Hi Henrik

I noticed there is a Popup Notification option in Notifications, however, it pops up within an 'Interactive Services Detection' session, and causes all sorts of issues with my Graphics Driver.

I have tried using different Credentials but it makes no difference. I am running Windows 7 x64.

How do I ensure it runs in my normal desktop?

Cheers

Andy

That popup is an old legacy which we will replace soon.

In the new popup you will be able to select which desktop to show on and get back input from the dialog - if requested.

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Hi Henrik

Now that sounds useful - I was also investigating the possibility of implementing IM servers at the customer but it sounds as if the new Popup will provide everything I need (and will save me a whole load of time). Even the feedback dialogue will be a huge benefit - will it be customisable? i.e. Be able to Specify fields?

Cheers

Andy

Andy,

we would appreciate any ideas regarding this which we base the new Task on.

Primary, we will create a Task - and then, maybe, a Notification.

The Task will have different kind of feedback. For example, different kind of buttons.

You will be able to set Caption, Text.

Primary, we think about implementing a text field for input which will be the result of the Task in some way.

If you have any thoughts - please put them here.

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Hi Henrik

I feel this could provide an excellent opportunity for users to provide feedback into VC as well as Job/Task notifications. Features I personally would like to see:

1. Standard OK, CANCEL, RETRY buttons (for example if a task is taking too long to process, or prior to an Error condition being enforced)

2. Embed VC Variables in to Dialogue for displaying task and job results FROM VC

3. Checkbox and Radio Button Group

4. Embed User Variables in Fields for completion by users. For example, to enable update of values in an SQL Database on return to VC making Automation interactive

5. Ensure 'Timeouts' are implemented in case a Popup is not acknowledged (either to error or continue)

6. Enable Popup/response as a Timed Job Trigger :-)

7. Disable acknowledgement buttons until a User has provided a Value.

8. Optional Broadcast or Individual message delivery from VC

9. Allow Re-broadcast of Text Response from a User to all other users

10. Live 'System' Popup to allow real-time logging of Customised messages i.e. Always active for all jobs to allow display of 'streamed' messages on a large Help-Desk screen

11. Allow option to change colour of displayed Text and/or Caption (e.g. Red for Urgent, Blue for Normal and Amber for Important)

I am probably being extremely hopeful here, but these are the types of functionality that I am looking at implementing at customers - particularly the ability to allow users to interact with VC by feeding values back into the VC workflow.

I will let you know if I think of any more ;-)

Cheers

Andy

Thanks for the ideas. Have some questions:

6. I guess, if a popup Task is implement you could just schedule a Job with this Task? Nothing special here?

8. Could you explain more about 8?

9. please describe more what you mean

10. Could you give an example of how this would work?

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Hi Henrik

Yes, you are correct, for Option 6 we could just schedule a job with the first task being a Popup - waiting for feedback before progressing.

Option 8 - To elaborate a little, if we send a Popup we may only want to send it to an individual, for example, a DBA who is responsible only for the database. Or, a Production Operator who has to input the time taken to perform a particular task, or a Stock manager who wants to update a particular Stock Level. System administrators aren't interested in seeing these messages.

But then again, we may need to send a Popup to everyone (i.e. a Broadcast), for example, if a critical Job has Errored, or a piece of equipment has failed, or a service is not responding.

We could even consider 'Groups' of users - for example, All Managers, or All Operators, or All System Administrators' etc.

Perhaps we could define 'Groups' and select Groups or individuals from the User Permissions table?

For option 9 - I am really pushing my luck now and looking at the option for a User to Re-broadcast a response to another Group or individual. For example, a Production manager has a Popup waiting for a job to complete, but a key piece of equipment has failed. The PM can re-send the message to Everyone telling them that the job is delayed to a system failure.

For Option 10. I am basically talking about a Syslog feature I guess where tailored messages can be 'streamed' to a specific System-level Popup thread, where VC can display informational messages from Jobs to display on a large Plasma Screen in a Help Desk, so individuals can see at a glance what has failed or what is running.

We did consider displaying the VC Log on the screen but the messages are too Verbose, even with the Filters selected, and as far as I know, it only shows the log from a single server, where a customised System Popup would/Could allow any messages from any server to be displayed centrally.

I did look at the Kiwi Syslog Server you suggest in your help files so a lot of my influences are from here, but I want to try and minimise the solutions we have to implement - far better to keep things managed centrally I think?

Cheers

Andy

To give a technical insight in for example 8 there are some limitations.

In order to provide functionality, the actual popup must come from a VisualCron application. In this case, the application that will show this popup is the VisualCron Tray Client.

This means:
- that the tray client needs to be running
- that a message can only be shown on a computer that has the tray client running
- the Tray client only shows messages local to the server, like the Job started and Job completed notifications

So, this limits requests somewhat. We cannot popup something with a query on a any computer that is not the VisualCron server. We could filter on users that are logged in into the same machine as the VisualCron server. We could use the standard "net send" command to send a message to another ip in the network - however, we can capture any input or customize the message in any way when using "net send".

Simply put, there needs to be something responding to a request and shows the popup, on the computer that should receive the message.

With some work, maybe we can get the Tray Client to connect remotely to the VisualCron service. And supply a installation package for the Tray client only. That would mean some work and redesign but could work.

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Hi Henrik

Okay - so we can install any amount of Clients and/or Tray Clients with a Site Licence. The only issue with Net Send is that in my experience most system administrators disable the 'Net Send' functionality internally due to security concerns. So, I can only think of a messaging solution such as Web Services/HTTP or XML-RPC, which means the VC Servers and clients would need to support it - perhaps an XML-RPC or HTTP Trigger?. Or, a mechanism where a VC task can call a remote VC task?

Sorry - not too familiar with these technologies at all I'm afraid so just bouncing thoughts around.

Cheers

Andy

We are currently trying to define how this "Popup Task" should work. We are working on a document here:

https://docs.google.com/...pk9xT_oAK0Uw/edit?pli=1# 

Please provide any feedback to the document/Task in this forum post.

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Hi Henrik

In my other post I said that it looks as if this document covers most of the requirements I had for pop-ups and feedback forms - i'm looking forward to trying out the functionality.

Cheers

Andy

Hi Henrik

I was just wondering about timescales for the release of the new VC Popup and variable feedback/forms features you talked about? I want to schedule an upgrade to 6.13 here at the customers but will hold it off if the new features release will be relatively soon.

Cheers

Andy

Hi Henrik,

We are following this thread with interest, however we would also like to see the Job/Task email notification to have the To, CC and ability un-check "send separate emails" feature.

Hope you can review and advise quickly.

Thanks,
-KUMAR

Hi Henrik

I was just wondering about timescales for the release of the new VC Popup and variable feedback/forms features you talked about? I want to schedule an upgrade to 6.13 here at the customers but will hold it off if the new features release will be relatively soon.

Cheers

Andy

We have temporary paused this development but will continue on Monday. We estimate about 3 weeks.

Kumar, please do not mix other requests in this thread - please create separate requests.

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The first version of the Popup Task has just been released. Please test it and leave feedback there:

http://www.visualcron.co....aspx?g=posts&t=2811 

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