Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award

Well, didn't today make me smile with pride.

Busy working away when this e-mail landed in my inbox...

This is my first year that I've been awarded this and I hope all the blogging, tweeting and book writing has been useful and helped at least a few people.

No time to rest on my laurels now... more content and books to come!

Regards,
Steve Beaumont / MVP
Technical Director / PowerONPlatforms
Twitter: @StevybSC
Blog: http://systemscentre.blogspot.com/
Community: http://cloudoscommunity.com/

SCOM Console Install on VMM Server Causes Service Crash

Had a strange one today.

Customer had tried previously to setup the connection between VMM and SCOM but made some mistake somewhere along the line and then uninstalled the SCOM console without removing the connection as they said the console was causing the VMM service to constantly crash.

Having not seen that behaviour before and slightly doubting it somewhat I re-installed the console and sure enough was prevented from accessing the VMM console as the service was crashing.

Just as an added check, I tried running some PowerShell commands to check it wasn't a GUI issue only to be created by error messages complaining that the VMM service wasn't running or accessible.

So I uninstalled the console again which allowed me access back to VMM and running the Get-SCOpsMgrConnection showed me the broken connection.  However attempts to remove via the console or PowerShell were both met by errors telling me I needed the SCOM console installed first in order to manage the connection.  Arh.. slight problem...

After checking everything I could think of (SPN's, SCP's, Service Accounts etc etc) and not finding anything that stood out (Including nothing useful in the event logs) I thought I'd try a timing trick.

So I opened up a SCVMM PowerShell window ready, kicked off the SCOM console install again and then repeatedly spammed Remove-SCOpsMgrConnection -Force and wouldn't you know it after a few messages saying the SCOM console must be installed, just before the install completed the command completed successfully and removed the broken connection.  More to the point the SCOM console installation completed and the VMM service didn't crash.

After recreating the connection everything remained stable, but even though the create connection job ran successfully, the following error was present in the connector details:

“Operations Manager discovery failed with error: “Exception of type ‘Microsoft.VirtualManager.EnterpriseManagement.common.discoverydatainvalidrelationshipsourceexceptionOM10’ was thrown.

This is because the SCOM connection was created with the PRO-Tips enabled but without a SCOM monitoring agent deployed to the VMM Server.
Easily fixable, just untick the PRO and Maintenance Mode connection settings, deploy a SCOM agent to the VMM server and once the agent is installed and reporting, re-enable the options.

Why is Microsoft System Center 2012 Service Manager not in the Gartner Magic Quadrant?

Shaun Ericson from Cireson post an interesting article the other day, discussing why Service Manager doesn't appear in Gartner's Magic Quadrant alongside other staple service desk vendors such as LanDesk, BMC, Hornbill etc.

You can find the post here:
http://www.cireson.com/business/why-is-microsoft-system-center-service-manager-scsm-not-on-the-gartner-magic-quadrant/

This has also started some discussions on LinkedIn which you can find here:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Why-is-SCSM-not-on-3981211.S.268959967

Kathleen Wilson on that discussion raises a very good point. a) You have to pay to be ranked b) What benefit/ROI will being ranked give Microsoft & Service Manager?

While I do feel it a shame that SCSM isn't on the Quadrant, purely down to the solution being more than capable of holding it's own against the other competitors, I'm not so sure adding it would bring much more value.

As Shaun says in his post, the overall approach with SCSM is different from a normal call logging system.  SCSM is designed to be the beating heart of your Service Management process and is there to offer unparalleled links into the other System Center components and help drive down your IT costs and time by automating all those mundane/time consuming tasks and delivering customer focused self-service.

What do you think?  Read Shaun's post and then join in the discussion on LinkedIn.

System Center 2012 - Lab Setup Notes

I was looking back through my draft posts that I never got round to fully finishing the other day and found a list post with tips in that I was jotting down while rebuilding the lab just after SP1 went RTM.

