Beyond the Basics: UAC Tips and Tricks 2024

Advanced techniques for Universal Automation Center — from testing workflows without execution to real-time webhook alerting, B2B file event triggers, and mainframe JCL management.

Knowing how UAC works is one thing. Knowing how to use it well is another.

This webinar goes past the fundamentals. Karthik Mohan, Huseyin Gomleksizoglu, and Bob Lemieux walk through a full set of live demos covering the features that experienced UAC users ask about most — power user shortcuts, testing tools, notification integrations, event-driven file workflows, container orchestration, and mainframe enhancements.

Karthik opens with system administration tips: configuring system properties and server operations from the UAC interface, customizing user themes including dark mode, and a Kubernetes workflow demo that creates a pod with a Universal Agent installed, monitors pod readiness before launching tasks against it, then deletes the pod on completion to avoid name conflicts. He then demonstrates vertex selection, a newer UAC feature that lets you launch a workflow from a specific task forward, or select individual tasks to run independently — useful for testing subsets of a complex workflow without running the full sequence.

Huseyin covers four areas in depth. First, webhooks: how to configure event-based webhook rules in UAC to automatically trigger tasks when a task fails, with filters by business service, attempt number, and critical task flag. The live demo shows a webhook creating a ServiceNow incident automatically on first failure, with job output retrieved and attached via webhook-passed variables. Second, simulate mode: how to run a workflow without actually executing anything on the agent, while still resolving variables, evaluating run/skip criteria, processing set variable actions, and even returning custom outputs and exit codes for testing downstream dependencies. Third, Teams and Twilio SMS notifications triggered by webhooks — including a pattern where the on-call person's phone number is retrieved dynamically from ServiceNow before the SMS is sent. Fourth, UDMG integration: how a file uploaded to the Universal Data Mover Gateway web client fires an event to UAC via a Universal Monitor trigger, launching a downstream workflow that encrypts, archives, uploads to Azure Blob storage, and sends a Kafka message to kick off microservices processing.

Bob rounds out the session with z/OS enhancements: editing JCL directly from the UAC controller without logging into the mainframe, using override libraries with auto-delete after execution, copying JCL to an audit library on every run, passing date and time variables into JCL data set names, and overriding job names, job class, message class, and SYSAFF routing — all from the single pane of glass.

Key Highlights

  • Vertex selection: launch a workflow from the middle or run only selected tasks
  • Simulate mode: test workflows end-to-end without executing on agents, with custom output and exit code injection
  • Webhooks: auto-create ServiceNow incidents with attached output on first task failure
  • Teams and SMS/Twilio notifications via webhooks, with dynamic on-call recipient lookup from ServiceNow
  • UDMG-to-UAC event integration: file upload triggers an automated downstream workflow
  • Kubernetes pod lifecycle management: create, monitor, execute, and delete from UAC
  • z/OS JCL editing, override libraries, copy JCL audit trail, and SYSAFF routing from the UAC controller
  • System properties, server operations, and user theme customization tips

About the Presenters

Karthik Mohan, Solutions Engineer, Stonebranch
Karthik Mohan is a Solutions Engineer at Stonebranch based in Frankfurt, focusing on pre-sales activities and enterprise automation implementations across cloud, container, and hybrid IT environments.

Huseyin Gomleksizoglu, Lead Solutions Engineer, Stonebranch
Huseyin Gomleksizoglu is a Lead Solutions Engineer at Stonebranch in the United States, specializing in advanced UAC configurations including webhook automation, notification integrations, and B2B file transfer workflows.

Bob Lemieux, Vice President, Global Pre-sales, Stonebranch
Bob Lemieux leads Stonebranch's global pre-sales organization and has deep expertise in mainframe automation, with particular focus on z/OS agent capabilities and enterprise workload scheduling across hybrid IT environments.