So I ran out of customizations

jmadigan · 06-22-2007, 10:44 AM

I've done everything I wanted to do basically.

Change Management form
Search by Agency location number
Display Agency information including phone numbers, address, ip range, contacts, incidents
Display queue status to nonqueue members in the dashboard
Search for open incidents by agency on the edit screen
Display agency name, code, and phone numbers when selecting contacts
Choose a temporary agency when submitting an issue to allow for traveling contacts
Search for incidents by time zone

Now I can't think of new stuff to do. I know most customization is company specific but what cool ideas have you come up with/want to implement?

dbush · 06-22-2007, 11:12 AM

Since you asked....

I think a win32 console is high on the request list. Now that would be sweet...and you could sell it to Altiris, err...Symanetc.

skakid · 06-22-2007, 11:28 AM

Maybe this is more of a feature request, but linking Collections in the Asset field would be awesome. Especially for Change Management.

dominique · 06-23-2007, 07:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbush

Since you asked....

I think a win32 console is high on the request list. Now that would be sweet...and you could sell it to Altiris, err...Symanetc.

or to

Altirigos, Inc. ...

dferrett · 06-24-2007, 11:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmadigan

I've done everything I wanted to do basically.

Change Management form
Search by Agency location number
Display Agency information including phone numbers, address, ip range, contacts, incidents
Display queue status to nonqueue members in the dashboard
Search for open incidents by agency on the edit screen
Display agency name, code, and phone numbers when selecting contacts
Choose a temporary agency when submitting an issue to allow for traveling contacts
Search for incidents by time zone

Now I can't think of new stuff to do. I know most customization is company specific but what cool ideas have you come up with/want to implement?

Care to share some of your customizations? Especially the custom change form??

Dave

Mike · 06-25-2007, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbush

Since you asked....

I think a win32 console is high on the request list. Now that would be sweet...and you could sell it to Altiris, err...Symanetc.

I doubt they woud be interested. That will come about right around the same time as the Win32 NS console as in never.

A VB6 app wouldn't support all of the dynamic properties of the web console that make it as flexible as it is, though a web console doesn't quite feel the same.

Mike · 06-25-2007, 09:42 AM

Here's one for ya, try adding a little bit of color to identify the difference in priorities, status, etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Doyle

Here's something you can try at home if you are running a Helpdesk server.

1) Find the template subWorkItemTable in the AeXHD templates folder.
2) Edit it and add this code before the line
</script>
Public Overrides Sub FinalizeTemplate()
If Not Console.DownlevelBrowser Then
Dim grid as String = DirectCast(wgWorkItems.BaseGrid,WrappedFlexGrid).C lientID
Dim s as String
s = vbCrLf & "<" & "script language=""javascript"" for=" & grid & " event='CellChanged(nCol, nPos)'" & ">" & vbCrLf
s = s & "if(" & grid & ".Cell(0, nCol, nPos) == 'ASAP') " & vbCrLf
s = s & " { " & grid & ".Cell(7, nCol, nPos) = 16777215; " & grid & ".Cell(6, nCol, nPos) = 255; " & grid & ".Cell(13, nCol, nPos) = true;}" & vbCrLf
s = s & "else if(" & grid & ".Cell(0, nCol, nPos) == 'Open') " & vbCrLf
s = s & " { " & grid & ".Cell(7, nCol, nPos) = 0; " & grid & ".Cell(6, nCol, nPos) = 9226892; " & grid & ".Cell(13, nCol, nPos) = true;}" & vbCrLf
s = s & "<" & "/script" & ">" & vbCrLf
Console.RegisterClientScriptBlock("cellchanged",s)
End If
End Sub

3) Now open the Helpdesk and spot the difference (Hint it will help if you have a few incidents in open status or with priority set to ASAP).

John Doyle

Nick · 06-25-2007, 10:21 AM

I've got that John Doyle customization on one of my HD servers. It's a nice mod.

dominique · 06-25-2007, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike

Here's one for ya, try adding a little bit of color to identify the difference in priorities, status, etc.

