Network Associates/BMC have never supported the concept of users having a default group when they log into Magic/Service Desk Express. Judging by the comments in the forums lately I would suggest that this could be a feature for a future release. There were some rather elegant solutions posted in the forums that I think would do rather well, but in the meantime I set about finding a “workaround” to the issue. What I propose to discuss here is an alternative solution that you can implement yourself that will “remember” the user’s last logged on group between browser sessions by storing a cookie on the user’s machine.
PLEASE TAKE A BACKUP COPY OF THE TWO FILES BEFORE MODIFYING THEM AS THIS IS AN UNSUPPORTED HACK!
Also please be careful that when cutting and pasting from this blog to notepad that “” are not accidentally replaced with a different type of quotes.
Storing the Cookie
So the first step is modifying a file that will allow us to store which group the user has logged on as. There are a bunch of files you could do this but I choose options_nailogo.aspx using a little JavaScript. Open options_nailogo.aspx (C:Program FilesBMCService Desk ExpressApplication Server by default) in Notepad or, more preferably, Notepad ++ (an absolutely brilliant editor that I now use for pretty much everything). Near the bottom of the file you will find code that looks like:
<script Language="JavaScript">
//alert(""+strBaseURL);
window.status = sUserName + "; " + sGroupName;
window.defaultStatus = sUserName + "; " + sGroupName;
document.all("marqWBNotice").trueSpeed=true
</script>
<script language="JavaScript">clmGetText(document)</script>
We are going to insert a little function between these two functions that stores the cookie on the user’s machine such that code looks like:
<script Language="JavaScript">
//alert(""+strBaseURL);
window.status = sUserName + "; " + sGroupName;
window.defaultStatus = sUserName + "; " + sGroupName;
document.all("marqWBNotice").trueSpeed=true
</script>
<script Language="JavaScript">
var expiry = new Date();
expiry.setTime(exp.getTime() + (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 30));
document.cookie = "SelectedGroup=" + escape(sGroupName) + "; expires=" + expiry.toGMTString() + "; path=/";
</script>
<script language="JavaScript">clmGetText(document)</script>
Save the file.
Retrieving the Cookie
When a user tabs out of the UserName textbox of the Login screen of Service Desk Express a C# function is called that dynamically builds the HTML of the dropdown list based on the list of groups that the user is a member of. So essentially all we are going to do is modify this function to grab the cookie we placed in the function above (if it exists) and use it to set the selected option of the Group downdown list. This function lives in Login.cs. Open Login.cs (C:Program FilesBMCService Desk ExpressApplication Serverincludes by default) in any text editor and replace the function GetUserGroups with the function below:
string GetUserGroups(string sUsrName)
{
string strGRPName, strGRPSeq, strOutPut;
strOutPut = "";
string strDefaultGRPName = "";
HttpCookie cookie = Request.Cookies["SelectedGroup"];
if (null != cookie)
{
strDefaultGRPName = cookie.Value.ToString();
strDefaultGRPName = strDefaultGRPName.Replace("%20", " ");
}
if (MetaData != null)
{
System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine("[Login] Metadata available.");
NAMMETADATALib.IMUser objUser = (MetaData.Users as NAMMETADATALib.IMUsers).GetUserByName(sUsrName) as NAMMETADATALib.IMUser;
if (objUser != null)
{
for (int i = 0; i < objUser.GroupCount; i++)
{
NAMMETADATALib.IMGroup objGroup = objUser.GetGroupByIndex(i) as NAMMETADATALib.IMGroup;
if (objGroup.IsActive == true)
{
strGRPName = objGroup.name;
strGRPSeq = objGroup.Sequence.ToString();
if (strDefaultGRPName != "")
{
if (strGRPName == strDefaultGRPName)
{
strOutPut = strOutPut + "<OPTION ID=" + strGRPSeq + " SELECTED="True">" + strGRPName + "</OPTION>";
}
else
{
strOutPut = strOutPut + "<OPTION ID=" + strGRPSeq + ">" + strGRPName + "</OPTION>";
}
}
else
{
strOutPut = strOutPut + "<OPTION ID=" + strGRPSeq + ">" + strGRPName + "</OPTION>";
}
}
}
}
else
{
strOutPut = "NOTVALIDUSER";
}
}
else
{
System.Collections.SortedList oUsers=null;
try
{
oUsers = (System.Collections.SortedList)FeatureManager.GetUserGroups(sUsrName);
}
catch(Exception e)
{
string strResponse="<DATA>";
strResponse=strResponse+ "<ERROR>"+ e.Message +"</ERROR>";
strResponse=strResponse+"</DATA>";
strOutPut=strResponse;
return strOutPut;
}
if (oUsers != null)
{
if (oUsers.Count == 0)
{
strOutPut = "NOTVALIDUSER";
}
for (int i = 0; i < oUsers.Count; i++)
{
strGRPSeq = oUsers.GetKey(i).ToString();
strGRPName = oUsers.GetByIndex(i).ToString();
if (strDefaultGRPName != "")
{
if (strGRPName == strDefaultGRPName)
{
strOutPut = strOutPut + "<OPTION ID=" + strGRPSeq + " SELECTED="True">" + strGRPName + "</OPTION>";
}
else
{
strOutPut = strOutPut + "<OPTION ID=" + strGRPSeq + ">" + strGRPName + "</OPTION>";
}
}
else
{
strOutPut = strOutPut + "<OPTION ID=" + strGRPSeq + ">" + strGRPName + "</OPTION>";
}
}
}
}
return strOutPut;
}
Save the file and that’s it. You may need to clear your browser’s cache and it is probably worth an IISRESET as well.
As always, hope this helps, and any feedback (positive or negative) is always appreciated.
JOATIT 