Parts two and three of this series looked at passing input parameters into playbooks, and how to work with the Automate workspace. This article discusses how an Ansible playbook can be effectively used in a state machine.

Part one of this series described the functionality for using built-in roles to perform tasks with Ansible playbooks rather than Ruby methods in Fine. Part two of this series looked at how host lists and input parameters can be passed to embedded Ansible playbook services and methods. This article will discuss how a playbook method can form part of a larger automation workflow by interacting with the ManageIQ Automate workspace.

Part one of this series described the manageiq_automate and manageiq_vmdb roles that can be used by a playbook to interact with a ManageIQ workflow.

This is the first of four blog posts in a series written by Peter McGowan about Embedded Ansible capabilities released in ManageIQ Fine.

CloudForms 4.6 provided the ability to run embedded Ansible playbooks as methods, and it can be useful to include such a playbook in an existing workflow such as the VM Provision state machine.