# Building Catalog Instances

NOTE

API usage for Catalog Items with Forms is not yet supported. If planning to use the API or CLI to order Catalog Items you should not use Forms on Catalog Items until it is supported.

An Instance in HPE Morpheus Enterprise is a set of one or more containers or virtual machines that correlate to a single, horizontally-scalable entity or service suite. From the Self Service section, we can pre-configure HPE Morpheus Enterprise Instances and present them to users viewing the Service Catalog Persona for one-click deployment.

From the Catalog Items List Page (Library > Blueprints > Catalog Items), click ADD. From the dropdown menu, select Instance. The modal window will appear to configure and add a new catalog Instance.

![../../_images/createInstance1.png](https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/api/document/sd00007732en_us/GUID-0D1DD7D2-5438-441D-9D5D-515401798FE8-high.png)

Configure the following:

- **NAME:** A friendly name for the catalog item in HPE Morpheus Enterprise
- **CODE:** An optional shortcode for coded naming schemes or programmatic reference
- **DESCRIPTION:** An optional description identifying the catalog item
- **CATEGORY:** Select an existing category or enter a new one. When provisioning from the catelog, items can be filtered by category
- **ENABLED:** When checked, this catalog item will be available for provisioning
- **LABELS:** A comma-separated list of descriptive strings which can be used to categorize the Catalog Item. The Catalog Items list view page can be filtered by labels to make them easier to find
- **ENABLED:** When marked, this Catalog Item will be available from the provisioning Catalog view
- **DISABLE AUTO PRICE:** When marked, price estimates are no longer refreshed with every field change at the time this Catalog Item is ordered. For some workloads with heavy Configuration-phase Tasks this may improve performance of the order page
- **FEATURED:** When checked, this catalog item will be given special visibility in the Service Catalog Persona view
- **ALLOW QUANTITY:** When checked, an additional field is added to the order page allowing users to order multiple copies. If this option is enabled, ensure your configuration supports that flexibility (such as when IP or load balancer details are specified)
- **MAX QUANTITY:** When the ALLOW QUANTITY configuration is used, an additional MAX QUANTITY configuration is available which sets an upper limit on the quantity that may be executed
- **VISIBILITY:** Set to private to keep the catalog item available only to users in the current Tenant. Master Tenant administrators may set catalog items to public to make them viewable and usable by Subtenant users
- **LOGO:** Select or upload a logo to be associated with this catalog item
- **DARK LOGO:** If desired, set an alternate logo for use when the dark theme is applied to the HPE Morpheus Enterprise appliance
- **CONFIG:** Enter, view, or edit Instance config here. Click CONFIGURE to build a base configuration through the HPE Morpheus Enterprise Instance wizard. After configuration through the Instance wizard, you may need to overwrite some static values in the Instance JSON body with calls to custom Input values. This allows your users to easily set the Instance Plan, Group, name, tags, or anything else they may need to control. Dynamic inputs are passed with the following syntax: “<%= customOptions.fieldName %>” where fieldName is the Field Name value set on the Input
- **CONTENT:** Optionally include documentation content for this Catalog Item. Markdown-formatted text is accepted and displayed appropriately when the item is ordered from the Service Catalog. A new Catalog Item-type Wiki entry will also be added containing this information
- **FORM TYPE:** Choose whether a Form or individual Inputs should be used to set the user options at provisioning time. See [Forms documentation](https://docs.morpheusdata.com/en/latest/library/options/options.html#forms) for complete details on creating Forms.
- **FORM:** If the Form Type of “Form” is selected, choose the pre-existing Form which should be associated with the Catalog Item
- **INPUTS:** If the Form Type of “Inputs” is selected, choose the pre-existing Inputs which should be associated with the Catalog Item

## Using Forms with Catalog Items

NOTE

API usage for Catalog Items with Forms is not yet supported. If planning to use the API or CLI to order Catalog Items you should not use Forms on Catalog Items until it is supported.

Using Forms provides a number of advantages over using Inputs. Once the Form is selected, HPE Morpheus Enterprise helpfully provides a sidebar which contains all variables that can be consumed in the Instance config from the Form:

![../../_images/catalogSidebar.png](https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/api/document/sd00007732en_us/GUID-4820885E-F91A-4F9E-881B-4C5ECEC0F160-high.png)

Many Form Inputs are designed to auto-inject themselves into the Instance config, you can see in the screenshot above that “AUTO INJECT” is checked. For variables that auto-inject, you do not need to override any static configuration with a variable call in order to consume that form value. In most cases, you should leave auto-inject turned on but the option is available to disable it for more advanced situations such as if you wanted to code custom logic into the variable call.

Other types of Form Inputs do not auto-inject and, for these, you must override any static configuration in the Instance config with a variable call. For these situations, HPE Morpheus Enterprise helpfully provides the results of all variables so you can be sure you’re injecting the proper call. Click on the question mark (?) button immediately to the right of the “FORM VARIABLES” header to see a list of available variables and an example resolved variable. Variable tiles may be dragged from the sidebar into the CONFIG text area and a properly-formatted variable call will be inserted.

