LJ, Having worked some with SharePoint, I've seen how it could be advantageous to build an ITSM suite completely on that platform rather than using AR System. There are even tools that can be used within Visio to make workflow. Granted, to do the really complex stuff you need to be a .NET developer, but I've seen the direction Microsoft has been trying to push into and it's what AR System used to be geared for -- letting non-programmers quickly build enterprise applications. The only downside I see is that if you give enough people permissions to build things, I.T. will end up with the problem that Access caused where non-I.T. people made unwieldy databases with impractical forms that they then tell us to support. At least SharePoint has a permissions model. In any case, I think that it does great by allowing the full gamut of allowing end users to create simple forms and workflow, while highly skilled .NET developers can create highly complex, feature rich applications.
Unfortunately, Sharepoint itself is not cross-platform so it wouldn't work for BMC, but I'm really surprised that Microsoft hasn't released more applications that sit on top of Sharepoint at this time. The only OOtB Sharepoint based application I've used has been Project Web Access, but even that requires you to build some of your own stuff and use Microsoft Project in order to interact with the schedule. Still, I've seen some good third party stuff, and I think Sharepoint is probably a great tool to learn as a side project for anyone that prefers to focus on the development aspect of Remedy rather than ITSM administration. This may sound like I'm a big fan of Microsoft, which I'm not, but I am impressed that they turned what started out as essentially web-based blog software into a diverse platform for web sites and applications. I just wish something similar that was cross platform and extremely popular existed. Thanks, Shawn Pierson -----Original Message----- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of LJ LongWing Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2012 9:19 AM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Script Generation John, I'm changing the topic as to not hijack the original thread. You bring up an interesting thought. I was involved with a discussion with MicroFocus (parent company of Borland, maker of SilkTest) regarding their test generation application...it's a simple point/click interface, but you can, if you choose, export the test script to any number of 'known' languages including .net and java. Once in the script form you can modify, edit, do anything you really want...but when it comes back to executing the script, you run it through their 'agent'. The SilkTest 'server' is really just a license management process to ensure you are not using more licenses than you have purchased....so...this takes us to the concept you just discussed The power of Remedy is it's point and click interface to do things...one of the strongest up and downsides (at the same time) is the central development environment. While this central dev environment (the remedy server) allows for a lack of 'merge' problems....the fact that the code is stored only in the DB, and isn't easily manipulated outside of the GUI makes it sometimes hard to do things like merge.... So I agree....if BMC modified Remedy to function so that everything is still point and click easy to create the code, but allowed the option of exporting the code to a standardized format like Java, then allowed modification of that code at that level....and of course would need to be imported back in to validate the changes were good.... Yea...I could totally see using Remedy like that. :) -----Original Message----- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of John Baker Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 4:02 PM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Overlay and Applications Hello, I do wonder when the time will come when base/overlay/etc are replaced with the simple concept of a script. Converting existing workflow to a script is easy and much of the work has already been done, ie converting client side workflow to Javascript already exists in the Mid Tier. Writing a server side workflow (filters/escalations/etc) to Javascript is entirely feasible. Once we find ourselves using Javascript, everything will run (far) more quickly, AR System (with ITSM) would not require 1Gb of memory and 30 minutes to start, and a simple source control system can be used to merge the BMC base application with a client's changes. I've not met an AR System admin who can't fiddle with some script, so perhaps AR System 8 should be the day BMC bite the bullet, eject the current model and move to simple text based scripts: function my_active_link(): if field(123) = "abc": # Push value of field 456 on this form to another push_fields(456, "Target form", 987) set_fields(123, "X") else: change_label(9000, 'New value of my label') set_read_only(9000, True) Alright, so I prefer Python to Javascript but I suspect most ARSlisters can follow the above. John ____________________________________________________________________________ ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are" _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are" Private and confidential as detailed here: http://www.sug.com/disclaimers/default.htm#Mail . If you cannot access the link, please e-mail sender. _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are"