Which environment does it need? Can I do a copy/paste above the script tag?
Will it work by itself in a customized environment?

I am getting errors:

- External component has thrown an exception.
- Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

it is on the worker report page that I am getting these errors.

Thanks,

dominique · 06-25-2007, 05:44 PM

There was a space in the C lientID I removed it and it wiorks fine now C 'EST BEAU!!!

Thanks a lot

Mike · 06-26-2007, 12:00 AM

JMadigan,
Tell us more about your change management form. Is it a custom web-page that connects to the Helpdesk web service?

thanks,

jmadigan · 06-26-2007, 10:19 AM

Sorry was out Monday. I've already done the color coding thing and it is really nice. Forgot to add that I guess. As far as the change management form, our company had a standard form that had to be filled out. You'd initial next to subtask such as "testing docs" and "rollout plan". Once all those are done, the change step (initial phase, development, release) could be approved.

What I did was add about 20 fields to the workitem table. I then created a new layout on workitemedit.ascx. It is hidden between the bottom of all the normal controls and the panels that show notification rules and such. Since we didn't use urgency, I renamed this with customstrings.xml to "Classification". This is our levels of change (standard, minor, significant, major). Standard changes don't need approval so I don't show the form for these. Everything else does so once the classification is changed from standard, the form is displayed.

Most of it is pretty simple. I save 1 or 0 for the checkboxes, the initials are a nvarchar (I knew a guy with only 2 initials not 3), the notes section is a ntext field. After several rewrites, I finally got the approved section working correctly. What you don't see is that there are 2 labels for each approved section. If I was to click Yes for stage 1, it calls the Continue function and takes my worker_id and date and puts them into invisible text boxes. It then puts my full name and date into the labels and says "Approved By:" and "Approved On:". Does the same thing for no but says Denied.

When I save the form, I created several validation rules. One set checks for the initials. Basically "when workitem_testingdoc = 1 and and workitem_testingdocIni = "" then display warning". Next I check to make sure all substeps are completed. "When workitem_testingdoc <> 1 or workitem_rolloutplan <> 1 and workitem_IsApp2 = 1 then display warning". That just makes sure we've completed all subtasks. The last set check to make sure the people approving these changes are correct.

Code:

 When ANY of these is TRUE 
   When ALL of these are TRUE 
      "Classification" is one of "Significant, Major"  
      "workitem_App1" is not one of "0, 51, 151, 48, 165, 167, 64, 169, 171"  
   <end> 
   When ALL of these are TRUE 
      "workitem_App1" is not one of "0, 130, 46, 161, 159, 62, 59, 51, 151, 48, 165, 167, 64, 169, 171"  
      "Classification" is equal to "Minor"  
   <end> 
<end>

This part has to be manually updated but it rarely changes (I haven't had to change it once). I have one for each stage. If your worker_id is in the first condition, you can approve significant and major changes. If your worker_id is in the second condition, you can approved minor changes. If you aren't in either, you can't approve any changes (remember you can still do standard since that doesn't require approval).

When we reopen the incident to edit, I do a query that takes the id that we've saved for the approval step before, and finds me the name of the person that approved/denied (because the current worker's name probably isn't the same). This way we can't have people forging approvals.

When we view the incident, I do a simple check on the classification and dispaly the rest of the fields if it's not standard.

So now we have the form, we can fill it out and view it. Also they are all of the Type "Change" so we can search for change forms by doing "Type = Change" and "Classification = Major" and "Status = Open" for all open major changes.

To notify the correct party there are tasks that I created. All workers would see "Send for Approval" once it is a change request (classification <> standard). Depending on the current worker's worker id, when the click the task, it adds a comment "sent for approval", sets the status to "Pending Approval". This in turn causes a notification rule to fire which sends the modifying worker's manage an email (I said these worker_ids have this worker_id for a manager). When they view the incident, they see "Approve or Deny Change". They are then brought to the edit screen where they can click yes or no for the step. Once done, the worker receives an email saying the change request has been updated and they can see if it is approved or denied.

