Displaying Custom information for end user in App Portal?

[steven_weber]

Hi, we are trying to customize the user information in App Portal to display a custom field called Cost Center in when placing an order for software it automatically pulls this information in.  We have this in another system and we are wondering how we can pull info from other resources?

[CharlesW]

You could always use a custom web service to do this.. You could either create a question tied to an answer generated by a web service, or you could simply invoke a web service as an action, and a variable containing the value will be set automatically. If you do not need to display the value to the end user checking out, then the second approach would be used.. Otherwise, you'd need to use a question..

If you use a question, then you can resolve the question value that is set by your web service using the following variable syntax:

##QuestionID:XX##

Where XX is the question ID number. If you have a web service, and you want to resolve the value, then you would use the syntax:

##WS_XX##

Where XX is the web service ID used to pass the result of a web service call. For example, I have a web service registered with the name ESDWebService with a method named GetSiteCode.. The variable in this case would be ##WS_ESDWebService_GetSiteCode##

An easy way to know what variables are set for a request, would be to go to the following web service:
http://localhost/esd/ws/integration.asmx?op=GetResolvedRequestVariables

This will list all available variables/values for a given request ID.

[CharlesW]

I've attached a custom web service which will lookup a column name in the SCCM DB for a given user name passed to the web service. This could be used for a question, or simply invoked as an action... It is really intended to illustrate how you might call into an external data source to get a value.. Another example of a web service which can be used for a "dynamic" question can be found in the web/ws folder under the App Portal install directory.. The file is named SampleQuestionAnswers.asmx.  The following page in the help library provides a bit more information on the subject.. See Answers Tab.

[steven_weber]

Charles,

See below from a case we opened up earlier on this issue we were having with the route of a going with a question and web service....

We have been working on an issue in AppPortal. The issue centers around a question, that "today" is not required to be answered by the requestor. The question is using a dropdown list, the list is being populated by a web service. The web service call returns the requestors cost center. During from completion we notice that the employee cost center question says "-select-", but yet it is an answered question. When we select the dropdown arrow, the list displays the cost center of the user reviewing this request, not the cost center that was answered by the requestor. It appears that when looking at the cost center question with the dropdown control, AppPortal is still running the web service call. In our opinion since this is an answered question, AppPortal should use a textbox control and read the value from the database. Issue 2: When this question goes un-answered, in some cases we want this question answered. In this case, the requestor needs to go back and update the request with their answer to the question. The problem is AppPortal does not allow us to update the request. When we click on the dropdown arrow to answer the question, you get a blank list. Expected results is that the web service tied to this question would return the cost center for this requestor. The requestor would answer the question by selecting their cost center and save the request. Looking foward for your help.

This is why we didn't want to do a Web Service Question.

Any assistance on this would be appreciated.

Tks.

Steven Weber
Client Services | Manager
IT Client Services Canada
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[CharlesW]

Steven,
I think that in the near term, we are unlikely to get dynamic questions working as you would like... How do you wish to "consume" the users cost center? Perhaps we can add a note to the request which would indicate the users cost center, so that the information can at least be easily viewed by someone viewing the request? I'd think that we could create an action which would lookup the target users cost center somewhere, and set a note with that information.. Let me know if you think that this might work for you...

[steven_weber]

Charles, did you see my last response on this....how can we create an action to display the info we require?

Tks.

Steve.

[CharlesW]

Steve,
 I must have missed your last reply.. In any event, I'll need to dig into it a bit to find out the best way to add a note to the request.. Can you tell me if the cost center for the user is currently being synced into the App Portal DB? If not, is the users cost center being discovered in SCCM as a user discovery attribute? Our first step will be to ensure that the cost center is being discovered for users.. Ideally, we would then create a custom user sync query in App Portal to sync the cost center into the App Portal WD_user table.. At that point, we should be able to simply resolve the cost center as a variable.. I had thought that App Portal had web service, but I'm not seeing one, so I may have to build one.. Let me know where the cost center is currently available in the AP DB, or in the SCCM DB.

[steven_weber]

Charles, sorry for the delay..we've been in touch with our rep Silvia Belcher who is working with you also.  To answer your questions on the cost center in App Portal or SCCM is no but we do have the cost center info synced in FNMS as per the attached....is there no way to link this info into App Portal?

[CharlesW]

Pulling the cost center FNMS should be possible, provided that the location in the FNMS DB could be found.. This would be cumbersome as the sql connection would have to be done as part of the custom web service..  It would be much more convenient if we can get SCCM to discover this attribute, and bring it in as part of the user discovery.. I'd guess that each user in your environment has a cost center defined for the user in AD, correct? If so, then I think that it should be easy enough to discover the attributed.. If you look at the screen shot below, which shows were to extend the AD user discover attributes, do you see the cost center attribute listed? Not sure what it will be named, because I think that it may be a "custom" attribute in AD.. 

Note that i've already created a web service which can be used to add a note to a request, but I need to know where to get the cost center from... if we can get this discovered in SCCM, then it should be an easy enough task to sync this into the App Portal DB.

[steven_weber]

Charles, we have a pending internal convo with our AD Team to find this out....we agree that it would be easier if the Cost Center would come over from AD to App Portal.

[jdempsey]

There is a way to sync that information into App Portal using the data sync, but it would involve an out-of-band process to join the SCCM data and FNMS data into a custom view and then do a custom user sync from that view. I think you'd be better off just creating a custom web service or PowerShell script that reads the data from FNMS and writes it to the request notes in App Portal during the On Submit event. I already have some web service code that does something similar. When I get some time, I'll see if I can adapt it and share here.

[steven_weber]

Charles,

Yes, I think as long as we could display this information that would be key.....we need to be able to have the cost center in order to charge back the users for certain requested software.

How would we go about doing this?

Tks.

[jdempsey]

Wouldn't you do chargebacks based on the installation/usage reporting you see in FNMS? Assuming you've loaded the enterprise group information into FNMS, you should be able to see those reports based on Cost Center.