Why There Are Two Freestyle Orchestrators and When to Use Each

As most IT admins will tell you, the key to flexible and efficient management of enterprise devices often comes down to automation. When dealing with thousands of devices across multiple organizational divisions, the more you can automate processes the better off you will be. 

Freestyle Orchestrator is an automation tool that provides a low-code drag-and-drop canvas UI for quickly creating workflows to automate a wide range of complex use cases and tasks, such as device onboarding, sequencing complicated resource deployments, configuration targeting, managing end-user experience, and compliance and security. Workflows can be configured to target specific device groups, and are triggered in a variety of ways, such as device-specific conditions, event data, and much more.

You may have noticed that there are two versions of Freestyle Orchestrator: one in Workspace ONE UEM and one in Workspace ONE Intelligence. Both have a similar low-code drag-and-drop canvas UI, and both provide IT admins with advanced automation capabilities for managing their devices. But both are uniquely different from the other in many ways. With two versions of Freestyle Orchestrator available, customers are asking which version they should use. In this post, I'm going to briefly discuss each version, focusing on three areas: core capabilities, key advantages, and availability. This should give you a better understanding of the differences between Freestyle Orchestrator in UEM and Freestyle Orchestrator in Intelligence, as well as give you some examples of when to use each. 

Let's start with Freestyle Orchestrator in Workspace ONE UEM.

Freestyle Orchestrator in Workspace ONE UEM

Core Capabilities

IT admins can drag and drop resources, such as applications, profiles, and scripts into a workflow, and control the deployment of those resources through conditional requirements and logic from sources such as sensors, application inventory, registry values (Windows only), and more. The Properties for conditions available to IT admins are user and device specific and are UEM-based data points, such as device operating system, device ownership, and almost any device value you can collect with a sensor. By grouping actions together, Freestyle in UEM can execute multiple actions in parallel, periodically re-evaluate the parameters of the workflow, and offer the ability to export and import workflows between UEM instances, such as UAT to production.

Freestyle Orchestrator in UEM is ideal for:

• Creating complex workflows for onboarding Windows and macOS devices, including application deployments, baseline profiles, and other configurations (Mobile Support coming soon).
• Maintaining endpoint device state based on a specific set of conditions, such as sensor values.
• Managing complex application deployment sequencing to ensure that applications and configurations are applied in a certain order.

Key Advantages

Freestyle Orchestrator in Workspace ONE UEM offers these key advantages.

• Workflows, especially on desktop platforms, execute almost entirely on the device using real-time data, meaning that conditions are validated on the device at runtime, and performance is enhanced because there are no round trips to the MDM servers required.
• Freestyle microservices run alongside other UEM services like Entitlements, Compliance, and Desired State and interacts with them. This UEM awareness makes Freestyle a self-contained automation tool that can react to changes in device state and can rerun workflows as needed. Also, resources are delivered to devices based on workflow entitlements without having to maintain matching assignments for resources (apps/profiles/scripts) directly.
• Freestyle Orchestrator in UEM provides advanced controls with If, Else, and Then conditions on properties like files and registry that are only available here. IT admins can use these conditions to potentially cover multiple use cases in a single workflow.

Freestyle Orchestrator in Workspace ONE Intelligence

Core Capabilities

Freestyle Orchestrator in Workspace ONE Intelligence provides extensibility across the Workspace ONE ecosystem and third-party integration via cloud-based APIs. This means that workflows built with Freestyle Orchestrator in Intelligence can be triggered by data points from: 

• Workspace ONE Digital Employee Experience (DEX).
• Hub Services.
• Workspace ONE UEM.
• Mobile Threat Defense.
• Workspace ONE Intelligence.
• Horizon.

It can even be triggered by trusted third-party network partners such as Lookout, Check Point, and Pradeo, just to name a few. Trigger conditions can be based on data points such as Windows and macOS updates, device risk score, device patch status, app activity, vulnerabilities, and many others. And, unlike its counterpart, Freestyle Orchestrator in Intelligence can trigger events in external systems, such as sending a Slack message, creating tickets in ServiceNow, and other custom actions. 

