Software Portal Tasks and Collections - Technical Details

How does the Software Portal manage Tasks and Collections for Software Requests?

Get answers to these modern mysteries and a few extras thrown in for good measure.

Collections and Tasks
The Software Portal Creates hidden Tasks and Collections to manage the distribution of Requested Software to the target system.

Request Versus Deployment
When accessing the Software Portal, the Portal is constructed based off the Logged On User. The available packages are those the user had rights to within the Software Portal. Deployment Software switches the focus from the Logged On User to the Computer from where the request was initiated from.

Items created by a Software Portal Request

• The Software Delivery Solution Agent (AeXSWDAppReqAgent.dll) contacts the Notification Server to have the items created.
• A Task with the naming convention: Software Request: is created. For example, to bring back every task in the SWDAdvertisement table generated from a Software Portal request, run the following SQL Query:

SELECT * FROM SWDAdvertisement
WHERE [Name] LIKE 'Software Request%'

• Example Output:

3488C8F5-95F8-4DAD-A310-F5E24703A53D  0
{eebe7a46-90cc-4862-8aa4-86499c85ac18}
Software Request - Test Program…
3488C8F5-95F8-4DAD-A310-F5E24703A53D  0
{eebe7a46-90cc-4862-8aa4-86499c85ac18}
Software Request - Test Program… 

• Single Computer Collection with the naming convention: SWRCollection_%COMPUTERNAME% This collection contains one member: the computer the request came from, as labeled in the Collection [Name].
• The Single Task has the single created Collection as the target Collection.
• Once the Server confirms to the Software Delivery Solution Agent (AeXSWDAppReqAgent.dll) this agent will prompt the Altiris Agent to Request and updated Configuration (Client Confix Policy XML file) to obtain the new task and subsequent Package from the Notification Server.