AppsNotify – Ping the Application Catalog

One downside with Configuration Manager 2012 compared to Configuration Manager 2007 is that applications deployed to users, only made available, will not give a notification on the endpoint. This caused some initial confusion that needed a blog-post to clarify the matter – as all admins were used to a single view on the client what could be installed.

Microsoft created the Application Catalog, and for newer devices (mobile and Windows 8+) they made a secondary interface called the Company Portal (read about deployment at Justin Chalfants blog). However, none of these give a notification to the end user if an application is only made available.

Therefore I created a script in PowerShell that can just do that – ping the Application Catalog – check if there are new apps, and if so notify the user.

How does it work?

A scheduled task is setup

image

It starts the application 15 minutes after logon (to avoid excessive workload..), and then runs every 15 minutes.

After that, the workflow is something like;

Connect to Application Catalog

  • If no previous check is completed, gather a list.No notification is given.
  • If a previous check is completed, compare it.
    • No difference? Do nothing
    • New applications available? Notify the user
      • Maintain a notification in the system tray (which directs the user to the Application Catalog if clicked)
    • Applications removed? Update the list, no notification to the end-user

 

For each check there is a log file within the users %TEMP% called appsnotify app.log. Sample output;

image

How does it look?

Like this;

appsnotify

 

How do I deploy it?

MSI-file to install it

To install it use the MSI file with the property APPCATALOG. Input should be;

APPCATALOG=http://localhost/CMApplicationCatalog

(no slash at the end)

The Application Catalog needs to be prepared for client interaction which is described by Microsoft in a blog-article. See the Getting Started section of Extending the Application Catalog in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager.

How do I make it my own?

In all Community spirit, here comes the code / files.

XML-file for creating the scheduled task – incase you want to build your own

Source code for the PowerShell script. Wrapped it into a .exe with PowerShell Studio 2012. I have only tested this on Windows 7 x64 with PowerShell 3.0 / 2.0. Log-functions are from 9to5it

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