Create a Custom Task for Connecting to System Center Configuration Manager 2012 Remote Control from Service Manager 2012 (SCSM) Console

I get asked this almost every engagement I deliver, and there are a lot of great blogs out there talking about how to do this in Config Mgr 2007 / Service Manager 2010 but I always struggle to find one that details how to do this using remote control in Config Mgr 2012 via the Service Manager 2012 console.

So here we go Smile

NOTE: This assumes you have configuration manager set up and agents deployed with the remote control agent enabled.  More about that can be found here

First off you can do one of two things:

1) Install the Config Mgr console on machines that have service manager consoles installed, where you intend to run this task from

2) Just copy the contents of C:\Program files (x86)\Microsoft Configuration manager\AdminConsole\bin\i386 (this will be available wherever you have a configuration manager installed) to a directory such as c:\remotecontrol on all machines that have service manager consoles installed.

And then once you have these files in place, you can create a task set up like this in Library>Tasks of the Service Manager console:

 

General Page:

 

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NOTE: I targeted incident, because the idea here is that I can launch this when clicked on an incident that has an affected configuration item included here (so if it doesn’t work, please check you have something listed here Smile ):

 

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Categories Page (I left mine blank)

 

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Command Line Page:

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NOTE: If you have the config mgr console installed on the machine where you’re running the Service Manager console and plan to use this task, the directory shown above is good.  If you plan just to copy the contents of the i386 directory around to avoid installing the config mgr console on the machine you’re running the service manager console, then change the directory in the ‘full path to command’ box to the directory that you copied these files too. 

NOTE: The ‘Show output when this task is run’ checkbox also needs to be checked in order for the execution of the task to be recorded in the action log.

Here are the values for your cut-and-paste convenience Smile 

Command Line Page
Full Path to command:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminConsole\bin\i386\CmRcViewer.exe

Parameters (optional):

$Context/Path[Relationship='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItemAboutConfigItem' TypeConstraint='CustomMicrosoft_Windows_Library!Microsoft.Windows.Computer']/Property[Type='CustomMicrosoft_Windows_Library!Microsoft.Windows.Computer']/PrincipalName$

 

Working Directory (optional)

%windir%\system32

WHY THIS IS COOOOOL!! Smile 

So this showcases the fantastic integration between Config Mgr and Service Mgr, in that when you create a new incident in Service Manager, you choose an affected user.  Through Config Mgr’s user affinity feature, Service Manager brings this data into the CMDB, knows the machines associated with the user, and offers them as options in the Affected user CI’s shown in the screenshot above.  You can then add one of these and then get remoted in and start troubleshooting right from here:

 

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Happy Remoting!!!!

Cheers, Antoni