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Managing and Using the Automation Catalog

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To access the Automation Catalog, you must have the Publish policies role. To apply policies to child organizations, you must have the Manage policies role. For complete descriptions of each role available in Flexera One, see Flexera One Roles.

The Automation Catalog is the container for all policies that Managed Service Providers (MSPs) can apply in their child organizations. The catalog contains a list of Flexera policies as well as any custom policies published by the MSP. The MSP parent organization can also configure whether their child organizations use the Flexera catalog, the MSP’s own catalog, or both as the reference catalog, which lets them centrally control which policy templates are visible to their child organizations. Child organizations only see policy templates that match this catalog configuration and any templates the MSP has chosen to make visible by selecting the Show in customer orgs (enable for Policy Manager) check box.

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The Show in customer orgs (enable for Policy Manager) setting currently applies only to custom policy templates—that is, templates published by the MSP parent organization. It does not apply to built‑in Flexera policy templates. If you need a built‑in Flexera policy template to be visible across child organizations, you must enable the Flexera catalog, which exposes all Flexera policy templates.

Custom Policy Templates​

Custom policy templates are policies that an MSP parent organization can create and publish to the catalog. When a template is published, it becomes available to all projects within the parent organization.

Configuring the Policy Catalog Reference​

Policy catalog settings can also be managed via the Automation APIs. To configure which policy catalog acts as the reference for child organizations, use the Customization Value API with the customization type ID policy-catalog-reference-org. For more information, see the Customization Value API on developer.flexera.com.

The policy-catalog-reference-org setting is configured at the MSP parent level and impacts child organization visibility. Possible values include:

  • msp-parent–Only the custom templates created by the MSP parent organization are visible.

  • flexera-default–Only the templates published by Flexera are visible.

  • msp-parent|flexera-default– Both templates created by the MSP parent organization and those published by Flexera are visible.

Custom Catalog Visibility Setting​

When publishing a custom policy template, MSPs can control whether the template is eligible to appear in the catalog for child organizations by selecting the Show in customer orgs (enable for Policy Manager) check box. This check box maps to the childOrgsVisibility tag in the Custom Catalog APIs.

After the template is published, you can also manage this setting programmatically to control whether the template is eligible to appear in child organization catalogs.

  • Set or update the childOrgsVisibility tag on the template by calling the Custom Catalog API. For more information, see the Custom Catalog API.

Custom Catalog Indexing​

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This step is required only if you are using the Custom Catalog API.

MSP parent organizations can use the Custom Catalog APIs to list and filter templates based on different catalog sources. By specifying the appropriate catalogSource value (for example, msp-parent or flexera-default), MSPs can distinguish between templates from their own MSP parent catalog and templates from the Flexera default catalog, and review which templates can be shared with child organizations. For more details, see the Custom Catalog API.

Policy Manager Creation​

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This step is required only if you are using the Custom Catalog API.

After both the catalog reference (policy-catalog-reference-org) and the template visibility (childOrgsVisibility) are configured correctly, MSP parent organizations can create a Policy Manager from a custom policy template.

Browsing the Catalog​

From the Automation menu, click Catalog to open the Automation Catalog page. By default, all available policies are grouped by type and displayed in the Card layout view.

Use the Categories dropdown list in the upper-left corner of the view to filter the policies by category. The Published filter is available only to policy publishers and enables them to see any policies that have been hidden from the catalog. Use the search box to filter the cards by title—the view updates immediately as you type.

In the upper-right corner of the view, you can switch between the Card layout view and the Grid layout view. The Card layout view provides more detail about each policy, while the Grid layout view shows more policies per page.

Policy Details​

To view more information about a policy, on the Automation Catalog page, click the policy name. The Details tab opens and shows additional information about the selected policy, including publisher information and the full description.

You can also control whether the custom policy template is available in the Automation Catalog for child organizations by selecting the Show in customer orgs (enable for Policy Manager) check box. When this check box is selected, the custom policy template is visible in the catalog for your child organizations.

In the MSP parent organization, the Apply button changes to a dropdown list with the following options:

  • Click Apply Policy to apply the policy template in the MSP parent organization only.
  • Click Apply as Policy Manager to configure the policy template to be applied and managed across multiple child organizations.

When the Show in customer orgs (enable for Policy Manager) check box is not selected, the policy template is not visible in the catalog for child organizations. In the MSP parent organization, only the Apply button appears, and it applies the policy template in the MSP parent organization only.

Policy Template Code​

To view the policy template code, on the Automation Catalog page, click the policy name, and then click the Code tab. The Code tab displays the policy template code that drives the behavior of the policy. In the policy code editor, you have the following options:

  • Click Download to download the policy template.
  • Click Copy to copy the policy template code to your clipboard.

Removing Policies from the Catalog​

MSP parent organizations can remove the policies available to their child organizations by unpublishing and/or deleting them from the catalog. The process is slightly different between Removing Custom Policies and Removing a Policy From the List of Flexera Policies.