Premature arthritis

[donmontalvo]

We had an intern copy/paste 500+ serial numbers into a Smart Computer Group (of course, no import function). Afterwards, i took a peek and noticed a few errors.

Is there a way to extract the list from the Smart Computer Group so we can reconcile with the original list to sort out any errors?

Can this br done by mere mortal? Or is this a job for Super Man (a MySQL DBA)? :)

Thanks,
Don

** Sent from my iPhone **

[karthikeyan_mac]

Hi Don,

I don't think we have an option to export from the Smart Group. :-(

Alternate option would be to create a Advance Search in Invenotry with the same criteria as Smart Group and export the data to excel(csv) then reconcile the list. I hope this will help you :-)

Thanks,
Karthikeyan M

[tlarkin]

Don,

You could always to an advanced search and save it to a csv file, then simply set the search criteria to only display the serial numbers. Then based off your search criteria, say naming convention, hardware configuration, it will generate a list of just serial numbers from that criteria. No need to even use unix magic, unfortunate for us that like to to use the command line every chance we get. I find this way more efficient to be honest.

Then you got a full report of just serials you can copy/pasta.

Hope that helps,

Tom

[donmontalvo]

Hi Thomas and Karthikeyan,

Thanks for your responses! Great idea, but the only problem would be that some of the Macs in the list have not yet had the QuickAdd package installed, so they've not yet called in to JSS. Looking to spot any duplicates or missing entries (typos aren't a problem since this was all done copy/paste).

Don

[tlarkin]

Ah, see we had this issue too when adding 500 new Macbooks recently. We had our Apple sales rep send us a spread sheet of serial numbers. They can do that if you request it, but they don't seem to advertise it.

The more you know...

Have a good one,

Tom

[donmontalvo]

Hi Tom,

Similar issue here, but with a slight twist. :) Another department in one the environments we support signed on to allowing us to bring their 500 or so Macs into JSS. The department supplied us with all 500 serial numbers. We needed to create a Smart Computer Group in JSS containing those serial numbers. The only option right now is the tedious copy/paste routine, which we had an intern do. Right off the bat we noticed some duplicates (which weren't in the spreadsheet).

So we asked JAMF for a solution and they proposed a custom solution. I've passed the quote on the client (business justification - time to copy/paste and risk of mistakes could potentially cost more than having JAMF build a custom import tool for us). I've go my fingers crossed that the client will pay for it.

I know any solution we pay JAMF to build for us will become either part of the Resource Kit or maybe even added as an additional JAMF tool (that's fine, anything that helps the community is a good thing for us and JAMF). :)

Don

[tlarkin]

Ah I see, sounds like fun times. You know when we used to order mass HP products (at my old job) HP would send us a spread sheet of every serial number with every MAC address. It was nice. We could also have them flash the BIOS with the asset tag in the BIOS which was very nice. I wish Apple did that.

[stevewood]

You may actually be able to get Apple to do that. I know that you can engage
Apple's Professional Services (I think that's what they are called) to image
your machines prior to shipment. They can also do some warehousing I believe
where they will hold machines you paid for until you need then shipped. For
a fee of course.

I had looked at using both of these services at my last job to purchase once
a quarter and trickle machines out as needed. We were going to have them
image the machines so they would show up almost finished.

I can imagine a system/workflow where the machine is images at Apple (or CDW
or wherever) with a base image that contains a first run launchd that
triggers the machine to recon to the JSS, and then Casper installs all of
the additional software for that machine at the end users desk or at the
help desk or wherever the machine os received. There's more to it but that
was our vision for our workflow. Similar to how Pixar does their imaging
with their Mass Transit system (I think that was the name from that WWDC
presentation).

Steve

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 30, 2010, at 7:45 AM, "Thomas Larkin" <tlarki at kckps.org> wrote:

Ah I see, sounds like fun times. You know when we used to order mass HP
products (at my old job) HP would send us a spread sheet of every serial
number with every MAC address. It was nice. We could also have them flash
the BIOS with the asset tag in the BIOS which was very nice. I wish Apple
did that.

[donmontalvo]

I think Apple is moving away from offering this to smaller companies. The last couple small(ish) companies we approached Apple about told us there weren't enough computers to get this "depo" service. I wonder what Apple is using to pre-image these computers? :)

Don