User-Defined Tasks

You can create user-defined tasks for every object in the organization tree; once defined, they are available on the object's context menu. User-defined tasks can be grouped in task groups.

With user-defined tasks you can include programs and scripts in the DSMC. This extends the functionality of Ivanti DSM. For example, this allows you to integrate management consoles from different virtualization providers into the DSM environment.

Call parameters can be assigned to the programs and scripts you want to call with user-defined tasks. User-Defined Variables are employed for this purpose.

Appearance

You can define under which conditions user-defined tasks appear on the context menu of a DSMC object.

The following DSMC objects are available:

  • User
  • Computer
  • Static group
  • Dynamic group
  • External group
  • Domain
  • Organizational unit (OU)
  • Software folder
  • Software
  • VM Host
  • Object (general - specific object is determined via LDAP filter in this case)

User-defined tasks understand the context from where they are called. This means that the name and the properties of an organization tree object can be evaluated and processed in the command line. You can specify that call parameters are transferred encrypted as variable values if you defined encrypted user-defined variables beforehand.

Also, you can specify which condition must be met so that a user-defined task will be displayed in a DSMC object's context menu. The condition is formulated as LDAP query. With an LDAP editor you can query a large number of object properties.
Using a LDAP query, you may also determine a condition under which the task will be active.

For example, a task you created for VMWare ESXi will not be displayed for a Microsoft HyperV Server object because of the LDAP filter you specified before.

Rights and Roles

User-defined tasks are integrated in the role-based concept of the DSM environment. This guarantees that only DSMC users who own the respective rights can execute these tasks. By default, a DSMC user must have the right Execute user-defined task.

You must have the Supervisor role to manage user-defined tasks and task groups.

Execution Properties

A user-defined task starts the execution of a program or a script. Command line parameters are passed over as arguments. You can use variables for this. You can also run Microsoft Powershell scripts on the command line via user-defined tasks.

In addition, you can specify the location where the called script will be executed.

Select one of the following

When a user-defined task is being executed synchronously, the DSMC displays a status window. During asynchronous execution, the status window will not be displayed.

If a program requires special operating system rights or is to be executed with limited rights, you can also specify that the program will run with the user account of the logged-on Windows user or else the account of the DSM Runtime Service (then, the program can be executed at times when no user is logged on to the operating system).

User-defined tasks can be used for several objects of the organization tree at the same time (multiselect). Reboot or suspend commands, for example, may be applied for the multiselect functionality. However, the selected objects must be the same type of object.

Additionally you can create a confirmation message that will be displayed before executing a user-defined task. This is very useful to prevent a user-defined task from being executed accidentally. This message can be localized. You can activate the various functions of the user-defined task and also enter a message text in the task's properties.

Example

To log on to the VMware VCenter console you will need the following information: IP address, user name and password. Create a variable group vCenter with the three variables named above. You can refer to these variables later when you create the user-defined task vCenter LogOn. With this task you can start the VMware VCenter console and pass on the variables as arguments.