Feature: Programmable surveys

[wenottingham]

AWX Feature Spec - Programmable Surveys

User Persona

Administrator delegating jobs to user
Delegated automation user

Usage Cases

High-level:

• Administrator wants to present to the user a list of builds to choose to deploy.
• Administrator wants to present to the user a verified list of configuration parameters to push to the chosen network devices.
• Adminsitrator wants to present survey chocies that depend on prior survey choices, such as a choice to select an AWS region based on 'AWS' being a prior survey answer.

API Considerations

We must keep the survey JSON specification stable, or CLEARLY notify users when it changes. This may require a v2 survey spec.

http://json-schema.org/ may be of use.

UI/UX Considerations

Larger surveys should have options to collapse questions until needed. (c.f. #290)

Docs

Should have sample survey examples

QA Suggestions

Notes

Updates/Changelog

2017-09-06: initial/updated spec
2017-09-25: added note about collapsible surveys

[j00bar]

There's a happy medium to be found here between usable simplicity and encompassing an entire range of user possibilities in a JSON/YAML markup language. I'm going to strongly recommend that at most we support dependency chaining between fields and support data-url attributes for fields that GET option values given partial user provided input. Users writing their own logic in their own server-hosted microservices will allow almost anything the user can imagine without making an overly complicated schema.

[llaan]

I would really like to see this added as well. We're currently using Ansible to roll out stacks in AWS and we need to be able to select the application version to deploy which we want to populate from the version tags set on the available AMI's

[ooasis]

If you really need the feature now, take a look at a hack I did in #1408. That works for me.

[stefanoabbate]

I was looking for the same thing! This would be good to retrieve previously data stored by an AWX job.

[sonjz]

Some variables/lists I'd be interested in templating into a survey:

• Current User in AWX (and less-so User Lists)
• Inventory Host Lists
• Inventory Group Lists

[carrozzi]

I'm not sure how I missed this before now, but just stumbled across this. I would really like this as well. We are trying to put together almost a wizard like interface to configure network devices. We already have a playbook that gathers data form devices and uses the REST API to build drop-down lists for surveys, but it would really be nice to have:

• The ability to pick a switch from a list and have that then change the options for the interface question to those on the chosen switch

• have certain questions appear only if the answer to a previous question is a certain value.
  I see no one is assigned this yet, but has anyone worked towards it? (aside from Quick dynamic options hack #1408 ) I'd definitely be willing to help out, but I haven't had the chance to dig into the code yet.

[sumkincpp]

Also would be great to have :

• Inventory lists

All cases might be covered with custom type of multichoice selector with values from fact or variable, where

• "{{ awx_users }}" for awx users can be used
• "{{ awx_inventories }}" for inventories can be used
• "{{ awx_hosts }}" or something with jinja filter for hosts from current inventories

Though, this doesn't cover REST API multichoices.

[RcRonco]

I would like to see this feature added as well

[eliranw]

I am part of a large company that needs this feature to switch their Ansible infrastructure completely from Rundeck to AWX, so I will be happy to see this implemented.

[rfedida]

We are a large enterprise that needs this feature asap.

[ItayZviCohen]

Would like to have that feature/ability as well.
Every large company that I've worked for so far thought it's a mandatory feature for a Rundeck replacement.
Currently my (very large) company wants to migrate all of our operations to AWX, and we can't without this feature.

[MikeQ123]

I wrote python script to update surveys choices with tower-cli.
In my case I need to automate updating backup files list in awx survey. This script can be easily adopted to any other tasks.
Script can be executed by cron.

#!/usr/bin/python

import json
import os
import random
import string

######################
smb_creds='/etc/tower/smbcredentials.conf'
backup_path='\\\\\\\\backup01\\\\sql'
backup_folder='\\\\SRV-NAV18-SQL\\\\ASR_PROD\\\\'
survey_name='SBL Deploy ASOR Test Environment'
survey_question='DataBase backup file path'
#####################

cmd = 'smbclient ' + backup_path + ' -D ' + backup_folder + ' -A ' + smb_creds + ' -c ls 2>/dev/null | awk \'{print $1}\' | grep -e \'^\..*$\' -v | grep \'.bak\''
choices = ""

for file in os.popen(cmd).readlines():
    choices = choices + '\n' + backup_path + backup_folder + file.rstrip()
choices = choices[2:]
choices = choices.replace('\\\\','\\')

cmd = 'tower-cli job_template survey -n "' + survey_name + '"'
survey_content = os.popen(cmd).read()

survey_obj = json.loads(survey_content)

for question in survey_obj['spec']:
    if question["question_name"] == survey_question:
       question["choices"] = choices

filename='/tmp/' + ''.join(random.choice(string.ascii_uppercase + string.digits) for _ in range(5)) + '.json'
f = open(filename, "w")
f.write(json.dumps(survey_obj, sort_keys=True, indent=4))
f.close()

cmd = 'tower-cli job_template modify -n "' + survey_name + '" --survey-spec=@' + filename + ' --survey-enabled=true'

survey_mod = os.popen(cmd).read()
os.remove(filename)

[Spreadcat]

I'd also like to put in my request to get this feature implemented. There are just many situations where external parameter need to be in a survey and the user has not the capacity to know all available values.
As mentioned above I also see this requirement mostly in bigger enterprise setups.
The workaround with the python script by MikeQ123 is a nice workaround though, which at least implements one part of the functionality. Thanks for that, Mike!

