SCSM – Page 2 – Buchatech.com

Service Manager Service Desk Ticker

December 9, 2015 by sbuchanan

Have you ever wanted a way with Service Manager to send out a notification to end users? Yes you can do this via email or some other method but how about displaying the notification directly on their computer so that they cannot ignore it. Well Cireson has created a Service Desk Ticker app that does this. Here is the official description of the app from their site:

“Out of the box, Service Manager allows you to create announcements, such as “Email is down, Internet is not working, maintenance in Building 2, Floor 4”, but doesn’t actually let you communicate those announcements to your organization in any way. The Service Desk Ticker app enables an analyst to create an announcement within Service Manager and communicate those announcements directly to an employee’s computer in real-time.“

This is pretty cool and the best part is that this app is free. One of my recent clients needed such a tool so I try out this app. The app consists of three files and a very easy install process:

Cireson.Ticker.App.Setup.msi – A client MSI that needs to be installed on end user computers. This is what displays the notification to the end users.
Cireson.Ticker.App.Admin.mpb – Is the management pack that needs to be imported into your Service Manager.
Cireson.Ticker.App.Workflows.dll – This needs to be copied to your Service Manager server.

You can even do a silent install of the client MSI file using a tool such as SCCM. Here is the syntax for that:

Cireson.Ticker.App.Setup.msi CONFIGPATH=”\\yourserver\yourshare\your folder” CHECKINTERVAL=60 /q

Here is my install experience:

I created a share for the SD Ticker app like \\ServerName\SDTicker and gave it the following permissions I gave domain users read access and the SCSM Workflow account full rights on the share.

I imported the (Management Pack) MPB file into my Service Manager.

I copied the Cireson.Ticker.App.Workflows.dll to C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\Service Manager on my Service Manager management server.
I closed the SCSM console and launched it again.
I then went to Administration>Settings and opened Cireson Ticker App Settings.

The following screenshot is what the Cireson Ticker App Settings look like. Be sure to put in your share path here and tick the Enable Announcement Processing as this is what makes your Service Manager announcements show up on the end users’ desktop. Also check the Include Announcement Priority if you want to include the priority level with announcements.

Now on a client computer I went and installed the Cireson.Ticker.App.Setup.msi. Here is what this looked like:

On this next screen I had to put in the path to the share I setup earlier. This is where it will definitely be faster and more efficient to deploy the client using the silent install.

And the install should finish successfully.

Testing the App:

Then I went back to Service Manager and created a new announcement to test the ticker app. To do this from the SCSM console go to Administration>Announcements>Active Announcements and click on Create Announcement.

After the announcement is created it will display on the end users computer when the workflow runs on the next 60 second interval.

To check the workflow go to SCSM Console>Administration>Workflows>Status. Filter on “Cireson Ticker App Announcement Create Workflow“. In the bottom of the workflow pane click on All Instances and then click on View log. This will open up the status about the workflow so you can make sure it is running. You will be able to see the last time it ran.

Boom there it is, the announcement on my client.

In case this is not working for you here are some troubleshooting steps:

Make sure you are seeing this “Cireson.Ticker.App.Announcements.xml” file in your share.
Double check your permissions are correct on the file share.
Double check the share path is correct both in Service Manager in the Cireson App Ticker Settings and in your client.
Make sure the client app is running on the client computer and monitoring for announcements. You should see Cireson Ticker App Client running as a process in Task Manager in the task bar.

If it is not running you can click on the app’s .exe here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Cireson\Cireson Ticker App to launch it. NOTE: It does automatically start at Windows logon.

Well I hope you enjoyed this post.

You can download the free Service Desk Ticker App here:

http://cireson.com/apps/service-desk-ticker/

Update: Custom Service Request Area (CSRA) v3

December 2, 2015 by sbuchanan

Back in 2014 I published a management pack (MP) named Custom Service Request Area (CSRA) v2 for Service Manager. The CSRA MP gives you a custom Area list for Service Requests. Here is a link to the original post: https://www.buchatech.com/2013/10/custom-service-request-area/.

