Show of your self service

[RaulSantos]

I been wondering what kind of things people offer on there self cerise. Show off screenshots and list what you offer.

[jacob_salmela]

[laurendc]

Hey @jacob_salmela - see you've got caches in there. Do you have users rebooting afterwards and if so, are you using the built-in option for that?

[jacob_salmela]

I do not have a reboot attached to it.

The usage of those two jobs are pretty low, so I mostly have it there in case I am on a support call; I can have them run that and then reboot if necessary.

[corbinmharris]

Hi Jacob,

Can you provide info on how you have "Install all updates" configured?

I'm looking at that option for our users for system and firmware updates.

Thanks!

Corbin

[RaulSantos]

i would thing run the command

softwareupdate -i -a

[RaulSantos]

Any one else what to show off there self service?

[RaulSantos]

Any one else what to show off there self service?

[corbinmharris]

"i would thing run the command

softwareupdate -i -a"

I assume this will not work for a non-admin user to install.

[stevewood]

Actually, that's the beauty of Self Service. Since Casper runs as the root user, when you use a policy that runs "softwareupdate -ia" it is running as root. so it will work.

You can use Smart Groups and scripts to only have that option show up when there are updates to install on the machine, which is how we do it here.

[corbinmharris]

Thanks, I'll give it a test with for our Mavericks deployment

[#12]

There are quite a few scripts floating around here to gracefully (or not) close out of open apps - anyone have anything they particularly like? I've had mixed results and need to re-visit the subject as I gear up for Mavs..

[mm2270]

@pete_c][/url][/url
Are you asking for something that kills all open running apps, or more for something that quits them gracefully, allowing users to save open work?

There are solutions for both, but they offer different experiences of course.

For the former, killing all visible running applications, you could try this-

#!/bin/sh

RunningApps=$(/usr/bin/osascript << EOF
tell application "System Events"
    set process_list to the name of every process whose visible is true and name is not "Finder"
end tell
EOF)

AppsList=$(echo "$RunningApps" | sed 's/, /_/g' | tr '_' '
')

echo "$AppsList" | while read app; do
    killall "$app"
done

For the latter, I think I may also have something I've used, but its slightly harder only because you need to use some Applescript (osascript) stuff, and at times, getting that to run properly with all the additional sandboxing in OS X makes it a little more difficult. Pure shell commands are often easier, but sometimes you can't avoid using Applescript.

[rlandgraf]

[bentoms]

Late to the party but, we've just revamped it...

external image link

The scripts are either JSS policies at exist already, or are on my blog: [macmule.com](macmule.com)

[clifhirtle]

@rlandgraf: very creative icon'ing. Hopefully you do not upset any Bruce's in your workplace!

[bajones]

@rlandgraf I exhaled sharply thorough my nose when I saw the icon for Send Log Files...

[franton]

One good turn deserves another ...

external image link

I'm particularly proud of the rename computer icon ...

[bentoms]

@franton... lol nice.. are the plugins links that open in Safari? I tried to add a site that uses a java plugin & no-luck :(

[franton]

They originally all opened in Safari ... now they just open in the Self Service window by request.

[bentoms]

@franton, so the Citrix one uses the Citrix Receiver plugin?

(Must retry..)

[franton]

@bentoms][/url We just install Citrix Receiver 11. The address links to our citrix access website and it works from there. No special configuration needed. It's just an https address!

[franton]

@bentoms You're actually not too far from me. One of my housemates works at Pentland. I'd be happy to discuss in person if you prefer?

[bentoms]

Sounds awesome.. pop in?

If your on Twitter... DM me @macmuleblog

[ndudley]

This is great! I see there are many things I could be doing to improve Self Service for our users and Helpdesk!

Thanks!

[franton]

Disclaimer: I work for an arts and design university.

I would suggest using png files at 256x256 resolution for your self service icons. Find or make these files with alpha channels enabled and a transparent background. They'll look more polished if done right.

My fav trick is doing a Cmd + I on an app bundle, select then copy the icon into preview, resize and save as a png. Looks great and no hunting on google image search!

[franton]

Gah! double post

[mm2270]

@franton][/url][/url, its actually a little easier than that even. Just highlight the file/app in the Finder with the icon you want, then do Command+C (no need to pull up the Info window), then open Preview and choose New from clipboard.

This works because many applications are context sensitive and multiple types of data get copied to the clipboard. If you did the same but opened say, Terminal or TextWrangler and did a Paste, you'd get either the full path or the name of the file. Since Preview is about images, it only accepts the icon data.

BTW, nice Self Service views everyone! These look great.

[gajones]

@franton what do you have in your First Aid section?

[franton]

It's the easy stuff like prebinding updates, clear caches etc.

I should move the mcx stuff in there really.

[donmontalvo]

@rlandgraf Loving the Flush Caches icon. :)

[krichterjr]

@franton
Great minds think a like.

[evarona]

Some awesome stuff here! Great topic idea and posts. It's cool to see what others are doing. I'm inspired, thanks.

[Stubakka]

Thanks a lot guys!, We are heading toward the Kick Start soon for at least 50 - 100 users, The self Services portal has been kind of a big question mark for me on what ill even be able to offer in it at the start of my Deployment, What kind of things did you put in place when you first started?

[#35]

@Gabriel.Duff - since Self Service can handle anything that can be done via policy (or anything scriptable), and runs as root, I'd say you should focus on starting with whatever the most common requests are to your IT group.

For example, when I last changed out my color workgroup printers, I ran into many issues with replacing the Canon Fiery drivers and removing the old printers from the fleet. Self Service to the rescue - script to remove the old printers, remove the old problematic driver, install the new driver and then map the new printers. Obviously this could be done with a policy (and was, for the desktops), but for mobile users it was a huge win as it not only let them perform the task whenever was convenient for them, but also gave them the confidence that something was actually being done - no more "I don't know if they updated me yet" kinds of questions.

My desktop users don't rely on SS very much, but the laptop owners love it.

[evarona]

@Gabriel.Duff,
We have an environment where our users are not administrators. We have to pretty much package everything from Flash, Java, MS Office and about 80 or so developer apps. This ties in to our legacy Windows "app certification" process where we package/test/support apps to insure they all play well together. We also publish all network printers which, admins or not, is convenient because users (read: Mac newbies) don't have to call asking how to get connected.

[ooshnoo]

never mind. spoke too soon. found the answer.

[ShaunRMiller83]

@rlandgraf I was looking threw this thread today and was just wondering about your "Remove Users Older than 90 days" Is that a script you are running? If so would you be willing to share it?

Thanks in advance
Shaun

[rlandgraf]

@ShaunM9483

This is the script we use to remove all older users. It actually just checks the home folder for changes in the last 90 days, so may not be perfect but it worked for what we needed. The users that are skipped are local accounts that we do not want deleted.

#!/bin/sh

oldUsers=`find /Users -type d  -mtime +90 -maxdepth 1 | cut -d"/" -f3`

for i in $oldUsers; do
    if [[ $i = "technolo" ]]; then next
    elif [[ $i = "Shared" ]]; then next
    elif [[ $i = "student" ]]; then next
    elif [[ $i = "teacher" ]]; then next
    else 
        jamf deleteAccount -username $i -deleteHomeDirectory
        rm -Rf /Users/$i
    fi
done

[ShaunRMiller83]

@rlandgraf

It sounds very similar to what we are trying to accomplish so I really appreciate you taking the time to share the script.

Thanks again
Shaun