Dell has recently removed the web service behind this solution. They have created a new one that requires an API key. I will remove the download link but keep this notice active for those currently using this solution.
Dell has a page listing their new Support API’s: http://en.community.dell.com/dell-groups/supportapisgroup/
Dell has an online tool that allows you to type in the Service Tag of any Dell computer to get the warranty information for that device. Not only do they provide a web-based tool on their site for this, but they also have a public SOAP Web Service that allows you to query the warranty information from any third party product such as ServiceNow.
The following update set will add a button on the Computer table within the ServiceNow CMDB. This button will be displayed if the computer record has the Manufacturer field starting with “Dell” as well as a serial number field that contains the service tag.
If you were to click on this button, the instance would make a web service call to dell with the Service Tag. It will store any warranty information that it finds into a “Dell Warranty Info” table as well as display the results in a dialog box over the form.
The popup dialog of warranty information provided by the Dell Warranty information service
This information is stored in a related table to the CMDB’s Computer table. You can therefore optionally modify the Computer table form and have it display the Warranty information as a related list.
This seems like a great idea, but it isn’t working correctly for me. I downloaded the update set and committed it to one of our subproduction instances. The UI Action button appears on the workstation form, but when I click the form button, the dialog window appears with the following message: “The page you are looking for could not be found.”
I verified that the customer updates were installed as intended. I checked the Dictionary (sys_dictionary) table to find the entries for the Dell Warranty Info table, and found 7 entries corresponding to various fields on the table. Unfortunately, I don’t see a dictionary entry for the table with a type of “collection”. I believe this is the reason for the error. I also cannot see this table in order to add it to the Computer form as a related list. Do you have any idea how I can fix this problem?
This is great – thank you. However, the dates seem to be completely wrong? Do they need to be edited for different time zones?
@Sarah…I don’t see the issue. I have checked it against the online dell utility and the dates seem to match up. There may be an occasional 1-day difference, but I am just displaying what their Web Service is returning to us. If there are date discrepancies, it is likely against the Dell side of the house.
@Jim…I just applied the update set on a test instance and it works. I wonder if it would help to try to reapply the update set? I think this update set was built on Calgary…do you happen to be on Calgary or Berlin? If Berlin, I would try this on a Calgary instance to see if it works better.
Hi John,
I’m definitely getting some weird results. A warranty on the Dell site expiring 10/12/2013 (UK date format), is showing with SN as 04/06/0016. Thinking it was a UK/US date format issue I have run SN from machines on both sides of the Atlantic with same results. I’ve tried getting warranty info with several CIs with similar results.
Thanks,
Sarah
@sarah – It could be that the web service acts differently for UK based machines. What is the service tag to the machine in question?
tried a machine based in Danbury – US with same results – B1K8VB1
@Sarah – interesting…I tried that very same service tag on my instance and it works just fine. It must be something different in your instance compared to mine.
I was using our test instance. I will re-clone and try again.
@John, thanks for the reply. We’re still running Berlin on our instances. I tried backing out the update set and then reapplying it, but got the same problem. I’ll wait until we upgrade to Calgary in a couple of months then give it another try.
@Sarah: apologies if that is a stupid suggestion:
Did you check the settings of the SNOW instance – not sure what you meant when you refer to different systems on both sides of the Atlantic – I’m wondering if you r SNOW instance has a default date format different from the one John is using? I’m assuming the WebService call would use the system date format (System Properties / System / Date Format and Time Zone)….
I’m seeing the same issue as @Sarah. I’m here in the states.
System Properties date format: MM-dd-yyyy
My Profile Date format: System (MM-dd-yyyy)
When I run the UI Action I’m getting back dates such as 10-20-0190 and 12-02-0189.
Changing My Profile Date format to: yyyy-MM-dd
I now get 2011-05-22 and 2013-05-22 – Which look correct.
I’m concerned however that I don’t know what affect changing my profile will have on other places in the system.
Good stuff. Works perfectly in my Dev instance. As a Dell campus this will be awesome to use once we get Configuration and our CMDB up and running.
Same issue with the date and what David said fixes it but I don’t think I want to change the date format for the entire system without trying some workarounds.
Thanks John! This works great!
Hi,
This seems like a great tool. I haven’t tried it yet, but is there a way to have it ‘mass update’ all the computers in the CMDB with their warranty information without clicking the button on each CI form?
@adam — Yes, you could do it that way. However, I can’t remember if Dell offers a bulk query web service. If you do it on a scheduled basis, you will probably be making hundreds or thousands of web service calls to Dell to update the CMDB during the scheduled run. If they offer a bulk query web service, then you could make it more scalable.
@Sarah, et al – I have fixed the bug that you found with regard to the dates not showing up properly when the user profile has a date format set to something other than YYYY-MM-DD.
Hi John,
This is great stuff. I too however have had an issue today on loading the update set whereby the dates are returning in an incorrect format. My user format date is “System (dd-MM-yyyy), when I change it to the YYYY-MM-DD format this works great however I’m somewhat hesitant to update all user’s date formats. Is there somethign that I need to change in order to get this to work?
Many thanks for your work and assistance.
Peter – did you download the update set after 1/28? The fix I submitted on that date should take care of the issue. The Update Set should be named: DellWarrantyIntegration_v002.xml
Hi John. I downloaded it yesterday and it was named “DellWarrantyIntegration_v002.xml”. I’m running Calgary too.
Would it be worth backing the changes out and trying again?
@Peter. I guess the change I made was only for Dublin release and above. I have made the fix to work with Calgary as well. Can you redownload and give this a try? The download should now be listed as v003. Thanks!
@John – That is brilliant; thank you very much. I’ve tested this and it works brilliantly well.
Thanks again.
@John – I looked up one of my computers on the Dell website and got the 7 results below. I hope it’s in a format you can follow as I pasted it in this box. However, when I run the UI Action in ServiceNow, I only get the top 2 results as you show in your screenshot. Any way I can get the others from your UI Action?
Service Provider Start date End date
Next Business Day Support UNY February 28, 2015 February 28, 2017
ProSupport DELL February 28, 2015 February 28, 2017
Next Business Day Support UNY February 27, 2014 February 28, 2015
ProSupport DELL February 27, 2014 February 28, 2015
Dell Digital Delivery DELL February 27, 2014 March 03, 2022
Dell Digital Delivery DELL February 27, 2014 March 03, 2022
Dell Digital Delivery DELL February 27, 2014 March 03, 2022
Thanks for Sharing!!
Shane
Great functionality. I would be very interested in additional calls to IBM and maybe HP.
Great job!
Ron
Red Hat…
Great product! Has anybody tried to do a “bulk” query… even one by one?
Regards
Mark