Workshop conclusion

Congratulations! You’ve successfully completed the Introduction to Ansible Automation Platform Self-Service Automation Portal workshop.

What you accomplished

Over the past two hours, you’ve built a complete self-service automation solution that enables non-automation experts across your organization to run automation safely and effectively.

Module 1: Configure Ansible Automation Platform for Self-Service Portal

You configured role-based access control across both Ansible Automation Platform and Self-Service Portal:

  • Created three teams representing different IT domains (cloud, network, RHEL)

  • Assigned granular permissions to job templates, inventories, and credentials

  • Built RBAC policies in the Self-Service Portal with catalog and scaffolder permissions

  • Implemented conditional access rules for advanced scenarios

Module 2: User Persona Testing in Self-Service Automation Portal

You validated your RBAC configuration by testing as three different user personas:

  • Experienced the portal as a cloud administrator with access to AWS, Azure, and GCP automation

  • Tested as a network administrator with access to network-specific job templates

  • Validated the RHEL administrator experience with Linux automation and select cloud provisioning capabilities

Module 3: Surveys and Custom Templates

You enhanced the self-service experience with dynamic content:

  • Modified job template surveys in AAP and observed automatic synchronization to the portal

  • Imported a custom dynamic template from a Git repository

  • Launched sophisticated automation with advanced options beyond standard surveys

Learning outcomes

By completing this workshop, you should now understand:

  • How RBAC works across AAP and Self-Service Portal - The relationship between users, teams, organizations, and permissions in both systems, and how to implement least-privilege access control

  • How to configure team-based automation access - Creating teams and assigning granular permissions to job templates, inventories, and credentials for different IT domains

  • How to build permission policies in the Self-Service Portal - Using the Red Hat Developer Hub permissions framework to control catalog and scaffolder access

  • How to create conditional RBAC rules - Implementing advanced access control scenarios with metadata-based conditions

  • How RBAC controls the user experience - The way different users see only authorized automation based on team membership and permissions

  • The self-service portal user perspective - How non-automation experts experience running automation without needing to understand Ansible or complex platform concepts

  • How synchronization works between AAP and the portal - Organizations, users, teams, and job templates automatically sync, and how to trigger manual synchronization

  • How surveys enhance the user experience - Interactive forms that prompt for input at job launch time, making automation more user-friendly

  • What custom dynamic templates are - Git-backed templates that provide sophisticated, enterprise-ready automation experiences beyond what surveys can offer

  • How to import and use custom templates - Loading templates from Git repositories and providing advanced options, conditional logic, and rich user interfaces

Key takeaways

Technical skills gained

  • RBAC Configuration Expertise - You now understand how to implement least-privilege access control across AAP and Self-Service Portal, ensuring users see only the automation they’re authorized to execute

  • Synchronization Understanding - You know how AAP content (organizations, users, teams, job templates) automatically syncs to the Self-Service Portal and how to trigger manual synchronization when needed

  • User Experience Customization - You can enhance automation with surveys for simple input collection and custom dynamic templates for sophisticated enterprise experiences

  • Team-Based Permissions - You understand how to organize users into teams and grant permissions based on IT domain expertise, not automation knowledge

Business value delivered

By implementing Self-Service Automation Portal, you’ve addressed critical organizational challenges:

  • Broadened Automation Adoption - Subject matter experts can now run automation without becoming Ansible experts, increasing platform usage and ROI

  • Reduced Automation Team Burden - Self-service capabilities mean fewer manual requests for the automation team, freeing them to build more valuable automation

  • Maintained Governance and Security - RBAC ensures users can only access and execute automation appropriate to their role, maintaining compliance and security standards

  • Improved Time to Value - Domain experts can trigger automation as part of their daily work, reducing delays and manual processes

  • Scalable Access Model - The team-based permission structure scales as your organization grows, making it easy to onboard new users

Architecture summary

Your Self-Service Automation Portal deployment consists of:

  • Ansible Automation Platform 2.6 - The automation control plane managing credentials, inventories, projects, and job templates

  • Self-Service Portal - The user-facing application running on OpenShift, providing a simplified interface for automation execution

  • RBAC Integration - Synchronized permissions between AAP and the portal ensuring consistent access control

  • Dynamic Content - Job templates with surveys and custom templates from Git repositories for flexible user experiences

All of this is deployed on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, providing enterprise infrastructure with built-in security and high availability.

Next steps

Immediate actions

Plan your production deployment

Consider your organization’s needs:

  • How many teams and domains will use self-service automation?

  • What job templates should be exposed through the portal?

  • What governance and approval workflows are required?

  • How will you organize teams and permissions?

Identify pilot users

Select a small group of subject matter experts to pilot the portal:

  • Choose users from different domains (cloud, network, Linux, etc.)

  • Include users with varying levels of automation experience

  • Gather feedback on the user experience and automation needs

Build your automation library

Expand the automation available through the portal:

  • Identify common manual tasks that could be automated

  • Create job templates with appropriate surveys for user input

  • Develop custom dynamic templates for multi-step workflows

  • Document automation use cases and expected outcomes

Establish governance

Define policies for automation access:

  • Who approves new automation being added to the portal?

  • How are permissions reviewed and updated?

  • What monitoring and auditing is required?

  • How are incidents and issues handled?

References

Product documentation

Community resources

Learning resources

Continue your learning

Explore related workshops:

  • Advanced Ansible Automation Platform Administration

  • Building Automation Content Collections

  • OpenShift for Platform Administrators

  • GitOps and Continuous Delivery on OpenShift

Connect with Red Hat

Get support

Explore more

Final thoughts

You’ve successfully built a self-service automation solution that empowers subject matter experts across your organization. By combining Ansible Automation Platform’s automation capabilities with Self-Service Portal’s intuitive interface, you’ve created a system that:

  • Scales automation adoption beyond the automation team

  • Maintains governance through proper RBAC

  • Reduces manual processes across IT domains

  • Delivers value faster by enabling self-service

The skills you’ve learned in this workshop provide the foundation for transforming how your organization approaches automation. Whether you’re supporting a small team or an enterprise-wide deployment, the principles of team-based permissions, self-service interfaces, and dynamic content apply.

Thank you for attending this workshop! We hope you found it valuable and are excited to bring Self-Service Automation Portal to your organization.

Workshop feedback

Your feedback helps us improve this workshop for future participants. Please share your thoughts on:

  • What worked well in the workshop?

  • What could be improved?

  • What additional topics would you like to see covered?

  • How likely are you to implement Self-Service Portal in your environment?

Please provide your feedback to your workshop facilitator or through the workshop evaluation form.

Congratulations again, and happy automating!