Tip #1 - Server Core/Firewall
I choose to use Server 2012 Datacenter Core for the Hyper-V hosts in the cluster.  Good practice, more secure, less reboots etc etc...
However, if you're still learning the ins and outs of PowerShell as I am it can prove a challenge sometimes to tweak all of the settings just as you want them. #1 being firewall rules.

In hind sight, a group policy setting the rules before deployment would have gone a long way to help.

I also went though them and added in all the firewall rules I'd need for the various System Center and SQL components.

Tip #2 - Live Migration
Had I been physically located in the office (I got kicked out at 19:00) then moving the DC & SCVMM to the cluster might have been relatively easy.
When working remotely, connected to SCVMM it's a little more challenging, especially when SCVMM refuses to Live Migrate from the temporary Hyper-V host to the Cluster.

Remember - to Live Migrate using Shared Nothing LM, the Hyper-V hosts must all be members of the domain (I'd left the temp server in workgroup as it was only supposed to be there for a couple of hours!)

Tip #3 - VM's & Clusters
I build some virtual machines to cluster (1 SQL cluster & 1 File Server Cluster) as part of the core infrastructure.  I'd had some issues before with VM's being clustered but put it down to my old lab environment.  Well I ran into the same issue again.

Basically the cluster wizard kept timing out when trying to add the nodes to the cluster.  It would create a cluster with a single node fine showing that permissions etc were fine.

The stranger bit came when I migrated both VM nodes to the same physical host and they joined the cluster fine straight away, yet broke the cluster each time one was on a separate physical host.

I came across a TechNet forum post discussing the issue here and then reached out to Twitter.
Thankfully, Hans Vredevoort ‏@hvredevoort came back with a reply confirming I wasn't going mad.

It looks like an issue with certain NICs (I have Broadcom and Intel in my hosts).  Hans thinks that Intels work ok so when I get chance I'll drop the Broadcom from my team and try again.

Tip #4 - Deployment Order
Microsoft have an official upgrade sequencing order here but for deployment it's not so strict.  However my approach is:

• Virtual Machine Manager (VMM)
• App Controller
• Configuration Manager
• Orchestrator
• Operations Manager
• Service Manager
• Data Protection Manager (DPM)

VMM goes in first, closely followed by App Controller so that I can build the Service Templates that I use for deploying the rest.

Configuration Manager next so that we can get clients out for deploying software updates/pre-reqs and inventory the systems.

Next Orchestrator and SCOM as we'll be linking them into both SCVMM and SCSM

Then Service Manager last so we can consume the information from the other components and start to build the service catalog.

Oh, I forgot DPM... meh...

Tip #4a Deployment Order - Updates
I was talking to Sam Erskine the other day and he mentioned he hit an issue when installing Update Rollup 2 for Service Manager to the Data Warehouse and wondered if I could replicate it.

Well I did.

It looks like if you do a fresh installation of SCSM SP1 and then apply Update Rollup 2 before registering the Data Warehouse, the install will fail with the error:

An error occurred while executing a custom action:_PatchMP

Easy fix, register the DW from the console and wait for management pack sync jobs to finish (This will take a while!!) and then run UR2 again for it to succeed.

Tip #5 Account Preparation
Deploying all the System Center Components requires a fair few domain accounts if you're doing it right and not just using Local System or the same account for everything.

Use my previous blog post here on Service Accounts as a starter and prepare all the accounts in advance.  Use something like KeePass to store the accounts and their passwords to make it easier for yourself during deployment.

Tip #6 SCSM Portal
9 times out of 10 after the install you'll be presented with a blank middle pane or can't even get near the portal without being prompted for credentials constantly.

Credentials - Login as a user with SharePoint farm admin rights to the portal then use the Site Settings option in the top left to edit the site permissions to grant something like Domain Users read access.

 

If the content area is blank, chances are the URL doesn't match what it expects for the webcontent.  I used a DNS alias http://ServiceDesk to point to the IP of the server hosting my SM Portal, but the webcontent URL during setup was set to the server NetBIOS address.  Same thing applies if trying to use the FQDN most times.