[alex-mnt]

+1

[Vuader]

+1

[Aprakash35]

Hi,
We are also look for this feature available in UI, please say is this request full filled or its working upon. Or any suggestions to achieve from tower 🗼.

Thanks in advance 🙏.

[bastolino]

Maybe as a Crossreference for all Ansible Tower / Ansible Automation Platform (AAP) Users who wish to have this feature implemented:
You could open up a Support Ticket at RH to upvote https://issues.redhat.com/browse/AAPRFE-252.

[DBAverage]

+1

[alice-rc]

+1

[fferraro87]

+1

[bastolino]

Maybe as a Crossreference for all Ansible Tower / Ansible Automation Platform (AAP) Users who wish to have this feature implemented: You could open up a Support Ticket at RH to upvote https://issues.redhat.com/browse/AAPRFE-252.

This Issue has been closed as duplicate, there is a (RH internal) successor: https://issues.redhat.com/browse/AAP-3502
So you would need to upvote the successor now...

[ffirg]

There is no need to upvote anything else as we are already aware this is a very popular feature request and have it on our planning list for consideration during the forthcoming dev cycles. If we have a fair wind and the opportunity to do this, it'll happen without further +1s etc.

[abenokraitis]

@ffirg Is it fair to say that PRs are welcome from the community on this until then?

[ffirg]

I'd welcome feedback on what functionality people want to see in this for sure.

[DBAverage]

I'd welcome feedback on what functionality people want to see in this for sure.

I'm interested in a few things that I think will make AWX far more useful in a large enterprise setting:

1. Being able to run some arbitrary code in order to generate a list of selectable options for a drop down in a survey. Ideally we could also:

   • Cache the result for a period of time, and/or regenerate it at selected intervals
   • Access other selected input variables in our arbitrary code

   A few use case examples:

   • populating a list of existing users from active directory to be selected as an input
   • populating a list of database instances available in the company, or available on a specific host

2. Being able to run some arbitrary code, and/or apply a regex to validate selected input. I can do this in my playbook as well, but the experience for the calling user is poor in that situation.

   A few use case examples:

   • Verifying an active directory user exists
   • Verifying an instance/database exists on a host
   • Verifying a URL path is in the correct format
   • Verifying from an external system that the submitter is authorized to interact with an endpoint specified in the input parameter

Thank you!

[KristofStroobants]

I need to make an automation to deploy new VMs.
Let's say we have 3 variables Name, Platform & SLA.

Now, only when the user picks the value Productionfrom the Platform option, i want the SLAfield to be presented.

As of now, is there any way of doing this?

[ffirg]

Thanks for the input @DBAverage and @KristofStroobants. It's been added to my design doc for consideration into the feature when we're able to land it.

[WebSpider]

Additional usecase:

Workflow Job Template needs user-interaction to select which host to run on from inventory. Reason for this is to produce additional debug information for troubleshooting issues that occur on the host.
For simplicity, we're using surveys for this purpose. This means the list of choices in the survey spec should be related to the inventory, but as of now there doesn't seem a possibility to set the (filtered?) value of an inventory as a source for a choices-field.

We're working around this by having an awx job that rewrites the survey field on interval, but it certainly would be more elegant to have this based on dynamic inclusions of data already present in awx.

[williamhanseneric]

Solve this problem, and in my humble opinion you can make a legitimate argument to replace vRealize Automation... easily being able to configure dynamic survey forms that populate on dropdown via internal Ansible scripts (which make REST calls externally) are a real need.

[isopy]

I need to make an automation to deploy new VMs. Let's say we have 3 variables Name, Platform & SLA.

Now, only when the user picks the value Productionfrom the Platform option, i want the SLAfield to be presented.

As of now, is there any way of doing this?

Upvoting the need for this functionality.

[abhijeet-AT]

I exactly want this https://ansibleforms.com/ inside AAP/AWX/Ansible Tower.

[MalfuncEddie]

I exactly want this https://ansibleforms.com/ inside AAP/AWX/Ansible Tower.

you win the internet in my book today!

[fosterseth]

@chadmf more recent community requests for this feature, just in case you hadn't seen this 2017 RFE

[abhijeet-AT]

while waiting for this feature to be available I have created a role which based on text files updates values for dropdowns in particular job template. The values must be comma separated and one per line. One text file per question. One JT with multiple questions can be updated with this role at a time.

[itsBryantP]

+1 I'd also like to see this feature implemented.

[from88]

has anyone a workaround for this ?

[nx2804]

I would also need this feature any update ?

[leamese]

We have multiple use cases that could benefit from this.

[TheRealHaoLiu]

no clue what I'm getting myself into and how complicated this feature is gonna be but lets give it a shot

open a forum topic to discuss this https://forum.ansible.com/t/programable-survey-feature-in-awx/5806/2

[bastolino]

As an additional information: https://access.redhat.com/solutions/7068218
(AAP is a downstream project of AWX)