Using Parallel Actions

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Using Parallel Actions shortens the playbook execution time by querying multiple products or running long actions in parallel.

The results will shorten the time that analysts need to wait for enrichment information and therefore will shorten the time they need to wait until starting the investigation.

In addition - breaking the playbook into logical groups of parallel actions help to organize the playbook and make it easier for the engineers to build it and for the analysts to understand it

In order to speed up the Playbook, you can choose to run up to 5 actions at once. 

To create a parallel action (option one):

  1. Drag an action from the Step selection on top of another existing action in the Playbook.
  2. Drop it on top of the action and it automatically displays one on top of the other in a Parallel Action container.

To create a parallel action (option two):

  1. Press and hold the Shift key to highlight an action. You can highlight up to five actions at a time using shift and click. Alternatively, you can highlight several actions at a time by pressing and holding the SHIFT button together with your mouse to draw a rectangle around them.
  2. Right-click on any of the actions and choose Run in Parallel.

To create a parallel action (option three):

  1. Start off with a couple of parallel actions grouped together in a box like you created in options one and two. 
  2. Right click on a separate action and click Cut.
  3. Put your cursor in the Parallel Action box and click Paste to put the action in with the other parallel actions.

To delete one or more parallel actions:

  1. Highlight one of the parallel actions in the box.
  2. Right click.
  3. Select either Delete step to delete the highlighted parallel action or select Delete all steps to delete the entire group of parallel actions. 

Things to Note:

  • You cannot put a condition or a block in a parallel action.
  • You cannot use Actions that have been set to Manual.
  • The parallel actions in each group run randomly in any order which means you can't use placeholders of actions in the same group of parallel actions.
  • You can choose to have individual Skip action if step failed for an individual action within a group of parallel actions.
  • If wanted, you can double click on the top of a group of parallel actions and change the name to help logically arrange the parallel action boxes in your Playbook.