 

Use IIS Manager to browse to the "Service Manager Portal" site and choose "Application Settings"

 

 

Edit SMPortal_WebContentServer_URL and modify the value to reflect the URL you are trying to connect to (and which matches your certificate if using SSL!)

 

 

 

Tip # 7 Orchestrator Users Group & Cloud Services Process Pack
I went to install the Cloud Services Process Pack (CSPP) and hit an error during install that I've seen a few times and still annoys me no end.

During the install of Orchestrator you're prompted to select a group to use to control access to Orchestrator.  It defaults to a local group, but as best practice it's best to change this to a domain account (as it says on the setup wizard).

However I've seen a few times where it still insists looking for a local group with direct membership, the CSPP is a prime example of this and it's hard coded into the install.

Manually create a local group called OrchestratorUsersGroup and assign the account you're installing the CSPP with to that account, re-run the setup wizard and it will allow you to proceed with the install.

Tip #8 SCOM Product Key
All the System Center 2012 setup wizards prompt you for the key during setup to ensure they don't install in eval mode.  Some can be converted from eval to fully licensed after install but watch out for Service Manager as this can't.

SCOM however, doesn't prompt you for a key.  Licensing SCOM is done via an Operations Manager Shell PowerShell command after install.

Rather annoyingly, if you open the shell without elevation it tells you that you don't have permission to the registry.

Yet if you run the shell elevated, you get messages that you can't load the PS Modules.

Quick and dirty, in the elevated shell type the following to load the modules:

cd\
cd '.\Program Files\System Center 2012\Operations Manager\Powershell\OperationsManager'
.\Functions.ps1
.\Startup.ps1

Then use this command to set the product key:

Set-SCOMLicense -ProductId "yourlicensekey“

Success!

 

Tip #9 - Where's my Runbooks
Sometimes the web console will fail to show any runbooks or the SCSM connector will return no runbooks after a sync.

The quick fix for this is to run the following query from SQL Management Studio connected to the Orchestrator database:
TRUNCATE TABLE [Microsoft.SystemCenter.Orchestrator.Internal].AuthorizationCache

You may also find this query useful which will run a stored procedure to clear auth cache every 10 minutes if it keeps reoccuring:
EXEC [Microsoft.SystemCenter.Orchestrator.Maintenance].EnqueueRecurrentTask 'ClearAuthorizationCache'

Tip #10 - Don't Deploy a Site Role to manage.microsoft.com
When extremely tired and you've not had enough relentless at 3am, it's often not a good idea to be making configuration changes to System Center...

I accidently placed the Application Catalog Web Service Point site role on the manage.microsoft.com site server that is added to the CM console when you have an Intune connector setup.

Nothing within the console checks and stops you from doing this and to take matters worse, it won't then allow you to remove the role from the console.

However, these two lines of PowerShell run from a ConfigMgr PS Session should sort it out.

$web = Get-CMApplicationCatalogWebServicePoint
Remove-CMApplicationCatalogWebServicePoint -InputObject $web -force



 

System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1 and Windows Intune - Configuring the Exchange Connector

This is a post in a series of posts on Windows Intune and the new integration capabilities found in System Center 2012 SP1 Configuration Manager.  The other posts can be found here.

This post will show you how to establish a connection between Configuration Manager and your E-Mail Service.

For this example I’ve actually chosen to connect ConfigMgr into my Office 365 account as I made the decision not to have local infrastructure where possible in the lab.

Why would you want to connect ConfigMgr to your Exchange/Office 365 environment?  Well while iOS and Windows Phone utilise direct MDM management, Android doesn’t have a native MDM capability for controlling settings (That is until Intune Wave F is available later this year), but it does allow configuration via ActiveSync policies.

