7.3

Creating and Adding Custom Properties and Property Groups
You can use custom properties to control machine provisioning. You can add supplied custom properties
and also create and add your own properties and property groups.
You can add properties and property groups to overall blueprints, components in a blueprint, reservations
and other vRealize Automation items, including some endpoint types. You can also create new custom
properties and property groups.
You can add properties and property groups when you create a blueprint, or later when the blueprint is in
the draft or published state. Alternatively you can add custom properties and property groups to individual
components in the blueprint.
Blueprint-level custom properties take precedence over custom properties that are configured at the
component level. For information about custom property precedence, see Understanding Custom
Properties Precedence.
You can edit blueprint-level properties by using the blueprint properties page.
A custom property can optionally require that the user specify a property value when they create a
machine request.
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Custom property names and values are typically case-sensitive. For example, a custom property
expressed as hostname and another custom property expressed as HOSTNAME are considered
different custom properties.
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Custom property names cannot contain spaces. When creating and using custom properties, do not
include a space in the property name.
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Some custom property names are reserved and cannot be used as names when you create new
custom properties. For example the property name Encrypted and encrypted is reserved.
For more information about creating new custom properties and property groups, see Using the Property
Dictionary.
Using Properties in Machine Provisioning
Custom properties are vRealize Automation-supplied properties. You can also define your own properties.
Properties are name-value pairs used to specify attributes of a machine or to override default
specifications.
You can use custom properties to control different provisioning methods, types of machines, and machine
options as in the following examples:
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Specify a particular type of guest OS.
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Enable WIM-based provisioning, in which a Windows Imaging File Format (WIM) image of a
reference machine is used to provision new machines.
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Customize the behavior of Remote Desktop Protocol when connecting to a machine.
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Register a virtual machine with a XenDesktop Desktop Delivery Controller (DDC) server.
Custom Properties Reference
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