So what if you would like to modify how one of the existing templates works or create your own? There is no documentation available that I have found that describes how to do this so that is what I’m setting out to do in this article.

Creating a custom template involves two main components:

• The template elements in a management pack. I’ve attached a working sample and added lots of comments so please have a look through.
  
•  A compiled UI screen written in managed code (c# in this case).

A word of warning: the authoring console will not help with either of these.

Here are the steps you can use to create your custom UI screen:

1. Using Visual Studio, create a new class library
   
2. Delete the class1.cs file that gets created by default
3. Add references to the necessary OpsMgr DLLs. You can find these in C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007\ as well as the SDKBinaries folder within that folder.
4. Add a new User Control to the project named EventDetailsPage
5. Double click on the user control to open the designer screen. Add your UI widgets from the toolbox. I’ve added two text boxes named txtEventID and txtEventSource.
6. Open the code view of your user control and make the following changes by copying and pasting from the code that I’ve attached to the article:
   1. Add all the “using” statements
   2. Change the class to inherit from UIPage
   3. Add the SavePageConfig() method
7. Build the project
8. Copy the DLL that you’ve just compiled to the OpsMgr program files folder.

Now you are ready to run your new template!

Import your management pack and go to the authoring templates. Your new template will show up in the list. When you run the wizard, your UI screen will allow the user to input values.

A note on how OpsMgr processes templates when you’re done with the wizard:

• OpsMgr replaces $TemplateConfig/ConfigValue$ variables in the implementation section of the template with the user-provided values.
  
  
• Merges the implementation section into the management pack that you specified on the first wizard screen.
  
  
• Creates a for the template and puts every generated element in the folder using s. When you click on your template after running the wizard, OpsMgr uses this folder system to display previous output of the template. This is also how it knows what to delete if you delete template output. A side effect of this is that it is assumed that you will create elements with unique IDs for each run of the template. If you create non-unique elements, OpsMgr will effectively delete all runs of the template when any single run is deleted.

The sample UIPage I’ve attached barely scratches the surface of what is possible. Some fodder for future articles or your own exploration:

·         There is a built-in SDK connection available in the UIPage so you can populate drop-down lists with monitored computers for example

·         The UIPage has various properties that give you the context in which it is running such as a reference to the template itself

·         You can handle the user editing your template as well as just creating new ones

·         You can create custom UI for other workflows such as rules, monitors ,etc

Because this is a hybrid user group meeting there are two ways to register.
1. If you would like to use Live Meeting to attend the meeting remotely, register here http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=146192
2. If you would like to go to the Alpharetta, GA Microsoft Campus to attend the meeting please register here, this will help us with planning for lunch requirements. https://www.usergroupsupportservices.com/UGEventView.ugss?EventID=8775
 

DATE & TIME
March 5, 2010
10:00 AM – 4:00 PM Eastern Time Zone
 

Lunch provided by Prowess http://www.prowesscorp.com
 

“At Prowess Consulting, we focus on providing technology marketing, technical writing, IT infrastructure, and managed services to Fortune 500 companies. We make businesses stronger by delivering the right information at the right time. We are trusted by the largest organizations to deliver results through innovative and customized solutions.”
 

THE AGENDA
 

9:45 AM 10:00 AM Opening and Introductions
10:05 AM 11:00 AM Prowess Presentation
11:05 AM 11:50 AM Introduction to Microsoft App-V and the Enterprise
11:55 AM 12:40 PM SCCM R3 Features and Benefits
12:45 PM 1:00 PM Break
1:05 PM 1:50 PM Ed Wilson Powershell Best Practices
1:55 PM 2:40 PM MP Authoring Resource Kit
2:45 PM 3:40 PM What is SCUP and How Do I Use It?
3:35 PM 4:00 PM Closing
 

PRESENTER BIOGRAPHIES
 

Steve Bucci
Steve is a Senior Support Engineer with Microsoft System Center Support in Charlotte, NC. He supports Application Virtualization (App-V), Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V), and Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM). He has worked for Microsoft for the past 8 years.
 

Brian Shaw
Brian has been with Microsoft the past 2.5 years and is currently holding the position of Senior Support Escalation Engineer supporting SMS, Configuration Manager (SCCM), and WSUS. Brian has been supporting SMS for well over 10 years, starting with SMS 1.2. Brian is currently the CSS Beta Engineer supporting the development and release of SCCM R3.
 

Ed Wilson
Ed is a senior consultant at Microsoft and a well-known scripting expert. He is a Microsoft Certified Trainer who delivers popular scripting, networking, and administration workshops to Microsoft employees and customers worldwide. He’s written several books on Windows scripting, including Microsoft Windows Powershell Scripting Guide, Microsoft Windows Scripting Self-Paced Learning Guide, and Microsoft VBScript Step by Step. Ed holds more than 20 industry certifications, including MCSE and CISSP.
 

Cory Delamarter
[Unavailable at this time.]
 

Jason Lewis
Jason is a Program Manager on the System Center Configuration Management SE Team at Microsoft. He’s been with the team for over 5 years working on products such as Systems Management Server 2003 SP2 and R2, including the Custom Updates Publishing Tool (CUPT), Inventory Tool for Custom Updates (ITCU), System Center Updates Publisher (SCUP), and Configuration Manager 2007 R2. Jason also authors a blog at http://blogs.technet.com/jasonlewis where he covers products that he’s working on including “FYI” and “How To” topics.

Thank you for your continued support!

Scott Moss
Microsoft MVP (Operations Manager)
Vice President Atlanta SMUG http://www.atlsmug.org
President System Center Virtual user Group  http://systemcenterusergroup.org

Kevin writes: This is something a LOT of people make mistakes on – so I wanted to write a post on the correct way to do this properly, using a very common target as an example.

When we write a monitor for something like “Processor\% Processor Time\_Total” and target “Windows Server Operating System”…. everything is very simple. “Windows Server Operating System” is a single instance target…. meaning there is only ONE “Operating System” instance per agent. “Processor\% Processor Time\_Total” is also a single instance counter…. using ONLY the “_Total” instance for our measurement. Therefore – your performance unit monitors for this example work just like you’d think.

However – Logical Disk is very different. On a given agent – there will often be MULTIPLE instances of “Logical Disk” per agent, such as C:, D:, E:, F:, etc… We must write our monitors to take this into account. (continue at source) 

We had an requirement to monitor 3 service state and get the file count of a folder. this has been achieve by writing custom MP and with Scripting.

We are monitoring Test.exe, Compression.exe, CleanupService.exe and finding filecount for D:\Test folder.

Attached the Test.xml, you can import this and test, make sure you will have all the above services in the SCOM/Client or otherwise you can monitor for your own Services.
 

I would like to say thanks to my architect for his assistance on this.

Regards,

Sathia

Click the download button at right to get the full article.

Concepts are presented with hands-on exercises walk the user through the both the planning and implmentation processes in the creation of the PKI Certificate Validation MP.

SCC contributors Pete Zerger, Raphael Burri and Jaime Correia take you through the process end-to-end using the much-improved R2 Authoring Console.

The live meeting recording is now available for download.

Time stamps:
Topic                        start        end
Introduction                              2:50
Hyper-V                       2:50        41:20
Bridgeways                41:20        1:16:00
MP Authoring          1:16:50        2:17:41
Q&A                        2:18:00        2:37:45

Facebook Group: System Center Virtual User Group
Linked-In  Group: System Center Virtual User Group

If you would like to present to the group drop me a line at jscottmossatgmaildotcom

Thank you for your continued support!

Scott Moss

president - System Center Virtual User Group
vice president - Atlanta Systems Management User Group