What does your Self Service include?

Look at this topic.

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=8915

I know one of the best troubleshooting tool for Mac i.e. Deep Freeze for Mac http://www.faronics.com/products/deep-freeze/mac/ . I'm a big fan of this software. Using it more than 3 years now. Ask your students to try it. I know they will also like it.

@rubert - do you sell Deep Freeze or something?

No. As I said I'm big fan of this software or you can call me the "Deep Freeze Evangelist".

Not sure how it's relevant for Self Service thread. We use it for PCs. It's much easier on the mac IMO to lock down permissions and wipe student accounts on logout allowing you to send patches/updates anytime. And free.

@RaulSantos Thanks for the link post but I have seen that and was hoping for some up to date shots and software/programs instead of from 2013. @rubert I have dealt with Deep Freeze and that is really not something I want to bring to the students here ( I think it would cause far more headaches then what I get now).

How about some programs like we have: Google Earth, On Your Own, Bridge Builder, TI-84 Graphing calculator, Kindle, Nook, QR Reader. I know there are a lot more things out there but am wondering what others have going on in the schools for the students to sink into.

There's very little that can't be setup and put into self-service. We have a lot of transient policies when it comes to repair processes. This is the case, simply because we're able to fix any major issues really quickly using polices instead of having to put them up for our users to run. Most of our self-service policies are installs or upgrades that our users really want to be in control of. So, call it a customer service standard! Use use printer installs as the first hook to get people into discovering Self-Service. Actually, we make it the ONLY way to add networked printers on campus for this very reason.

OS upgrades are in here. Basic upgrades and optional installed for user level software like Adobe Creative Cloud, Dragon Dictate... etc. We do put in temporary IT level repairs for our users when they are necessary. We remove them as soon as we've fixed whatever the overall issue was. There are also certain policies that we put up for our own IT staff simply because it's faster to run a policy that say: clears a users keychain as opposed to doing it manually.

@rohrt85 Coming from an edu perspective, we always try to ensure that our classroom computing environment is intentionally leveled. This means that we want everyone using the same version of whatever software they need to run. We manage that in the background to ensure that our teachers don't need to know all of the variations between versions of circularly used software. Because of this, Self Service is full of mostly optional installs, disruptive upgrades and or repair policies. For certain items you've mentioned (Google Earth, Ti-84 Graphics Calc) we would force those installs/upgrades in the background even if we had an optional SS policy. Items like Kindle, Nook or QR reader we would put up on SS as optional installs. Most of it depends on our faculties requirements.

It's always a hard balance between teaching and automating. For example, we no longer automate the software update process. Instead we teach software update best practices and hold our users accountable to a standard. It's just nice that we have a system that works so well we can spend our time choosing what should and should be automated from an personal education standpoint.

We had always pushed updates via policy and targeted systems using Smart Groups and this worked pretty well. But, we also heard from a lot of staff on a desire to conduct updates/upgrades of applications, plug-ins, and other software on their own schedule and at their discretion.

So, a little over a year ago, we introduced a new Category into our Self Service setup and titled it >>>Update Central<<< (The >< characters ensures the category is listed first). Using the same Smart Groups, we make the upgrades/updates for Flash, Java, MS-Office, Adobe Reader, Chrome, Firefox, etc., etc. available to install on Self Service at least a week or two prior to deploying it to the rest of systems. The users have now trained themselves to update whenever they see the category >>>Update Central<<< available in Self Service. And, when users run the policies, it performs an inventory update which effectively removes the system from the Smart Group and the policy disappears from view.

We still conduct deployments later on, but this provided a simple means for users to keep themselves up to date and provides a little more control over their beloved Macs. We've had a great response from the users and it was a simple matter of cloning and tweaking the deployment policies we were already generating.

I've talked quite a bit about the work I've done with Self Service at my org, including some blog posts (http://www.modtitan.com/2014/10/branding-jss.html) and my JNUC talk (http://www.jamfsoftware.com/resources/branding-self-service-for-your-organization/ //
http://www.modtitan.com/2014/11/branding-self-service-presentation.html) but I beefed up our Self Service app quite a bit after this JNUC presentation (http://www.jamfsoftware.com/resources/self-service-support-and-deployment-automation/). I put even more tools in for my fellow Help Desk folks to use since I'm the only Mac person on the team and they don't know their way around OS X as well as I do.

The main landing page in Self Service:

The IT Help Desk Staff - Installers category, with apps that we can install on user machines if/when needed based on things that are frequently asked for but not necessarily frequently deployed. These are scoped only to our Help Desk team via LDAP security groups.

Same goes for the IT Help Desk Staff - Tools category. These are basically just scripts that launch the different preference panes and utility apps. These are for my team members that are Windows guys and may not even know these tools are readily available on a Mac.

And of course plenty of useful plug-ins in the left-hand side, including company portals and Twitter accounts and all sorts of HR stuff.

As a newer Casper user, I'd say start slowly. Find out what your clients need.
Take the time to add icons as seen above. Make is as "Mac-like" as you can - nothing Mac users hate more than an enterprise (read Windows) mentality towards Mac support.

You will (I am) be amazed at what you can do with Self Service. I literally find something new here almost daily and it sparks some great ideas for clients.
There is no friendlier and more helpful place that JN.

@emilykausalik I was checking on the screen shots that you sent and noticed two different things that I think would be very helpful . First, I noticed that you had your log in name on the right hand side? Is this a new feature with the newest JSS update?

Second, On the left hand side you have different plug ins? How would I be able to do this on my end? I am using JSS 9.31

@rohrt85 - To add Self Service plug-ins, like what shows up on the left column, go into Computer Management > Self Service Plug-Ins. Click the + button to create a new Plug-In. Unless you have a bundle style plug-in, change the Plug-In Type to Plug-In URL. (I'm not sure why JAMF has it default to the bundle plug-in style, since its unlikely that's the most common type added in)
Add your details, like the URL address, a name and an icon and once its set up it will begin deploying down to clients. It happens when the management framework is enforced on the clients, so you could force it on a test Mac by running sudo jamf manage on one in Terminal.

As for the login name showing in Self Service, that's a relatively new feature. I think 9.4, or 9.5 and up? But not certain and I don't have those release notes in front of me to check. You may not be seeing it because you're still on 9.31. I would look through threads and the release notes for 9.62 out as of yesterday and see if an upgrade is worth it for you to do.