SCSM 2012

Hot off the press: Service Manager 2012 Unleashed book

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The System Center 2012 Service Manager Unleashed book is finally done! I received some copies of it on Friday. It is set to publish on Monday October 6th 2014. Here is the link for it and a picture below.

http://www.amazon.com/System-Center-Service-Manager-Unleashed/dp/067233707X

SCSM 2012 Unleashed

There was a great team of people behind this book consisting of well-known folks in the Service Manager community from MVP’s, MCT’s, expert consultants, and even Microsoft staff. Authors included me, MVP Kerrie Meyler, MVP Kurt Van Hoecke, and MCT Sam Erskine. Contributors include MVP Jakob Svendsen, Microsoft employee Kathleen Wilson, MCT Kenneth Surksum, Oskar Landman, MVP Patrik Sundqvist, and Peter Quagliariello. Even the foreword was done by former Microsoft program manager and now MVP Christian Booth and Service Manager program manager Srikanth Ranganathan.

This book is packed with tons of “why” and “how to” content for Service Manager. If you have Service Manager deployed or you are about to embark on a Service Manager project add this book to your library. Here is an overview of the content in the book:

This comprehensive resource will help you automate and optimize all facets of service management with System Center 2012 Service Manager.

Expert consultants offer deep “in the trenches” insights for improving problem resolution, change control, release management, asset lifecycle management, chargeback, and more. You’ll learn how to implement high-value best practices from ITIL and the Microsoft Operations Framework.

The authors begin with an expert overview of Service Manager, its evolution, and its new capabilities. Next, they walk through overall planning, design, implementation, and upgrades. Then, to help you focus your efforts, they present stepwise coverage of all topics in each feature area, linking technical information about Service Manager with essential knowledge about the technologies it depends on.

Whatever your role in deploying or running Service Manager, this guide will help you deliver more responsive support at lower cost and drive more value from all your IT investments.

• Leverage MOF and ITIL processes built into System Center 2012 Service Manager
• Plan and design your Service Manager deployment
• Install Service Manager or upgrade from earlier versions
• Efficiently administer work and configuration items
• Use connectors to integrate with Active Directory, Exchange, and System Center components
• Create service maps
• Enable end user access through Service Manager’s self-service portal
• Implement incident, problem, change, and release management
• Utilize workflows to automate key support processes
• Create service level agreements with calendars, metrics, and objectives
• Provide quick access to a standardized catalog of services
• Use notification to ensure that Service Manager items are promptly addressed
• Secure Service Manager and its data warehouse/reporting platform
• Perform maintenance, backup, and recovery
• Manage Service Manager performance
• Customize Service Manager

http://www.amazon.com/System-Center-Service-Manager-Unleashed/dp/067233707X

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System Center 2012 Service Manager Cookbook Published

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I am happy to announce the Microsoft System Center 2012 Service Manager Cookbook has been published. I had the opportunity to be a  technical reviewer on this book. It will be a good resource for any Service manager admins out there. Here is the cover and the link to purchase it: http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-System-Service-Manager-Cookbook/dp/1849686947

System Center Service Manager 2012 Book

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There is another book for the System Center stack coming from Packt. This book is a cookbook on Service Manager 2012. This book will cover the various methods and best practices administrating and using Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2012. How to correctly solve specific problems and scenarios that arise while using System Center Service … Read more

Add Change Password Web Part to SCSM 2012 Self Service Portal

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I needed a way for users to change their own password. I know this can be done on a domain computer or in OWA. However I needed a centralized location for the end users to do this and this solution needed to work in System Center Service Manager (SCSM) 2012’s Self-Service Portal. SCSM’s Self Service Portal runs on top of SharePoint 2010. So I went on the hunt for a password reset SharePoint web part.

There are a ton of these type of web parts out there but most of them are paid. I did find a free one. It is called ITaCS Change Password web part. (A Big thanks to the developers for making this and making it free!).

This web part enables users to change their local or Active Directory password from within a SharePoint Site Collection. Another cool feature of this web part is that it will show you how long you have before your password will expire. In this post I am going to show how to deploy this on a SharePoint 2010 farm and expose it through SCSM’s Self Service Portal.

Steps to Deploy the ITaCS Change Password Web Part

  • Download the web part from:

http://changepassword.codeplex.com

  • Extract Web Part from .zip file.

NOTE: This is only for SharePoint 2007. It will work on SharePoint 2010 but you have to install it manually from the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell not the install wizard or it will fail.

This is what you will see if you install from Wizard:

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To install from SharePoint 2010 Management Shell

  • Launch the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell using administrative privileges.

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  • We need to add the web part to the solution store in our farm. To do this run the following:
    • Navigate to “(PathOFTHEWEBPART)\ITaCS Change Password 2.5\ITaCS Change Password 2.5\Resources\”
    • Run Add-SPSolution it will need the Literal path with the name of the WSP. “(PathOFTHEWEBPART) ITaCS Change Password 2.5\ITaCS Change Password 2.5\Resources\ItacsChangePassword.wsp”
    • When it finishes you will see this notice it is not Deployed yet:

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Service Manager 2012 Self Service Portal Blank

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When you deploy Service Manager 2012 Self Service Portal by default it should look like this: If you deploy SCSM 2012 Self Service portal and it looks like this: Chances are your SSL certificate is not properly setup. Here is a great blog post on how to fix this: http://www.code4ward.net/main/Blog/tabid/70/EntryId/139/Service-Manager-2012-Self-Service-Portal-not-working-blank.aspx