The Integration Pack Wizard (IP Wizard) allows you to create a new Integration Pack from an existing assembly created by the Command-Line Activity Wizard or created via the Orchestrator SDK. The IP Wizard packages the assemblies, dependent files, and required metadata into an .OIP file that can be deployed via the Orchestrator Deployment Manager. With the IP Wizard, you can create professional-looking Integration Packs with full branding and custom icons, or simply package up command-line activities so they can be more easily deployed.

Deciding When to Create an Integration Pack

When creating custom activities for use in Orchestrator, it’s important to decide when it’s appropriate to use activities individually with the Toolkit’s .NET Integration Pack activities, and when it’s appropriate to create and deploy an Integration Pack.

When you only have one or a few activities, or when you’re in the development phase and creating many changes in an activity, you should just use the assemblies with the Toolkit IP activities to test the operation of those activities. Packaging, registering, deploying, uninstalling, and upgrading Integration Packs incurs a lot of overhead in the process of development that may not be needed or wanted. Additionally, because deploying an IP involves installing an MSI and making changes to the database, doing this frequently can cause unexpected results, so it’s recommended that you use a virtual machine and revert it frequently to ensure a clean test environment.

If you have a group of activities to test, or you’re further along in the development cycle and want to test the entire end-to-end process of installation, upgrade, uninstallation, and using finished activities, then creating an Integration Pack is the right path to choose. The Integration Pack provides a more user-friendly experience, including activities that appear in the Activities pane of the Runbook Designer, and a complete installation experience. Integration Packs also allow for deployment of the activities to multiple Runbook Servers or Runbook Designers across the organization, or to external customers.

Note
The Integration Toolkit no longer includes the binaries for the Windows Installer XML (WiX) Toolset, used by the IP Wizard for creating the MSI installation files within Integration Packs. This set of tools is now a prerequisite installation, required prior to installing the Toolkit. However, if WiX is subsequently uninstalled, the Integration Pack wizard will display an error message directing you to download and install WiX. The WiX Toolset can be downloaded from http://wix.codeplex.com.

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