Help the Help Desk stuffs

[aleck_lin]

About a year (and half?) ago, I made the effort to consolidate the Help the Help Desk script (the one where a user clicks on the "Help the Help Desk" module under the "Self-Service" application) and the login script (aka wmi script) that people could download and preprogram it to run on a system startup (either through DC or some other means). In fact, I think the login script's old file name was called "snc_discovery.js".

At any rate, the script is now consolidated into ONLY one (filename is now "helpthehelpdesk.js"), so that we didn't have to maintain two separate scripts. The script is actually maintained as a "UI script" under "system UI" application called HelpTheHelpDesk if anyone is so inclined to modify it. To download it as a login script, go to "Help the Help Desk Login Script" module under "System Definition" application.

Also, we used to ask people to supply the SOAP authentication username and password in the script after they download it. Well, it's actually a lot easier now. Just go to "Help the Help Desk" module under "System Definition" application, and fill in the SOAP authentication username and password property; then whenever the Help the Help Desk login script is downloaded, it will automatically be populated with username and password specified. It's also worth noting that if you enter the password this way, we automatically encode the password so it's not as obvious as a plain password.

Lastly, the latest addition is the "Help the Help Desk Status" module under "System Definition", for every incoming help the help desk run (whether through someone clicking on the "Scan to Help the Help Desk" button in self-service or the login script), we automatically create a status record and a device history record for the actual device discovered. The status record is separated on a daily basis for record tracking purposes, meaning if help the help desk script was yesterday and today, there would be two separate status records; each status record contains all the devices that came in through help the help desk. It's just a better way to seeing what devices actually came in as opposed to looking for it in the CMDB or the ECC queue table entries.