![../../_images/optionTypeHelp.png](https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/api/document/sd00007732en_us/GUID-BF683E2D-8807-45D4-8E2B-B807A250D92B-high.png)

As an example, see the configuration for an Ubuntu server in the expandable section below. You’ll notice in the configuration that a VMware Cloud, a specific Group, a specific Plan, and other static configurations are set. Since the Group, Cloud, Plan and other variables are able to be automatically injected, the user may select a different Group, Cloud, Plan, etc. from the form at provision time. The creator of the Catalog Item does not need to override those static configurations with variable calls.

### Example Catalog Item Config

```
```
{  
  "hostName": "${userInitials}-${cloudCode}-${type}-${sequence}",  
  "metadata": "<%=customOptions.targetTags%>",  
  "backup": {  
    "backupRepository": 40,  
    "veeamManagedServer": "",  
    "jobSchedule": 2,  
    "createBackup": true,  
    "jobAction": "new",  
    "jobRetentionCount": "3",  
    "providerBackupType": 12,  
    "target": 37006  
  },  
  "instance": {  
    "userGroup": {  
      "id": ""  
    },  
    "tags": "Forms,Test"  
  },  
  "defaultExpandAdvanced": false,  
  "volumes": [  
    {  
      "maxIOPS": null,  
      "displayOrder": 0,  
      "unitNumber": "0",  
      "minStorage": 5368709120,  
      "configurableIOPS": false,  
      "uuid": "a6781cc1-31ca-406b-aea0-e33ea1a18b7f",  
      "controllerMountPoint": "2200223:0:4:0",  
      "internalId": "[ESXi-DC2-QA-LUN01] Morpheus Ubuntu 22.04 20230307/Morpheus Ubuntu 22.04 20230307.vmdk",  
      "id": 5255832,  
      "datastoreId": "autoCluster",  
      "maxStorage": 26843545600,  
      "volumeCustomizable": true,  
      "readonlyName": false,  
      "controllerId": 2200223,  
      "externalId": "2000",  
      "virtualImageId": 1418543,  
      "vId": 1418543,  
      "size": 25,  
      "name": "root",  
      "planResizable": true,  
      "rootVolume": true,  
      "storageType": 1,  
      "typeId": 1,  
      "resizeable": true,  
      "uniqueId": null  
    }  
  ],  
  "type": "ubuntu",  
  "ports": [  
    {  
      "code": "ubuntu.22",  
      "visible": true,  
      "internalPort": 22,  
      "loadBalancePort": null,  
      "loadBalanceProtocol": null,  
      "sortOrder": 1,  
      "name": "SSH",  
      "id": 7,  
      "shortName": "ssh",  
      "externalPort": 22,  
      "loadBalance": false  
    }  
  ],  
  "version": "22.04",  
  "hideLock": true,  
  "cloud": {  
    "name": "QA VMware",  
    "id": 26324  
  },  
  "layout": {  
    "code": "vmware-ubuntu-22.04-single",  
    "id": 2608414  
  },  
  "showScale": false,  
  "environment": "2",  
  "networkInterfaces": [  
    {  
      "ipMode": "",  
      "primaryInterface": true,  
      "showNetworkPoolLabel": true,  
      "showNetworkDhcpLabel": false,  
      "network": {  
        "idName": "VLAN0002 - Internal Server",  
        "pool": {  
          "name": "10.32.20.0 /22",  
          "id": 18823  
        },  
        "id": "network-173431",  
        "hasPool": false  
      },  
      "networkInterfaceTypeId": 4,  
      "networkInterfaceTypeIdName": "VMXNET 3"  
    }  
  ],  
  "copies": 1,  
  "loadBalancer": [],  
  "name": "${userInitials}-${cloudCode}-${type}-${sequence}",  
  "storageControllers": [  
    {  
      "editable": false,  
      "typeName": "IDE",  
      "maxDevices": 2,  
      "displayOrder": 0,  
      "active": true,  
      "unitNumber": null,  
      "reservedUnitNumber": -1,  
      "busNumber": "0",  
      "removable": false,  
      "name": "IDE 0",  
      "typeId": 2,  
      "id": 1729031,  
      "category": "ide"  
    },  
    {  
      "editable": false,  
      "typeName": "IDE",  
      "maxDevices": 2,  
      "displayOrder": 1,  
      "active": true,  
      "unitNumber": null,  
      "reservedUnitNumber": -1,  
      "busNumber": "1",  
      "removable": false,  
      "name": "IDE 1",  
      "typeId": 2,  
      "id": 1729032,  
      "category": "ide"  
    },  
    {  
      "editable": false,  
      "typeName": "SCSI LSI Logic Parallel",  
      "maxDevices": 15,  
      "displayOrder": 2,  
      "active": true,  
      "unitNumber": null,  
      "reservedUnitNumber": 7,  
      "busNumber": "0",  
      "removable": false,  
      "name": "SCSI 0",  
      "typeId": 4,  
      "id": 1729030,  
      "category": "scsi"  
    }  
  ],  
  "config": {  
    "poolProviderType": null,  
    "isVpcSelectable": true,  
    "smbiosAssetTag": null,  
    "isEC2": false,  
    "resourcePoolId": "pool-139625",  
    "hostId": null,  
    "createUser": true,  
    "nestedVirtualization": null,  
    "vmwareFolderId": "group-v80",  
    "noAgent": false  
  },  
  "plan": {  
    "code": "vm-8192",  
    "id": 149  
  },  
  "group": {  
    "name": "All Clouds",  
    "id": "2"  
  }  
}
```
```

Once done, click SAVE CHANGES