• From within the ConfigMgr admin console, navigate to the Administration node | Expand Hierarchy Configuration | Click on Exchange Server Connectors
• Click on Add Exchange Server on the Ribbon
• Either choose On-premise Exchange Server or Hosted Exchange Server and supply the information of where to connect to.
  For an on-premise exchange this can be either the FQDN of the Exchange server or a URL to the PowerShell component.
  For Office365 (Hosted Exchange Server) use this URL - https://ps.outlook.com/PowerShell-LiveID
• Click Next

• On the Account section either select an existing account if you have one setup already with the relevant permissions, or create a new one.  Take a note of the PowerShell cmdlets the account is required to be able to run.
  
  The following Exchange Server management roles include these cmdlets: Recipient Management; View-Only Organization Management; and Server Management.
  
  If you try to install or use the Exchange Server connector without the required cmdlets, you will see an error logged with the message Invoking cmdlet <cmdlet> failed in the EasDisc.log log file on the site server computer.
  
  There is a script available on the TechNet Gallery by Stephan Schwarz that will help with granting these permissions - http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/office/Configure-Exchange-cmdlet-c4f2affd
• Click Next

• Choose a schedule for how often you would like for synchronisation to occur, as with everything, be mindful of extra load you may place on both your site server and Exchange.
• Choose to ignore inactive devices based on how long they have been inactive if you wish
• If you’ve chosen an on-premise Exchange connection you can filter down the discovery more, if like me you’ve chosen Office365 hosted Exchange then you cannot.
• Click Next

• On the Settings tab, you can choose at this point to either leave the policies that are applied to the mobile devices to be assigned by Exchange, or choose the Edit button for a relevant group of settings and modify the policy.
  
  Be aware that the settings applied through ConfigMgr will take precedence over the Exchange ActiveSync policies.
• Click Next

• Review the Exchange connector settings in the Summary tab and click Next

• The connector should complete successfully and show the result.  Review and then click Next

Using O365 without On-Premise Exchange with System Center 2012 Orchestrator

I was checking over some Runbooks today in my lab and one failed when it hit the send e-mail activity.  Odd I thought and then it dawned on me that when I re-installed the lab a month or so back I didn't re-implement exchange as I went for a full Office 365 play.

Great, here comes the task of setting up SMTP e-mail relays, unless... will Orchestrator work directly with O365 using just the Send Email Activity?

It turns out it does and really simply too.

On the Send Email activity properties, fill out the information on the Details tab.

N.B. Make sure you untick the Task fails if an attachment is missing option if you're not putting an attachment on the mail.

On the Advanced tab enter the email username and password for the account you created in Office 365 that will be used for sending e-mail from Orchestrator.

You can leave the Domain field blank

Logon to Office 365/OWA as the Orchestrator e-mail account, click on the Options button and then About.

Make a note of the Server name and Port as highlighted in the screen shot below (pod51016.outlook.com in this example)

Enter this information into the Connect tab, along with the e-mail account you've setup for Orchestrator to send from

Make sure the Enable SSL option is ticked, otherwise you will get an error in Orchestrator informing you that the SMTP server requires a secure connection.

Check your Runbook in and give it a test run.
If it's setup correctly then this time you should see it succeed.

And voilà, you should end up with e-mails being sent to/from Office 365 without the need for any on-premise Exchange or SMTP relay.

Another, simpler method, is to use the Exchange User Integration Pack.

With this IP installed, you can configure the server to use (again the details from OWA) along with the e-mail and password by going to the Options menu and choosing Exchange User.

Then drag a Create and Send E-Mail activity to your runbook and provide at least the e-mail address to send a mail to, the subject and the body.  Other options are available such as priority and attachments via the Optional Properties... button.

 

Again, another successful e-mail can now be sent.

 

 

Adding an Azure subscription to App Controller - Service Unavailable

I noticed today that I hadn't re-added my Windows Azure subscription to my App Controller deployment in my testlab and so clicked the link on the overview page to add it back.
After entering the relevant details such as Subscription ID, Certificate pfx file and password, I was greeted by a not too helpful error message of "Service Unavailable" with no further details.

