Changing the option names in Self-Service

[rdeleon]

Hello all, I'm new to JAMF and I was wonder if there's a way to change the option names in Self-Service? For example, when you open Self-service and on the left you see HOME, BROWSE, NOTIFICATIONS, HISTORY as the default, is there a way I can change those to say something else? I'm sure there's a resolution to this, but I can't seem to find it. Thanks for the help.

[r0blee]

Yes and no. 

So there is no method from within Jamf's self service branding/customisation to do this however once Self Service is downloaded to a device the actual menu bar names are stored in the "Localizable.strings" files for the various languages. 

So for example for the english strings file (if the device is set to use english that is) you would go to 

/Applications/Self Service.app/Contents/Resources/en.lproj/

In the Localizable.strings file there you will find a sections such as:

// Toolbar Buttons
"TOOLBAR_HOME" = "Home";
"TOOLBAR_BROWSE" = "Browse";
"TOOLBAR_BROWSE_COLLAPSED" = "Browse - Collapsed"; // Only announced via VoiceOver, never displayed in the UI
"TOOLBAR_BROWSE_EXPANDED" = "Browse - Expanded"; // Only announced via VoiceOver, never displayed in the UI
"TOOLBAR_HISTORY" = "History";
"TOOLBAR_NOTIFICATIONS" = "Notifications";
"TOOLBAR_NOTIFICATIONS_HELP_NONE" = "No New Notifications"; // Only announced via VoiceOver, never displayed in the UI
"TOOLBAR_NOTIFICATIONS_HELP_ONE" = "1 New Notification"; // Only announced via VoiceOver, never displayed in the UI
"TOOLBAR_NOTIFICATIONS_HELP_SOME" = "%d New Notifications"; // Only announced via VoiceOver, never displayed in the UI

and I'm 99% sure these are the variables you need to change but you'd need to do some testing. 

The problem here is that devices will download their Self Service from your Jamf instance and will have default menu bar/toolbar names until such time that you programmatically change it. If at any point Self Service is deleted and Jamf automatically re-installs it, that will be a clean install from the Jamf instance package and you'd need to change the variables all over again on a device etc. If Self Service changes with a Jamf Pro upgrade, you'd need to do this all over again, can you see where I'm going with this. 

So yes it should be possible, is it worth doing, from my perspective, no. The upkeep etc is way too much. 

Hope that helps. 

[rdeleon]

Hey R0blee, Thanks for the info. Since this is for company-wide systems, sounds to me that it can't be done since I have to do this to every machine outside of the Jamf instance possibly. Like you mentioned, if for whatever reason Jamf it gets deleted or a re-install occurs, it could cause re-doing this all over again. I hope Jamf sees this and makes the branding portion of Jamf more customizable.

[r0blee]

Not sure if it’s already a feature request or not but I’d say just submit it as a feature request anyway and then people can upvote it if others want the same customisation abilities

[rdeleon]

Hey R0blee, how do I go by requesting a feature request?