Managing templates

In this article

Publishing a template

Managing VM visibility

Updating a VM image

Replacing a VM image within a template

Cloning or Copying a template

Multi-region templates

Publishing a template

If your company has chosen to use role-based access within Heropa, templates can be:

• Published which makes them Public
• Hidden which makes them Private

Before a template can be used by others it needs to be made public by publishing it.

To publish a template, follow these steps:

1. From the Left Navigation menu choose Templates, and then select the template you wish to publish. You will be redirected to the template details page.
2. From the Action dropdown in the Top Navigation menu, choose Publish. The template will now have a status of Public in the templates list page.

To hide a template, follow these steps: 

1. From the Left Navigation menu choose Templates, and then select the template you wish to hide. You will be redirected to the template details page.
2. From the Action dropdown in the Top Navigation menu, choose Hide. The template will now have a status of Private in the templates list page.

Managing VM visibility

All VMs in a template are by default visible in the workspace when an environment is launched from that template.

To control which VMs are visible in the workspace, follow these steps: 

1. From the Left Navigation menu choose Templates, and then select the template you wish to manage VMs visibility for. You will be redirected to the template details page.
2. From the Action dropdown in the Top Navigation menu, choose VM Visibility.
3. In the VM Visibility window that appears, select a VM and use the > and < arrows to make the VM visible / hide the VM respectively.
4. Select Save to save all changes.

Example of when a VM might be hidden from the workspace: A template with a backend database server that you don’t want your end users to see. 

Updating a VM image

See: Updating a VM image

Replacing a VM image within a template

VMs within a template can be managed in the Template itself. In the Details tab for the template, VMs can be easily added or deleted.

However, if the VM or network for a VM have been customized, it's recommended to use the Replace VM capability. This is because with Replace VM, the new VM image inherits the existing configuration, so they don't need to be re-created.

To replace a VM in a template, follow these steps:

1. From the Left Navigation menu choose Templates, and then select the template you wish to replace a VM for. You will be redirected to the template details page.
2. In the Details tab for the template, locate the VM to be replaced.
3. Select the arrow icon at the end of the row, then select Replace.
4. In the Replace VM window that appears, select the VM to replace the existing VM in the template.
5. Select Replace.

Any associated courses, non-provisioned environments, and event enrollments that have not yet launched, will have these changes automatically reflected in them. Note: Already provisioned / launched environments using the template will not be affected.

Cloning or Copying a template

A template contains VM images which are region based. A template can be:

• Cloned, which creates a copy of it within the same region; or
• Copied, which creates a copy of it in another region.

Alternatively, a single template can be made multi-region.

To clone a template:

1. From the Left Navigation menu choose Templates, and locate the template in the list
2. Select the arrow icon at the end of the row, then select Clone. Alternatively, you can view the Template Details page and select Clone from the main action dropdown.

To copy a template:

1. From the Left Navigation menu choose Templates, and locate the template in the list
2. Select the arrow icon at the end of the row, then select Copy. Alternatively, you can view the Template Details page and select Copy from the main action dropdown.
3. In the Copy template window that appears, choose the region to copy the template to. This will copy the VM images to that region.

Multi-region templates

If your Heropa tenancy has >1 region, a single template can be made available in multiple regions.  

To make a template available in multiple regions: 

1. From the Left Navigation menu choose Templates, and locate the template in the list
2. Select the template to view its details.
3. In the template's Configuration tab, view the Regions section. 
4. Select which regions to replicate the template to by moving them from the Available regions box on the left hand side, to the Selected regions box on the right hand side.

Once a template has been made available in another region, it will now be possible to select that region and template when creating a course, environment or event.

VM images in multi-region templates

When a template is made available in another region for the first time, this initiates the creation of VM image replicas in that region. If the region already has that VM image replica (for example from another multi-region template), it will not be copied again. 

If a template is made available to a region, and that region is subsequently removed from the template using the capability described above, VM Image replicas will not be affected.

Here are some important things to understand with respect to VM Images within multi-region templates:

• When a new VM is added to a multi-region template, this initiates the creation of VM image replicas in the other regions if none exist. 
• When a VM image is removed from a template, its replicas are automatically removed from the template as well. The VM image and its replicas remain available for use via the VM Images module.
• Within Template Details, replica VM Images can be excluded from the list of VMs by using the show / hide feature.

See: Managing VM images