More Control for Workflows and New Data Services Features for IT Teams
This month, we’re rolling out new features across Green Button Go Orchestrator to address two specific needs that have been highly requested. Read on for more detailed descriptions of what’s changed in Green Button Go Orchestrator with this release, and reach out if you’re interested in an upgrade.
More Ways to Customize Workflows in GBG Orchestrator: Workflow Conductor 1.2
The latest changes to Workflow Conductor are all about giving you more options for starting and stopping your workflows. Here’s a list of the new features:
- Added support for a looping “for each” option that allows you to loop over parts of a workflow within a list. This is an important tool if you want to, for example, run steps within a workflow for each plate one after another instead of as a single large batch. If you’re familiar with this feature in the Green Button Go Scheduler Advanced tab, you can now take advantage of the same feature at the workflow level in Workflow Conductor.
- Added support for pausing workflows. With this new option, you can pause a workflow that’s in the middle of a process. This option has so many applications to support scientists at the workstation. Some common examples are modifying workflow parameters, prepping reagents, and resupplying consumables. You may even want to pause a certain process to make more room for another workflow that is coming through with a higher priority. Using the new pause feature, Workflow Conductor will wait to receive input, giving you the flexibility to make changes on the fly based on your needs.
- Added support for resetting orders and workflows. With this new option, you can now start the same workflow from the beginning with all the same parameters. This is a handy tool for troubleshooting if you ever face an error in your workflow and need to start over without re-entering detailed input to get the workflow started.
- Added support for disabling steps within workflows. This new option allows you to effectively turn off parts of a workflow and still run the remaining steps that are enabled. You can take advantage of this feature during testing to disable slower steps without having to make separate workflows.
In addition to these new controls, we made some quality-of-life improvements to the visualization of workflows, including making the sections within a workflow collapsible and giving nested workflows their own tab for easy access.
These updates continue to center on a development theme that we are working on quarter over quarter: making Green Button Go Orchestrator an even more powerful and accessible place to manage your workflows.
Better Support for IT Teams in GBG Orchestrator: Data Services 1.4
A key group of users for Data Services are the IT teams that support the lab. This month, we’re delivering new features to help IT professionals better support seamless operations.
- Added a Maintenance Mode. When enabled, Maintenance Mode pauses all active workflows and prevents new workflows from getting started. This simple switch can be used to downscale a system for a planned outage or infrastructure upgrades across the entire installation. To help with communication when Maintenance Mode is enabled, all users within Workflow Conductor and Green Button Go Insights receive a notification about the outage.
- Added ability for IT Managers to disable certain services within Green Button Go Orchestrator with simple toggles in the IT Admin Portal. If you ever wanted to disable functionality that’s not being used within Orchestrator, it’s now possible. For example, if the lab doesn’t have autonomous mobile robots or a track system online, Transportation Manager can be disabled to prevent users from accessing those features during the downtime.
Upgrading Your Apps
If you’re interested in upgrading to the latest version of Green Button Go Orchestrator with GBG Workflow Conductor or GBG Data Services, reach out.
