Cireson PowerShell Activity now available!

seth_coussens

http://softwaredownloads.cireson.com/#/#Business Management Solution

The Cireson PowerShell Activity app simplifies and enhances automation efforts for system tasks and common processes within the native Service Manager Console, reducing the need for outside systems, such as Azure automation or Orchestrator Runbooks.  Gain front-end visibility into the automation steps of your workflows and utilize the capabilities of PowerShell directly within your daily processes.

http://cireson.com/apps/powershell-activity/

Leigh_Kilday

Woo hoo! When can we expect this to be available on the downloads page?

seth_coussens

@Leigh_Kilday
It's been available since the announcement this morning, maybe a caching issue on the browser? Have you been able to download it?

Leigh_Kilday

Thanks Seth, you were right.

Steve_Clarke

Very nice work guys. Will be much quicker than waiting for runbooks to report their completion status. Looks like I will be redeveloping a few things

Adam_Dzyacky

Highest of fives @seth_coussens/Cireson. This is fantastic and an (intentional or not) bridge to SMA 2016 wherein workflows and scripts are both supported.

seth_coussens

Thanks, stretch your legs with it and let us know what you think. Please put feature requests in the usual place and depending on the active we may improve on this fairly rapidly while the iron is hot.

Leigh_Kilday

@seth_coussens, I've just implemented this in my air-gapped Test environment but I can't create new scripts. I'm getting a popup:
"Cannot proceed with no valid license key"

My list of keys do not include this app and the app doesn't appear in the licensing settings within the console.

Adam_Dzyacky

I got the same thing @Leigh_Kilday - you'll need to update to the absolute latest Licensing App.

Leigh_Kilday

Thanks, @Adam_Dzyacky.

Unfortunately that's at least another day for me...

seth_coussens

Yes as this is an entirely no app the licensing app had to be updated to support it. So you will need the latest version, also available via the downloads page.

Marc-Andre_Lafleur

Is there any way to hide the PowerShell Script tab in the console for analysts that are not admins?

seth_coussens

There is not, but there is also no way for them to edit the script from the activity form. Not sure if that helps?

Brian_Wiest

I see that some tasks were added to the User Roles. Do the analysts need Run Activity to utilize the activity in a SR?

I am guessing that the PowerShell runs from the Management server, but cannot tell what account it is using to run. Is it the workflow account?

Raul_Noa

What is the most appropriate way to fail a PowerShell Activity in the event that it throws an error? I'm using a try/catch block and in the catch I throw the exception. It stops executing and exits the script, but the workflow marks it complete.

charlemagne_abonado

@Raul_Noa
Use Write-Error instead of throw. I've used that and it worked for me.

seth_coussens

Brian_Wiest said:

I see that some tasks were added to the User Roles. Do the analysts need Run Activity to utilize the activity in a SR?

I am guessing that the PowerShell runs from the Management server, but cannot tell what account it is using to run. Is it the workflow account?

Default is the workflow account but this is actually configurable in the powershell activities template settings. 

Raul_Noa

Thank you @charlemagne_abonado, I will try that.
@seth_coussens - what is Cireson's official procedure for failing a PSA when the script produces an error? I could not find anything in Cireson's documentation. I'm seeing the workflow mark the PSA as complete even when the script produces an error and move on to the next activity which is not good.