Key Advantages

Freestyle Orchestrator in Workspace ONE Intelligence offers the following key advantages:

• With its available third-party connectors, Freestyle Orchestrator provides IT admins with the ability to expand workflows beyond the Workspace ONE environment. Workflows can initiate tasks in external systems like ServiceNow, Slack, and Coupa, allowing for end-to-end process automations. For instance, a workflow can make a call to Carbon Black to quarantine a non-compliant device.
• Freestyle in Intelligence can utilize a wealth of data from across the Workspace ONE and Horizon ecosystem allowing IT admins to trigger workflows based on a myriad of metrics and data. This means that workflows can be triggered by both device and non-device metrics, such as app crash rates, user/device risk scores, and others.
• Freestyle Orchestrator offers more data for troubleshooting with workflow execution reporting and status logging. This allows IT admins to monitor execution and rapidly troubleshoot any issues with the workflow.

Availability

Your access to Freestyle Orchestrator is dependent on the licensing SKU you are assigned. Each Workspace ONE licensing SKU offers either Freestyle in UEM or Freestyle in Intelligence, and in some cases, both. Additionally, some more advanced features, such as support for scripts and sensors may require a higher-level license. The following table outlines the licensing SKU details, as well as features-specific notes.

Note: Mobile Essentials customers will be able to utilize Freestyle in UEM with the launch of Mobile platform support. Mobile platform support is currently in Tech Preview.

Which One Should You Use?

So, when should you use one version of Freestyle Orchestrator over the other? Let’s start with the most obvious answer. Which version are you licensed for? If you do not have a license that provides access to Freestyle in Intelligence, then your answer is easy. Freestyle in UEM would be your best, and only option. But beyond licensing, how do you decide which version to use? This very much depends on what you want to do in your workflows. 

Again, let's start with Workspace ONE UEM. If you are looking to automate complex UEM specific resource delivery orchestrations such as device onboarding, or sequencing complicated profile and application deployments, then Freestyle Orchestrator in UEM is your best bet. It offers the ability to build complex If, Else, and Then conditions using string and integer operators to manage every decision and execution point in your workflow. This provides the flexibility to handle multiple device configurations within a single workflow.

For instance, Freestyle Orchestrator in Workspace ONE UEM can be used to determine which version of the Microsoft .NET framework to install on macOS by identifying whether the device has an Intel or Apple Silicon CPU. Based on the results of a sensor, the workflow will use the appropriate installer.

If, however, you need to build end-to-end process automation, such as locking a device when unusual application or device activity is detected, proactively opening a help desk ticket when an issue is identified, or approving an application request in ServiceNow, then Freestyle Orchestrator in Intelligence is the platform you should choose. Although there is some overlap in terms of triggers and actions with UEM, these are a subset of what Freestyle Orchestrator in Intelligence has to offer. With its integration into the entire Workspace ONE ecosystem as well as third-party systems, Freestyle in Intelligence offers a wealth of data points on which you can trigger workflow automations, such as app crash rates, user/device risk scores, end-user in-app experience, and many more.

For example, you can use Freestyle Orchestrator in Intelligence to create a workflow that does the following when an enrolled device reports a compliance failure status event:

1. Lock the device.
2. Generate a ServiceNow ticket for IT.
3. Send a Slack message to notify the end user.

The third-party integration capability is particularly handy in this example, allowing all parties involved to be notified of the issue.

The Future of Freestyle Orchestrator

What does the future hold for Freestyle Orchestrator? We are continuing to enhance both versions of Freestyle Orchestrator with new features, including adding support for mobile devices. We are also moving forward with the goal of a single unified orchestration platform, meaning IT admins will no longer need to choose between the UEM version and the Intelligence version. This new orchestration framework will be enabled by a new microservices architecture and will utilize a distributed execution model with the expectation of improving all aspects of the platform, from data ingestion, workflow preparation, auto-scalability, and other areas. Once available, this new orchestration platform will provide a single canvas UI where you can create workflows while retaining the benefits of both UEM and Intelligence Freestyle Orchestrator. 

Until this new platform is available, you can continue to create workflows in whichever version of Freestyle Orchestrator meets your needs. When the new unified orchestration platform is released, you can easily migrate your workflows into the new system. Watch this space for updates as we progress along this transformational initiative.

For more information about Freestyle Orchestrator, check out the following Tech Zone resources.