 

After scratching my head and trying several things such as deleting the certificate and re-adding it to Azure, checking firewalls etc I remembered this server had just had a restart.

 

I checked the services to make sure everything had started up ok and noticed that the App Controller Windows Azure Provider service wasn't started.

 

 

I started the service, tried adding the subscription again and voilà! It works.

 

I hope this helps someone else if they get this generic undetailed message.

System Center 2012 R2 Preview - Download and Extract Script

Well, System Center 2012 R2 Preview is here a day earlier than I expected.

Eskor Koneti posted a list of the direct download links to the preview bits here:
http://eskonr.com/2013/06/configmgr-sccm-2012-r2-preview-is-available-for-download/

So I thought I'd wrap them quickly into a PowerShell script that downloads and then extracts all the components ready for install.

I've commented out the DPM download and install as for me it wasn't downloading correctly (either manually or via the script) but feel free to try it.

The script has no error checking and I know could be much smoother, but hey, it's not even 8am here in the UK so what do you expect!

$dwnld = "E:\System_Center_2012_R2"
 if (!(Test-Path -path $dwnld))
  {
  New-Item $dwnld -type directory
  }
$object = New-Object Net.WebClient
 $SCCMurl = 'http://care.dlservice.microsoft.com/dl/download/evalx/sc2012/SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCCM_SCEP.exe'
 $object.DownloadFile($SCCMurl, "$dwnld\SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCCM_SCEP.EXE")
$object = New-Object Net.WebClient
 $SCCMurl = 'http://care.dlservice.microsoft.com/dl/download/evalx/sc2012/SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCOM.exe'
 $object.DownloadFile($SCCMurl, "$dwnld\SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCOM.EXE")
$object = New-Object Net.WebClient
 $SCCMurl = 'http://care.dlservice.microsoft.com/dl/download/evalx/sc2012/SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCVMM.exe'
 $object.DownloadFile($SCCMurl, "$dwnld\SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCVMM.EXE")
$object = New-Object Net.WebClient
 $SCCMurl = 'http://care.dlservice.microsoft.com/dl/download/evalx/sc2012/SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCSM.exe'
 $object.DownloadFile($SCCMurl, "$dwnld\SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCSM.EXE")
$object = New-Object Net.WebClient
 $SCCMurl = 'http://care.dlservice.microsoft.com/dl/download/evalx/sc2012/SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCO.exe'
 $object.DownloadFile($SCCMurl, "$dwnld\SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCO.EXE")
$object = New-Object Net.WebClient
 $SCCMurl = 'http://care.dlservice.microsoft.com/dl/download/evalx/sc2012/SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCAC.exe'
 $object.DownloadFile($SCCMurl, "$dwnld\SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCAC.EXE")
#$object = New-Object Net.WebClient
# $SCCMurl = 'http://care.dlservice.microsoft.com/dl/download/evalx/sc2012/SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCDPM.exe'
# $object.DownloadFile($SCCMurl, "$dwnld\SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCDPM.EXE")
Start-Process -FilePath "$dwnld\SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCAC.EXE" -Wait -ArgumentList /DIR="$dwnld\SCAC", /VERYSILENT
#Start-Process -FilePath "$dwnld\SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCDPM.EXE" -Wait -ArgumentList /DIR="$dwnld\SCDPM", /VERYSILENT
Start-Process -FilePath "$dwnld\SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCO.EXE" -Wait -ArgumentList /DIR="$dwnld\SCO", /VERYSILENT
Start-Process -FilePath "$dwnld\SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCOM.EXE" -Wait -ArgumentList /DIR="$dwnld\SCOM", /VERYSILENT
Start-Process -FilePath "$dwnld\SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCSM.EXE" -Wait -ArgumentList /DIR="$dwnld\SCSM", /VERYSILENT
Start-Process -FilePath "$dwnld\SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCVMM.EXE" -Wait -ArgumentList /DIR="$dwnld\SCVMM", /VERYSILENT
Start-Process -FilePath "$dwnld\SC2012_R2_PREVIEW_SCCM_SCEP.EXE" -Wait -ArgumentList /Auto, "$dwnld\SCCM"

Microsoft's "Blue" or R2 Wave

In 9 days we're due to get the Beta versions of Microsoft's next wave of releases (Formerly known as Blue) for Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2.

