Automating Ticket Creation

[Radsam]

Hi,

I am very interrested in coding some scripts to assist me in doing my job quicker. I work on a Service desk that uses Service Center 6.0.1.3 (build 0005). We use Peregrine to create Calls and Incidents.
I have created a script that creates calls from emails and then in turn generates incidents from those calls. I have been using VBS to manipulate Outlook and AutoIt3 to manipluate Peregrine to create the call and incident tickets.
I would really like to learn how I can use an object oriented programming lanuage that can create tickets for me rather than using AutoIt3 to modify controls and send key strokes.
Can someone start me out in the right direction? I have read that scmacro.exe isn't in version 6 of SC, however is there something else like that? Can I use VBS to create a script to create a call? Does anyone have something like this already that I could see as a proof of concept?

I really appreciate any and all help in this regard.

Regards,
Stephen (Radsam)

[glg]

There are two ways I can see that you could be doing this without such a macro engine.

The "old" way is SCAuto. Peregrine provides a DLL with functions for interacting with Event Services. You can use that to create tickets.

The "new" way is Web Services. I'm not very familiar with this, as we are not on 6 yet, but I see all the places in the new dbdicts to define fields, etc.

[Radsam]

Where can I get the SCauto DLL along with some documentation? Does anyone have a sample script showing how to use?
Failing that, does anyone have a vbscript sample with object coding?

Thanks,
Stephen

[glg]

You should be able to download it from the support website. Downloads -> SCAuto -> SCAuto Applications for Windows NT & Unix 4.0 (they haven't updated the SDK since then). That will give you the scauto.dll and I think it has some C code samples in it. Documentation is on the website too. Documentation -> SCAuto -> General Documentation -> SCAuto SDK Guide. That describes the function calls that are in the scauto.dll

[tommy]

Stephen can I ask what role You have with ServiceCenter. To me it sounds like You are a regular user that want to make Your work process more efficient. Is that right?

If so the scauto.dll will not help You. First because to use it You need license for it. Second, unless You are a servicecenter administrator/developer with responsibility of customising Your SC installation then You should NOT start trying to use scauto as glg advices.

SC 6.x use SOAP and XML so if You can code that You can do pretty much anything. (I have not started looking into those aspects of SC6..x yet so can tell You how to do this.)

If You are not the admin in charge of the customisation I suggest You contact the person(s) who are and talk to them about optimizing Your work process.

[Radsam]

Yes I am a service desk analyst who uses SC to enter client info to generate tickets. One of the job functions we have is to create tickets from emails we receive. I have built a script to help us work faster, however our SC admin people aren't able to optimize SC more for us to work quicker. I am just looking for some solutions from a end-user prospective. Is there anything more I can do to speed up my work. Like I said my script uses some vbscript to get email info and then AutoIt3 to send data to controls and keystrokes in SC. It works great, however, if I was able to use vbscript to send data to objects, that would be more ideal. Eg, I use vbscript to interact with Outlook, can I do the same for SC?

Is there anything I (end-user) of SC can do to improve ticket creation time by using vb, vbscript, or any other technology to improve our productivity?

Many thanks,
Stephen

[glg]

good catch, Tommy.

Stephen - there isn't really much more you can do without the assistance of the SC administrators.

[tommy]

I have built a script to help us work faster, however our SC admin people aren't able to optimize SC more for us to work quicker.

Unfortunately as an end user there is not a lot You can do beside what You already have done.

Does Your SC admin not have time, don't they want to help or are they not skilled to do this?

[kobear]

There is a DDE interface to the SC client. I am not sure if it works with the new SC6 environment, however. With this interface/control, you can more precisely do what your autoit script does, as this automates the SC client.

Ask PRGN support about documentation on using it.

[Radjammin]

I know you guys are on your trip about The admin is in charge, but does it really matter if I submit SC records using the SC Client or use SCAuto.dll? Isn't it just an Active X dll?

I am sure the web service needs an admin account, but can the SCAuto.dll use a generic SC account to submit records?

I have been researching DDE commands to send and get values from SC. As appose to using sendkeys or capture text which is messy. I really wanted to use Visual Basic.Net but it looks like the commands like DDEInitiate are only supported for the office products. OLE Automation looked promising but also didn't seem to work for none office apps.

Just becuase where not the SC admin doesn't mean we want type until we get hand cramps. Some of us are just stuck in dead end jobs that pay to well to leave.

But ya, let me know what security level the scauto.dll connection id has to have. It would be nice if I could just push out my own call records instead of using our clunky version of SC. Unicenter integration would be swee too. Here a ticket , there a software push, I can relate the time I scheduled the software install. Ya I got alot of time on my hands...

[glg]

I know you guys are on your trip about The admin is in charge, but does it really matter if I submit SC records using the SC Client or use SCAuto.dll? Isn't it just an Active X dll?

Yeah, that's it, we're all just admins on a power trip. Sure...

No. Scauto.dll is *not* an ActiveX DLL, it is a DLL that exposes a few C functions. These functions are not simple things that you can just use like "add a ticket", they allow access to the ServiceCenter event services function, which you as a user have no access to setup or change. Only your admin can set the SC side up so that you can make use of scauto. This isn't a modern interface, it's very old school, and frankly, it's a p-i-t-a.

I have been researching DDE commands to send and get values from SC. As appose to using sendkeys or capture text which is messy. I really wanted to use Visual Basic.Net but it looks like the commands like DDEInitiate are only supported for the office products. OLE Automation looked promising but also didn't seem to work for none office apps.

SC can use DDE to push and poke, but I don't know that it exposes DDE itself (ie it's a DDE client, but not a server).

Listen, if you have no way to get help from your SC admin, you're stuck with things like macro engines that will type into the fields for you. SC is not an app that is easy to integrate with.

[Radjammin]

Stupid site lost my post, Who's managing this PHPBB?

I wanted to ask when you say Client Server DDE, do you mean you only thing you can retrive info from SC like the export to excel, not send/push to it?

Also the SCAuto.dll when you initiate a connection to use thouse action events, is the account a reg. account or admin/app account, or maybe even have a session of SC already open??#?

And yes an ActiveX.dll sure would be nice, anyone wanta make me one for submitting Records or recalling them?

Wouldn't it be nice if I could just send/pass info to scguiw32.exe? Maybe next century.

[tommy]

No need to be rude. Nothing has been lost. If a post is missing You did not hit submit!

And I am not provding further information to You.

My advice stands.

Ask Your sc administrator to help. If the administrator refuse You are out of luck.

Thread closed.