5. The Tower Dashboard and Interface¶
Note
Ansible Tower 3.0 provides a streamlined interface, with the Settings (
) button offering access to administrative configuration options. Users of older versions of Ansible Tower (2.4.5 or older) can access most of these through the top-level navigational menu or from their “Setup” menu button.
The Tower Dashboard offers a friendly graphical framework for your IT orchestration needs. Across the top-left side of the Tower Dashboard, administrators can quickly navigate to their Projects, Inventories, Job Templates, and Jobs.
Across the top-right side of this interface, administrators can access the tools they need to configure organizations, users, groups, and permissions as well as view related documentation, access portal mode, and log out.
At the top of the Dashboard is a summary of your hosts, inventories, and projects. Each of these is linked to the corresponding object in Tower, for easy access.
On the main Tower Dashboard screen, a summary appears listing your current Job Status. Also available for review are summaries of Recently Used Job Templates and Recently Run Jobs.
Note
Clicking on the Ansible Tower logo at any time returns you to the Dashboard.
5.1. Tower Admin Menu¶
The Tower user menu is accessed by clicking 
.
From here, you can:
- View/Edit the properties of the Tower admin account
- View the activity stream for that user (by clicking on the Activity Stream
button) - View the Organizations which have been setup for the Tower user
- View the Teams to which the Tower user has been added
- View the Permissions for this Tower admin account
5.2. Settings Menu¶
To enter the Settings Menu screen for Ansible Tower, click the button. This screen allows you to create your organizations, add credentials, add users and teams, schedule management jobs, modify your Tower’s configuration, and more. You can also view your license from the Settings Menu’s ‘View Your License’ link.
5.3. My View – User Menu¶
My View, also referred to as Portal Mode, is a user’s single-page view of jobs and job templates. It can be accessed by clicking the My View (
) button.
My View is a simplified interface for users who need to run Ansible jobs, but that do not need an advanced knowledge of Ansible or Tower. My View could be used by, for instance, development teams, or even departmental users in non-technical fields.
My View offers Tower users a simplified, clean interface to the jobs that they are able to run, and the results of jobs that they have run in the past.
Pressing the 
button beside a job in My View launches it, potentially asking some survey questions if the job is configured to do so.
Other portions of the interface are hidden from view until My View is exited.
My View can be accessed in two ways:
- via the My View () button at the top-right of the Tower interface
- by navigating to
https://<Tower server name>/portal
My View displays two main sections–Job Templates and Jobs.
5.3.1. Job Templates¶
This shows the job templates that are available for the user to run. This list can be searched by Name or Description, and can be sorted by those keys as well. To launch a job template, click the button. This launches the job, which can be viewed in My Jobs.
Note
Unlike Tower’s main interface, you are not automatically redirected to the Job view for the launched job. This view is still accessible via the View Details button for this job run in the My Jobs panel. This is useful for instances when a job fails and a non-technical user needs an Ansible expert look at what might have gone wrong.
5.3.2. Jobs¶
This shows the list of jobs that have run in the past.
Sort for jobs specific to you by clicking on the My Jobs button or review all jobs you have access to view by clicking on the All Jobs button, next to the search bar.
- My Jobs: View jobs that you (as the user) ran .
- All Jobs: View your team members’ completed jobs, viewable based on your RBAC permissions.
For each job, you can view the Job ID, the Status of the job (Running, Pending, Successful, or Failed), its start time, and the job Name. The job list can be sorted by any of these fields. Clicking on the Details button opens a new window with the Job Details for that job (refer to Jobs for more information).
5.4. Dashboard Views¶
The central interface to Tower is the Dashboard. You will use the dashboard to quickly view job statuses, recently run jobs, and recently used job templates.
5.4.1. Job Status¶
The Job Status graph displays the number of successful and failed jobs over a specified time period. You can choose to limit the job types that are viewed, and to change the time horizon of the graph.
5.4.2. Recently Used Job Templates¶
The Jobs section of this display shows a summary of the most recently used jobs. You can also access this summary by clicking on the Jobs entry in the main navigation menu.
5.4.3. Recently Run Jobs¶
The Recently Run Jobs section displays which jobs were most recently run, their status, and notes when they were run as well.
5.5. Activity Streams¶
Most screens in Tower have an Activity Stream () button. Clicking this brings up the
Activity Stream for this object.
An Activity Stream shows all changes for a particular object. For each
change, the Activity Stream shows the time of the event, the user that
initiated the event, and the action. Clicking on the Examine (
) button shows the
event log for the change.
The Activity Stream can be filtered by the initiating user (or the system, if it was system initiated), and by any related Tower object, such as a particular credential, job template, or schedule.
The Activity Stream on the main Dashboard shows the Activity Stream for the entire Tower instance. Most pages in Tower allow viewing an activity stream filtered for that specific object.