For Significant or Major changes, they can take several months so what we do is basically the same as I just said, but the task is "Send to Change Management Board for Approval" where their manager still reviews it but on approval it is assigned to the CM Board's queue. Nobody is assigned to the queue but everybody that is a member of the board has their email address listed for the queue's email address. This means they all receive an email. They will also see they have an incident assigned to the queue in their dashboard because they all have the queue showing up from my dashboard customization.

That's about it. It is a very detailed process. I even had to use the change management form I was making to get approval to make the form. Funny huh. I'll attach my workitemedit.ascx and workitemview.ascx along with a text file of the rules I have so everybody can look through it. One thing to note is that because I have added so many fields to the workitem table, I had to use short names for the fields due to a bug in SQL Server 2000 and running stored procedures that create views with column names being over so many characters. I HIGHLY recommend doing this on a test box first because it can break the helpdesk.

dominique · 06-26-2007, 11:45 AM

J ,

Thank you for sharing this huge documentation.

Nick,

This needs to be on the KBs it is something regularly asked and the work done by J is really fantastic!!!!

jmadigan · 06-26-2007, 11:50 AM

Just be aware that there are other customizations in the workitemedit.ascx and workitemview.ascx. I have code in there to display agency specific information from custom tables such as phone numbers and such. Wish I documented my code better but there is some in there.

Mike · 06-26-2007, 12:45 PM

Helpdesk hotshot, I concur! You should put this on Juice and get your Juice Points =)

Nick · 06-26-2007, 01:18 PM

I keep thinking... send Jmadigan and JDoyle into a room with a clean HD and instructions to "Make it purty" then provide them with as much pizza and Jolt as they can handle.

They would emerge proclaiming "IT'S ALIVE!!"

dominique · 06-26-2007, 01:59 PM

Eureka!!!!

Lokisson · 06-26-2007, 05:34 PM

Jmadigan, if you keep improving this, maybe we don't need anymore Kittyhawk's releases

I was thinking, maybe we can do an advanced SLA construction form? I think many of you will agree, that SLA is very important part of any HD.

dominique · 11-13-2007, 08:16 PM

Hello JMadigan,

How to add a NumericUpDown field to the workitemedit screen?

I saw NumericUpDown control but i am lost how to use it

I added:

Quote:

<%@ImportNamespace="System.Windows.Forms" %>

and

Quote:

PublicSub InstantiateMyNumericUpDown()
' Create and initialize a NumericUpDown control.
numericUpDown1 = New System.Windows.Forms.NumericUpDown()

' Dock the control to the top of the form.
numericUpDown1.Dock = System.Windows.Forms.DockStyle.Top

' Set the Minimum, Maximum, and initial Value.
numericUpDown1.Value = 5
numericUpDown1.Maximum = 2500
numericUpDown1.Minimum = - 100

' Add the NumericUpDown to the Form.
Controls.Add(numericUpDown1)
EndSub

my field is called tbAddHours previously defined as a TextBox

Quote:

<aw:Textbox id="tbAddHours"runat="server"width="35px"height="20px"Label="sidLblAddHours"></aw:TextBox>

How to change it to a numericUpDown field?

Thanks,

jmadigan · 11-14-2007, 10:21 AM

I've never seen an updown control before. Is this in the new hd service pack?

dominique · 11-14-2007, 11:07 AM

Hello JM

I saw the numericUpDown control in ASP 1.1 documentation with and without AJAX.
I saw an application Remedy which is using this type of field but I don't have the code.

I would like a numeric field filled up with numbers from minimum to maximum with an up arrow and a down arrow that I will be able to move by increment of 1 by clicking the arrow up or down.

Some references:
NumericUpDown Class
Search - ASP.NET Forums

I was thinking about as version issue between .nET 1.1 and .Net 2.0 but msdn is giving this control valid for .Net 1.1
Version Information
.NET Framework
Supported in: 3.0, 2.0, 1.1, 1.0
.NET Compact Framework
Supported in: 2.0, 1.0

Thanks