Deployment Solution

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Deployment Solution Job Search

  • 1.  Deployment Solution Job Search

    Trusted Advisor
    Posted May 14, 2009 12:45 PM
    This one has been around the houses for a few years now, but does anyone know why Deployment Solution doesn't have a job search facility? Are people just not requesting this feature?

    The lack of this feature drives me absolutely **nuts** when it comes to application upgrades. And the time wasted navigating the console looking for stuff is just staggering. We've adopted over the years several methodologies  for filing applications, but there are always ones which fall through the gaps. Further configurational tweaks, and information gathering jobs are practically unfilable, and we have hundreds.

    How do others get around the lack of a Job Search option?

    Kind Regards,
    Ian./
     


  • 2.  RE: Deployment Solution Job Search

    Posted May 14, 2009 01:00 PM
    Luckily, my installation is fairly new so, I am still easily able to find things, but can definitely see, as we add new jobs, this becoming a huge problem.  I would hope that in future releases this will be added as a new feature.

    To combat this, I would suggest staying very organized (I know, a lot harder than that sounds).  Otherwise, you might place all of your jobs/descriptions in a spreadsheet that you can search or refer to.  That way when you find it in the spreadsheet it will list the hierarchy, so you know where to find it in the console.

    I am interested in what other ideas others have as well though.


  • 3.  RE: Deployment Solution Job Search

    Trusted Advisor
    Posted May 14, 2009 01:21 PM
     Very difficult to describe -so here's an AVI showing just our production branch of jobs,

    http://users.ox.ac.uk/~iana/All_Our_Jobs.avi (its about 11MB)

    We've got tonnes... and this AVI doesn't show all the different image build scripts either. And that's because I don't really know where they are anymore... ;-)

    Kind Regards,
    Ian./


  • 4.  RE: Deployment Solution Job Search

    Posted May 14, 2009 01:46 PM
    Sorry, wasn't able to open the file.  Media Player and QuickTime both didn't like the file. 


  • 5.  RE: Deployment Solution Job Search

    Trusted Advisor
    Posted May 14, 2009 05:15 PM
    I used VMWare capture and didn't realise it required a decoder (i've got VMware installed everywhere).

    Here's a link to the decoder...
    http://download3.vmware.com/software/wkst/VMware-moviedecoder-6.0.0-45731.exe

    Next time, i'll use BBFlashBack or some such!

    Kind Regards,
    ian./


  • 6.  RE: Deployment Solution Job Search

    Posted May 15, 2009 07:52 AM
    If you know SQL you could use it to search for a job.  I have to do it when I have problems with a vsa I want to remove, so I have to search for which job is using the vsa and once I find that job, I have to find where it is located, much fun.  This would definitly be a great feature for future releases though.


  • 7.  RE: Deployment Solution Job Search

    Posted May 15, 2009 08:23 AM
    That worked.  Wow, you weren't kidding on the amount of jobs!

    Out of curiosity, most of your software, is it scripted installs, Wise Packages, VSA's or...?

    One thing you might do (although it  ultimately doubles your jobs) is to copy each of the jobs and have two different hierarchies.  One hierarchy setup like you have it now (alphabetical) but another specifically for your standard builds (maybe you already did this...don't recall).  I've found it very helpful to have a folder call core apps that the helpdesk just drags to the new or rebuild.  This is more efficient for us as it stacks all of the standard apps and we don't have to rely on a helpdesk tech missing the install of something.  The downfall of doing it this way is you now have to maintain two separate jobs whenever you go to make a change.

    Until Altiris/Symantec see the light and add this feature in the future, I don't know if there really is a perfect way to organize or search your jobs.

    Yes, you can go into SQL and run queries, however, most of the people using this know absolutely nothing about SQL let alone writing a query and I certainly won't be granting them direct access to the database anytime soon.


  • 8.  RE: Deployment Solution Job Search

    Posted May 15, 2009 12:13 PM
    USE express
    SELECT
    eF.[name] AS 'Folder'
    ,eV.[name] AS 'Job'
    ,eV.[description] AS 'Description'
    ,eC.[name] AS 'Condition'
    ,sT.[script_file] AS 'Script Path'
    ,REPLACE(sT.[script],char(13)+char(10),'\n') AS 'Run Script'
    FROM event_folder eF
    INNER JOIN event eV
    ON eF.[folder_id] = eV.[folder_id]
    INNER JOIN event_condition eC
    ON eC.[event_id] = eV.[event_id]
    INNER JOIN script_task sT
    ON sT.[event_id] = eV.[event_id]
    ORDER BY eF.[name],eV.[event_id], eC.[name], sT.[cond_seq], sT.[task_seq]

    Here is some rough SQL (I can't get the line returns to display properly). You can paste the reults to excel or whatever you prefer. With some slight modification you could make this a report in the NS and add a field for input, then check by:

    WHERE eV.[name]  LIKE '%somesearch%'


  • 9.  RE: Deployment Solution Job Search

    Trusted Advisor
    Posted May 16, 2009 05:58 AM
     We do maintain separate job lists for core builds using 'Job shortcuts'.  All the jobs in the video prefixed with
    '->' 
    represent a script which contains just a REM statement which on successful execution points to the real job. So, the helpdesk staff do can just drag a folder of such shortcuts to do a public access, or staff PC build. This means we do have to only maintain one 'real' job.

    So, the helpdesk staff's common tasks are easy, but it doesn't help us when we have to maintain the hierachy underneath.

    As for how we build our software -its mostly scripted installs using the vendors unpacked source. Lots of silent switches and transforms employed. Many also have registry and profile update scripts to preconfigure them and get them working nicely in a multi-user environment. Its been a lot of work, but well work the effort. 

    Kind Regards,
    Ian./



  • 10.  RE: Deployment Solution Job Search

    Trusted Advisor
    Posted May 16, 2009 06:00 AM
    Hi Brandon,

    I've have a tinker with this script. Thanks!

    Kind Regards,
    Ian./


  • 11.  RE: Deployment Solution Job Search

    Posted May 18, 2009 12:46 PM
    We'll be rolling out a new section of the forum soon. It will be a new tab, after the "Groups" tab towards the top of the page, called "Ideas". Make sure to look into that as soon as it goes live.


  • 12.  RE: Deployment Solution Job Search
    Best Answer