I recently updated this management pack. I reduced it from two MP files down to one MP file and added 15 generic user inputs to this. With the v2 version of the CSRA MP admins had to customize the Service Request form to add their own generic user inputs. This required modifying the CSRA MP to modify the form. I added these user inputs so that admins will no longer need to do that.

Here is the link for the updated MP. CSRA is now v3.

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Custom-Service-Request-e4d40738

Also in this blog I want to call out the process I commonly use to build the request area list. I use a tool from a talented colleague of mine Rob Plank named the Enum Builder. This is a GUI based tool that can be used to create a list in an MP file that can be imported into Service Manager. It creates the MP file from a CSV file that you populate. This makes building lists in Service Manager very easy.

The Enum Builder can be downloaded here:

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Service-Manager-Enum-43e30552#content

Here is a blog on how to use the tool:

http://www.concurrency.com/infrastructure/service-manager-create-list-items-using-enum-builder/

Ok now onto using Enum Builder with the CSRA management pack. So building the list for the CSRA is slightly different compared to other MP’s. With the CSRA MP you need to know some key pieces of information. These are:

Enum MP ID: ServiceRequestAreaOverwrite

Version: 1.0.0.10

PublicKeyToken: b0ee85f41e7f3f91

These are highlighted below in a screenshot of the Enum Builder tool.

You also need to make sure you have the correct value for EnumerationValue ID in your CSV file. You will want to use “RequestAreaCustom” for this. Here is a screenshot of an example CSV file.

So to sum this up. Build your CSV, fill out the fields in the Enum Builder tool, create your list MP file, import into Service Manager and you will have your own custom area list for Service Requests.

2 Sessions at MMS 2015

November 6, 2015 by sbuchanan

I am late posting this but better late than not at all. Next week I will be presenting at MMS 2015 on November 9th and 11th. In this post I will break down what each session is about. This is the second year of the community powered MMS event. The Midwest Management Summit is a 3-day conference purposely capped to just 500 attendees so that nobody gets lost in the crowd. Almost 60 Microsoft MVP’s will be presenting on System Center, cloud, PowerShell topics and more.

Areas the speakers will be presenting on are Operations Management Suite (OMS), Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS), Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, Orchestrator, Service Management Automation, Azure Automation, Service Manager, Data Protection Manager, Azure Backup, Azure Pack, Azure Stack, Hyper-V, Nano server, PowerShell, Desired State Configuration and more. I am lucky to be co-presenting with two awesome System Center experts Natascia Heil @NatasciaHeil and Chiyo Odika @mrchiyo. The first session I will be presenting is:

-Real world automation with Service Manager and Azure Automation-

Here is what to expect from this session:

Automation is not only requesting and building virtual machines through Service Manager and Orchestrator. Automation can do much more and Service Manager can be combined with Microsoft’s other automation tools such as SMA, Azure Automation, and DSC. This session will teach you how to identify areas of automation in your company. It will cover automation fits in the ITIL story. It will also show some real life automation examples utilizing Microsoft newest automation tool (Azure Automation) and Service Manager.

We have two demo’s planned for this session. The first demo will show how to use Service Manager and Azure Automation. The second demo will show automating patch management using SCCM, Orchestrator, and Service Manager’s change management.

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Link to this session:

http://mms2015.sched.org/event/bc3ffcd6aaaaef9a5e765493a0e6527f?iframe=no#.VjsTBeJcxps

The second session I will be presenting is:

-OMS Strategies and Notes from the Field-

Here is what to expect from this session:

OMS is a comprehensive web-based cloud IT Management solution with monitoring, automation and other features and solutions that will provide you with greater control and new capabilities across your hybrid cloud.

In this session, you will learn about strategies for getting the most out of OMS, best-practices, and learn from our extensive experiences in the field, deploying, configuring, and troubleshooting OMS.

