables key, the same as the variables key for the configuration section.  In this case, the values will be encrypted and stored.   Use this feature to store things like API tokens, or usernames and passwords that are needed for this specific job.  Note that once entered, you are unable to view the secrets again and the User Interface will show a blank value for any Secrets.

          {
              "variables": {
                     "apiUser": "xeroapi",         
                     "apiPassword": "#6HUj#j89uYt6%d_o)"                
              },            
          }       

Using Parameters and Secrets 

All variables from the configuration and secrets sections will be injected as variables into your PowerShell script at run time.

e.g.

a variable called "customerid" would create the variable $customerid which can be used in the PowerShell script.

the same applies to any variable that is extracted from the config service or specified in the secrets section for the job.

Another useful parameter is the ability to extend the timeout. by default, it is 20 minutes. For more information, please see the KB here - https://support.automate101.com/portal/en/kb/articles/job-runner-timeout-configuration

Writing Log Entries from your Script

The $logger object is provided for you to write log entries back into Atria.

Methods are provided for each of the log levels  AddError, AddWarning, AddInfo, AddDebug and AddVerbose

Each time you log an item, you can provide a unique code and a description.  

Note that The Unique code will be truncated to 20 characters (if longer than 20 characters).

These logger values will be displayed within the output of a Job with the Error code, just like Writing a verbose log or to the host from PowerShell.

Set-Content -Value $Name -Path 'c:\test\name.txt';
Set-Content -Value $Password -Path 'c:\test\password.txt';

$Logger.AddError('MYCODE01', 'This is the user name {0}', $name);
$Logger.AddWarning('MYCODE02', 'This is a warning for user name {0}', $name);
$Logger.AddInfo('MYCODE03', 'This is a info message for user name {0}', $name);
$Logger.AddDebug('MYCODE04', 'This is a debug message for user name {0}', $name);
$Logger.AddVerbose('MYCODE05', 'This is the end of the script');

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