WebHelpDesk/Casper Integration

We have both products and we are working towards integrating them,
although we have not yet fully done so. We did have the JAMF technician
play around with it a bit and found that there is a built in inventory
report in Casper that must be unhidden/activated. This report exports
to CSV, which is then easily imported into Webhelpdesk through their web
interface - so at first glance it is an easy but manual process although
I suppose that this could be made more automatic if you had the time to
do so. I will probably keep it manual and import once per week or two
unless we have a big influx of hardware that should be brought across.

It looks like a good combo to us- we are happy with both products and
both vendors have told us it is not only doable but that other companies
are doing it. We've also been impressed with the level of support from
both vendors so I feel confident that if we need some assistance we can
get it.

Having the ability to tie the asset to the helpdesk ticket will be very
helpful to us so we are looking forward to implementation.

Justin

I have played with the "Export to WHD" report but have not imported it into
our instance of WHD. The export feature works great and I am sure the
import would too. I just need to get all my asset number into Casper before
performing an import into WHD.

Yes, that was our hold up as well. I now have the numbered asset tags and we will be rolling those out to all machines and then inputting the asset ID#'s into casper. Once complete we will pull everything into WHD.

-Justin

Does WHD have a change management process built-in?

The new WHD version v9.16, which I am not yet running, did implement ITIL-CMDB. Here is a detailed feature list of those and all other features:

http://www.webhelpdesk.com/feature-detailed-checklist.html#Asset_Management_CMDB

I have successfully integrated WHD with the the JSS and it's amazing! For
us, this has really filled a need of keeping the WHD updated and current,
plus gave us some extra benefits (see below).
Great features include:
A link on every asset record that takes you directly to the record in JSS
Automatic updating on any recurring schedule (I set mine to every 12
hours).
Automatic client linking between asset and client record in WHD.
WHD asset records includes a listing of installed apps and printers.

Nothing bad to report.... My vote would be to go for it!

Note: I had to call JAMF support to help me setup the correct access to
allow WHD to contact the MySQL database of the Casper Suite.

Regarding your concern with asset numbers, here's the response I got from
WHD support: I have modified the Casper plugin to use the Asset Tag as the
asset number, if available. If none is provided, it reverts to serial number,
MAC address, or JSS ID, in that order.

Eric Anderson
Director of Information Technology
Archbishop Mitty High School
408-342-4240 (Direct)

Hi Eris,

It sounds like you've managed to get WHD to look directly at the JSS asset DB, is that correct? That would be a huge step forward as obviously it would avoid having to do the manual export/import that has been spoken about in this thread and the past.

Could you give us some more detail on how this was done if indeed this is the case?

Also I note that you had intended to send on the response you got from WHD support, but I think it got chopped or you forgot, any chance of forwarding on?

We like both products and being able to use them more closely together would be a real boon!

Cheers
Dan

Daniel-

I just upgraded my WHD to v9.1.6, and found the newly implemented ability to create a "connection" within WHD to Casper (as well as Apple Remote Desktop and LanREV). As you can see from the screenshot, you can set this to auto-sync on a pre-defined schedule. I'm looking forward to implementing this.

http://img146.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshotjstanfordwo1.jpg

Thanks,

Justin

Ho hoo! Now I'm quite excited. I didn't realise that this had been added (we haven't upgraded for ages). Does anyone know how well this works?

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks for posting back with this info, it'll come in very handy.

Out of curiosity, when you say it 'stomped' all over your asset numbers, are you saying it messed up the numbers it had just pulled in from Casper?

Cheers
Dan

I mean, we're using WHD's default Asset number for our assets - so the first created is asset "1", second is "2", etc.
When we sync whd with casper, it sets the whd asset number as the assets' serial number instead.

And then, we have specifically created categories for our hardware, and it will create its own if it doesn't match.

Thanks,
jeremy

Ah, okay. I'd make the assumption that the asset number problem would be something we can fix with the correct mappings so that we can overwrite WHD's with Casper's being that we currently have no assets in WHD. Would this tally with what you've seen?

It just depends on if that asset number system whd has (by default) is something important to you.
Additionally, it depends on if you want your assets structured a certain way in whd (Vendors, Models, etc).

For us thats a big deal - so we would have to re-edit everything by hand, and then if you choose to have WHD auto-sync with Casper regularly...it will continue to occur.

Lastly, you can tell WHD to map certain casper values, and others you have no say in (such as the asset number, model type, etc).

Thanks,
j