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Link to this session:

http://mms2015.sched.org/event/a4fb2e8bd31e7cab0de55695f9ec48a1#.VjsTCOJcxps

For more information on MMS 2015 and a full list of speakers and sessions visit:

http://mmsmoa.com/

Early Look: Service Manager HTML 5 Portal

October 21, 2015 by sbuchanan

***UPDATE 11-10-2015****

Download the new portal here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx?id=49556
Office Install Instructions here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt622142.aspx

****UPDATE END****

Today the Microsoft Service Manager team announced that Service Manager’s UR8 will include the new HTML 5 self-service portal. Here is the link to that blog post: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager/archive/2015/10/21/ur8-release-date.aspx

This is very exciting news as we know a new improved portal for Service Manager has been highly requested for a long time. In this blog post I will give a quick tour of the new portal that is coming. Here is what you see when you first login with some descriptions of the different areas:

Menu

You will find the fly out menu on the left side of the portal. On the top half are the navigation menu with contact info on the lower half.

Announcements

The Service Manager team has brought announcements back to the portal.

Service Catalog

Below is a screenshot of the Service Catalog the core of the self-service portal. You will see the Service Offerings listed in an easy way. As you click on a Service Offering you will see its Request Offerings pop out on the right.

Here is what a Request Offering looks like:

Notice on the request offering that you can favorite them by clicking on the heart icon.

My Requests

End users have the ability to access requests they have submitted as shown in the screenshot below.

My Activities

There is an area for activities to approve/reject, mark as completed/failed etc.

Help Article (Knowledge Base)

The Help Articles area is a huge improvement over the last portal. Now the help articles show right in the web browser. They also can be rated and or favorite.

The following screenshot shows that you can use keywords to scope down the help articles. This is helpful to narrow down to a specific topic.

The next two screenshots show what an internal and external help article looks like in the new portal.

Service Manager SCCM Remote Control Management Pack

August 22, 2015 by sbuchanan

Configuration Manager has a Remote Control tool. This tool is often used by service desks to conduct remote support sessions with end users. More information about this tool can be found here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Gg682062.aspx

A common ask in any Service Manager deployment is to use this tool within Service Manager from Incidents. For some time there have been many blogs out there with the steps on how to setup this integration. A quick search on your favorite search engine will bring back many results. The steps to set this up are relatively easy to do however they can be prone to errors.

I recently collaborated with fellow System Center expert Sam Erskine (www.itprocessed.com) to package this in a management pack as an effort to reduce the steps needed to set this up. I use it myself on Service Manager projects and it saves me time. I can import a management pack on a new SCSM deployment and then it is ready to be used. If you are using User Affinity in SCCM and the SCCM connector in Service Manager users primary device will automatically be assigned. This relationship flows over to Service Manager through the SCCM connector. When you click on the SCCM Remote Control Task it will attempt to connect to the primary device. Here is what it looks like:

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Download the solution here: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Service-Manager-SCCM-0ee48590

Update: SCSM Discovery Report v1.3

July 30, 2015 by sbuchanan

I have made some more updates to the SCSM Discovery Report script. It is now version 1.3. The updates include:

First: Updated the SCSM Version Checker code to version 2. Microsoft MVP Steve Beaumont worked with Samuel Erskine to optimize the PowerShell in the SCSM version checker. This optimization is now a part of the SCSM Discovery Report script. This also detects up to UR7 now.

Second: Fixed Service Manager Management Group Name section not displaying the name.

Third: Updated the Display Data Warehouse Information section to use UR7’s Get-SCDWInfraLocation CMDlet.