I'm going to leave Windows (Client and Server) to one side for now as there's enough coverage of those features, but what's publically known in terms of new features and changes for System Center?

So far for System Center 2012, it's been mainly SCVMM features announced, along with some ConfigMgr and Intune details.

Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)

• Management of physical network switches via OMI
• OOB Service Templates to provision other System Center 2012 R2 components
• OOB Service Template for Network Virtualisation Gateway with Windows Server 2012 R2
• Use ODX deployment capability from Libraries sharing the same SAN
• First node in a tier can run different scripts - helps deploying guest clusters
• Better Windows Server 2012 IPAM integration
• Shared VHDX support for guest clustering
• Dynamic VHDX resizing
• Linux Dynamic memory support

Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr)

• Deploy and manage Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2
• Provision certificates, Wi-Fi and VPN profiles
• Deploy links to web applications
• RBAC Reporting control
• Create and modify offline VHD Images
• Publish VHD to SCVMM for use with templates

Intune

• Auto VPN configuration
• VPN and Wi-Fi profile configuration
• Single pane of glass for both Mobile and Devices via Intune into ConfigMgr
• More MDM policy configuration options
• Selective wipe rather than just full device wipe
• The new Server 2012 R2 Work Folders feature configuration

I suppose we're just going to have to wait until next week to get our grubby mits on more information and the ability to have a play.

Intune common logon without ADFS (Aka Password "sync")

Recently Microsoft released a new version of it's DirSync tool that enables organisations to synchronise it's Active Directory (AD) User accounts across into the Azure Directory Services used by Intune, Office 365, CRM etc.

This has previously only enabled organisations to reduce the administrative burden of having to recreate all of their accounts for those users they wanted to access online services, but they then had to either issue separate passwords or implement Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) to offer a truly seamless single sign-on experience for the users.

With this latest release from Microsoft, they have now introduced the ability to also push passwords up into the Azure DS.  Notice the push aspect, not synchronised as the password cannot be changed in the cloud and replicate back into your AD.

While I wouldn't class this as true Single Sign-on (SSO) as your still effectively authenticating against a different directory service, it's still a great option for Microsoft to have added, giving great flexibility for those organisations that want to take the first steps or who can't/don't know how to deploy ADFS.

Nothing has majorly changed during the install (New Azure logo and Install Directory), so rather than re-inventing the wheel, check out the post link below that I did for installing DirSync. I've then run through the differences in the new version below the other post link.

http://systemscentre.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/system-center-2012-configuration_12.html

The first thing to note is that you cannot "upgrade" the client as you will be presented with a dialog blocking you from continuing if an older version is installed, so remove the old version first.

The main installation/configuration screen change is this one, which provides the option to push your passwords up along with your users.

Tick the option box to Enable Password Sync and that's it done!

The user account sync element still runs on a 3 hour schedule, but passwords are set to sync within minutes of a change in your local AD.

Intune users can find the new version of DirSync at this link (Requires sign on with an Intune Admin Account):
https://account.manage.microsoft.com/DirSync/DirectorySynchronization.aspx

The TechNet Library article on Implementing Password Sync can be found here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn246918.aspx

Testing Windows Phone 8 with System Center 2012 Configuration Manager and Windows Intune

On 30/05/2013 Microsoft release a package that allows administrators to test Windows Phone 8 management via System Center 2012 Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) and Windows Intune.

Previously the only way to test this feature was to purchase a Windows Phone Dev certificate which involved signing up as a developer at $99 and then purchasing a Symantec certificate at a further $299.

