How to use Drop Down lists with vRA Software Components

Do you want to provide a drop down list for the properties of your Software Components in the request form but can’t figure out how? Well you are in the right place, I will show you a trick I learned to provide this functionality in vRA 7.

Pre-Reqs

  • Working installation of vRealize Automation 7 Enterprise
  • Working vRealize Automation Agent Blueprint – See my guide here
  • A quite place where you will not be interupted

Let’s start by logging into vRA as a Cloud Admin and create a new software component

Enter the following and click next

Create a new property like shown below then click OK and click next

Create a new install script with the following and click Ok then next

echo "Hello $My_Dropdown World" > /tmp/results.log

Now click finish

Highlight the Software Component we just created and click publish

Now let’s create the drop down list, go to the Administration Tab, Property Dictionary, Property Definition and click to add a new Property Definition

Enter the following to create the drop down list then click ok

Now let’s create our new blueprint, go to the Design Tab and click Blueprints and then click New and enter the following and click OK

Drag a vSphere Machine to the Canvas and configure it with a CentOS template with the vRA Agent installed

Next, drag the software component we created earlier onto the blueprint

Click back on the vSphere Machine in the canvas and go to properties tab and enter the following

Enter the following to bind the value to the drop down list and then click finish to save the blueprint

Publish the blueprint to the catalog, entitle it and fire off a new request

Once provisioning completes, SSH to the new VM and check the contents of the results.log file

You can now create custom drop down lists for property lists you want to present to your requester

Enjoy!

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