The script can be downloaded here: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Service-Manager-Discovery-a25c7d80

System Center 2012 R2 UR7 Highlights

July 29, 2015 by sbuchanan

Its been a while since I have posted a new blog. I have been busy working on multiple System Center projects and other behind the scene activities. Today update rollup 7 for System Center 2012 R2 was released and this is definitely worth a post. This UR includes DPM, SCSM, SPF, VMM, , SCORCH, Azure Pack, but not Operations Manager. UR7 for Operations Manager will be coming within a few weeks. More info here. It is interesting that SCOM is not in this UR and we actually see SCORCH included. Here are some highlights from UR7:

For Orchestrator The Monitor SNMP Trap activity has an issue fixed and there is a fix for Stop Job and Stop Runbook. The SCORCH UR also includes some fixes for SMA.

For Service Manager we see a bunch of fixes. Some fixes I want to call out are MPSync Data Warehouse job stop responding and the Get-SCDWInfraLocations cmdlet introduced in update rollup 5 have been fixed. Great work from the Service Manager team. Keep it up.

Beyond just fixes we see new features in two of the System Center components VMM and DPM. As always its exciting to see new features added via UR’s.

In VMM we see support for Windows 10, the ability to provision and customize Debian 8 Linux as a Guest Operating System, support for VMWare vCenter 5.5, the ability to have Multiple External IP Addresses per Virtual Network, the ability to re-associate orphaned virtual machines to their service or VM role, and support for VMM DHCP Extension PXE/TFP Forwarding. There also is a ton of great fixes for issues in VMM. This is great work from the team and should make VMM more stable.

In DPM we see support for Windows 10 client protection, and a really cool feature being the ability to use alternate DPM servers to recover backups from Azure Backup vault. These means if you sent your backup data to Azure from one DPM server and it croaks you can connect a different DPM server to your Azure Backup subscription and recover data from Azure! I have a feeling we will continue to see greater collaboration between on premise backup/DR (DPM) and cloud backup/DR Azure Backup in the future.

To access update rollup 7 visit this link: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3069110

Script: Export Unsealed Service Manager Management Packs

July 27, 2015 by sbuchanan

Customizations to Service Manager are stored in unsealed management packs. These should be backed up. These can be exported from Service Manager and stored in a safe location. The process to export unsealed management packs from the Service Manager console is manual and each have to be exported one by one. A better way to do this is to use a script to export all un-sealed management packs.

There are several scripts out there that can do this but most are for older versions of SCSM. I have recently updated one of these scripts. It was created by Microsoft MVP and one of the top Service Manager experts Anders Asp. Here is his blog with the original script: http://www.scsm.se/?p=227

I have updated the script to work with the latest SCSM PowerShell CMDlets and have tested it with SCSM 2012 R2 UR7.

The script is named: ExportUnsealedSCSMMPs.ps1

You can download the script locally on a Management Server

Edit the script and change “C:\Unsealed SCSM MPs\” to a directory on your server. Be sure to leave the “\” at the end.

Run the script from an elevated PowerShell window on a Management Server by typing

.\ExportUnsealedSCSMMPs.ps1

You should see the following output:

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The unsealed MP’s will be loaded in a folder with the current date as seen in the following screenshot:

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Note: Old folders will need to be manually cleaned up. You can also schedule this using Task Scheduler.

This script can be downloaded here:

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Export-Unsealed-Service-43602dd4

4th time System Center MVP

July 1, 2015 by sbuchanan

This morning I received an email from Microsoft that I am awarded System Center Cloud and Datacenter Management MVP for the 4th year. Here is the email I received: The System Center Cloud and Datacenter Management MVP’s are a great lively bunch of folks. It is an honor to still be a part of this … Read more

Operations Management Suite in SCSM Console

May 24, 2015 by sbuchanan

Today I was playing around with Service Manager and decided to add a view for Operations Management Suite in the Service Manager Console. I have placed it in a management pack for use in other Service Manager environments. I have uploaded the management pack to TechNet Gallery. Once you load the management pack an Operations Management Suite folder will show up within Work Items.

NOTE: The first time you open Operations Management Suite inside of Service Manager you will see compatibility mode warning just click on continue.

Here are some screenshots:

Download the management pack here:

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Operations-Management-10f68429