Now you can download this package from Microsoft which includes a pre-signed Company Portal, a script to set the relevant settings in ConfigMgr with a temporary token and also a couple of sample applications.

You can download the package here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39079

After downloading the MSI, run through the install which basically just extracts the files to a folder.  By default this is - C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Support Tool for Windows Intune Trial management of Windows Phone 8.

Create an Intune subscription in the System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1 console and leave WP8 disabled

Copy the SSP.XAP from the package extraction directory to a UNC available path.

 

Create an Application within the Configuration Manager console and deploy this application to cloud DP (manage.microsoft.com) targeting cloud managed users

 

 

Watch out for the default name of the application and ensure you rename it to something a bit more friendly. 

Run through the deploy wizard and select manage.microsoft.com as the distribution point

 

To enable management of WP8 devices open a command prompt and run the script ConfigureWP8Settings_Field.vbs (found in the package extraction directory) in query mode to get Company Portal name

cscript ConfigureWP8Settings_Field.vbs <server> QuerySSPModelName

 

Replace <server> with the server name for top level site (standalone site or CAS)

The result looks something like this "ScopeId_3C63FB50-0302-48CE-B076-5F93020AC548/Application_42291d36-6ffc-4d18-be78-9efdace3eef5".

 

 

This output will be used in the next step.

Run the script ConfigureWP8Settings_Field.vbs in save mode this time with the SSP name result.
This will populate the necessary certificate information to enable Windows Phone 8 device management

cscript ConfigureWP8Settings_Field.vbs <server> SaveSettings <Company Portal name>
where <Company Portal name> is the output from the earlier step.

After completion of the steps above, verify that WP8 device management is enabled by checking the ConfigMgr console by going to the Intune subscription properties, WP8 tab.
WP8 should be enabled, certificate should be present, and company portal app should be populated with the name you gave the Company Portal app when you set it up.

Assuming you have users sync'd up to the Intune/Azure directory and the UPN's match the accounts known by ConfigMgr, you should now be able to enrol users on their Windows Phone 8 devices.

Also included in this new package is some sample apps so that you can import something straight away for testing!

Migrate Knowledge Base Articles from Service Manager 2010 to 2012

To help ease the migration between Service Manager 2010 and 2012 (or even just one management group to another!) I've created a script that will export all of the Knowledge Articles, including the Rich Text used for the Analyst and End User content.

You can find the script here on the TechNet Gallery:
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Migrate-Knowledge-Base-15b81ab6

Download and extract the zip file and put the SCSMExportKB.ps1 file in a directory you have access to.

The script also relies on the SMLets from CodePlex found here which also makes this independent of which version of Service Manager you're running.

After you've installed the SMLets, launch a PowerShell session (Elevated as Admin) and ensure that the execution of scripts is allowed by typing:
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

Next navigate to the folder with the script and run it with the paramerter of where to export the KB Articles to.  If you do not specify a path it will default to exporting the KB Articles to the users temp folder.

For example I would run this to export to my downloads folder:

.\SCSMExportKB.ps1 C:\Users\SBAdmin\Downloads

The script will then start running and you will see the progress of it exporting to RTF files any Analyst or End User content and then the rest of the KB Article details.

 



Copy these exported files to the same location on the target server (or modify the csv to point to a new location) and then use the KBImport.xml provided in the zip file along with the Knowledge.csv created by the PowerShell script to import them into the target Service Manager system using the CSV Import Wizard.

N.B. Before you do the import, be sure to remove the first line of the CSV which has the headers in it!

 

And that should be that, one set of exported and imported Knowledge Articles.

 

There is one limitation however...

In this current version only the Out-Of-Box lists are supported.  I'm working on the script to handle custom list values and will update the solution when it's automated.  Until then you will need to find the enumeration ID's from your target site and replace the source ID's in the CSV file with the corresponding ones.

 

I'd also like to thank Anton Gritsenko (aka FreemanRU) for pointing me in the right direction for this script.