Aries's Sysadmin Blog: Extending Service Request Form

Monday, March 3, 2014

Extending Service Request Form - Part 1 (Extending SR Class)

Throughout my experiences in implementing Service Manager 2012 (SCSM) for enterprise organisation, one of the challenge that repeat itself in each project is Service Request Fulfilment (SR).

For those who has come across the SR module of SCSM 2012, SCSM 2012 SP1 and SCSM 2012 R2, I am sure you will find that the SR Form out-of-box is nothing to fancy about. Instead you may find it very constraint and you barely can make anything out of it. Say for scenario below that you achieve which I am quite sure you could not achieve these

Scenario 1: Request Offering to Create AD Account
IT People always as how can I delegate this to HR Department (maybe) and there can request AD account through SSP. The challenge is how do you ask and map information such as First Name, Last Name, Middle Name, Proposed Username and etc. Well, asking the HR to use the "Description" box maybe a solution, but often they find it not practical.

Scenario 2: Request Offering to Request VM
Again, how could the IT Department allow the Business Unit to request for a virtual server. While the IT infrastructure is operating on a Private Cloud Concept, there is no practical way for user to request a VM with specific specification such as Processor, Memory, Operating System require.

Most of the people I come across they find it SR module of SM is not user friendly as why "M" does not consider all of this.

Well, it time to look from another angle. Service request is a very subjective module of all. You can have... ALL SORT OF REQUESTS...literally. To think about this, how could we expect "M" to make all sort of forms that could suit all of us. Of course "M" don't do that. That's where we come into picture, to understand user requirement and EXTEND the existing SR form.

Extending the SR form simply means to introduce more "field" to the form to capture the require information. This field is then use in Request Offering and publish through SSP as and interface to end user.

The rest of this topic explain how to extend the SR form to make request such as "Request VM" through SR possible and more practical.

Requirement
1. Service Manager 2012 - Management Server (of course)
2. Service Manager 2012 - Development Management Server (Good to have)
3. Service Manager console
4. Service Manager Authoring Tool
5. Basic understanding of SCSM Projection, Class and Management Pack Components
6. Knowledge in Visual Studio and programming is added advantage (no kidding)

Extending Service Request Form Series
Extending Service Request Form - Part 1 (Extending SR Class)
Extending Service Request Form - Part 2 (Extending SR Form)
Extending Service Request Form - Part 3 (Customizing the MP)

Extending Service Request Class

1. Install the SM Authoring Tool either on the Management Server or on your desktop.

2. Launch the SM Authoring Tool. Click on "New" to create a new Management pack for SM.

3. I created the MP with name "CMY_SRF_Extension_RequestVM"

4. Review the new MP created

5. At the Class Browser pane, select System Work Item Service Request Library and search for Service Request class. Right-click the class and select View.

6. Back to the Management Pack Explorer, you will see Service Request class listed under the sealed MP of System Work Item Service Request Library. Right-click Service Request class and select Extend class.

7. Review the changes will be saved in the MP that we have created earlier, click OK.

8. Lets name the extended class.

9. In the result pane, click Create property. We name the propoerty as CMY_SRF_Req_VM_Proc. This is the property we create to capture information of VM Processor Count in request.