Create a new Automation Manager policy

Automation Manager opens in a separate window from N-able N-central and provides a quick and easy drag-and-drop interface for working with Automation Policies.

You can also use custom properties with Automation Manager policies that pulls in the appropriate customer or device-specific information, rather than creating separate Automation Manager policies per customer, or per device. Automation policies can also set the property for devices. For example, a policy can run based on a property of "Maintenance required". After completion of the task, the automation policy can change the property to "Maintenance completed. Automation policies cannot update customer-level properties.

Please consider these key points when using Automation Manager:

  • When creating a policy with a large number of objects, the Automation Manager Designer will be slow to respond. N-able suggests that you split these larger policies into smaller ones and combine them using Run Policy objects.
  • Policy files larger than 10MB cannot be uploaded through the Automation Manager Designer. Policy files larger than 20MB cannot be uploaded through N-able N-central.
  • If you try to run two policies containing SSH objects at the same time, then unexpected errors can occur. For example, the first policy can send commands in the SSH session created by the second policy. These errors occur because a class which handles the SSH connection is static.
  1. Expand Actions in the left navigation pane.
  2. ClickStart Automation Manager.
  3. In the Automation Manager interface, click File > New.
  4. Enter a Name and Description for the new policy and click OK.

    The Name of the policy can have a maximum of 150 characters.

  5. From the object list pane, search for or, click the name of an Automation Object that you want to insert into the new policy.
  6. Drag the Automation Object icon to the Policy frame and configure any required properties.

    Fields with required values are highlighted in red.

  7. Click Input to create any policy input parameters and global variables.
  8. In the Input Parameters window, click Add.
  9. Enter a Name to be used to identify the new parameter, complete the parameters and click OK.
  10. Click Output to create any policy output parameters.
  11. In the Output Parameters window, click Add.
  12. Enter a Name to be used to identify the new parameter, complete the parameters and click OK.
  13. When you are satisfied with the Automation Policy, click File > Upload.

Automation Policies can only be run after they have been uploaded to the N-able N-central Script/Software Repository. You can not run an Automation Policy from a saved file.