CA service desk web service visual basic experts - asp.net

Question

I'm working on a form that uses CA service desk web service request system, but am having trouble finding any assistance or coding examples for the service with asp.net and visual basic. I contacted their technical support, but no one on their staff has experience using it. Do you know where I could get help?

Answer 1

Just finished doing a vb.net webservice to CA service desk. Hopefully some of the code below can be used in your project.
Imports System.Xml
Imports Microsoft.Web.Services3
Imports Microsoft.Web.Services3.Messaging
Imports Microsoft.Web.Services3.Addressing
Partial Class _Default
Inherits System.Web.UI.Page
Dim ws1 As New USD_WebService.USD_WebService
Public sid As Integer
Public userhandle, username, password As String
Public summary, description, incident, MH, SUN As String
Public group, category, uammsg, handle As String
Dim attrVal(5), attr(1), prop(1) As String
Public requestHandle, requestNumber As String
Protected Sub Button3_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button3.Click
ws1.Url = "http://"YOUR SERVER":8080/axis/services/USD_R11_WebService?wsdl"
'Get the Field values for the ticket (Could be done connecting to LDAP server)
username = userid1.Value 'Name from form field
password = pass1.Value 'Windows Password from form field
summary = Summary1.Value 'Summary from form field
description = desc1.Value 'Description from form field
'Get the SID from the CA Server
sid = ws1.login(username, password)
If (sid <= 0) Then
Response.Write("login failed")
Else
Response.Write("login succeeded")
End If
'Get the User ID from the CA Server
userhandle = ws1.getHandleForUserid(sid, username)
'Set the Field values to create the ticket.
'The AttrVal must be in pairs or the call will fail
'e.g. header & header details
attrVal = New String() {"customer", userhandle, "category", category, "group", group, "description", description, "summary", summary, "ZReporting_Method", "400001", "impact", "5", "type", "R"}
prop = New String() {""}
attr = New String() {"persistent_id"}
'Returned data from the CA server
requestHandle = ""
requestNumber = ""
'Send the request with the details from the form
ws1.createRequest(sid, userhandle, attrVal, prop, "", attr, requestHandle, requestNumber)
Response.Write("Ticket Number: " + requestNumber + " Created Successfully.")
'MsgBox("Ticket Number: " + requestNumber + " Created Successfully.")
MsgBox(requestHandle, 3)
'Log off the server using the SID
ws1.logout(sid)
Just remember, the attributes need to be in pairs, Label & Label Data e.g."SUMMARY" & "Summary text". You will need to import the CA WebService into the project. I'm using MS Visual Web Developer 2008 Express to create my project.

Answer 2

I don't use VB.net actual but this is C# code that might help you understand how you can access to CA web-service and perform select quires directly to it. you can translate to VB.net it works the same way
You can find how to use web service as pdf here
and
You can find CA Reference to web-service here it contains description on all objects you might need
webServiceName.USD_WebService wsUSD = new webServiceName.USD_WebService();
string username = "user1" , password = "password";
int sid = 0;
string userhandle = null;
XmlDocument xDoc = new XmlDocument();
sid = wsUSD.login(username, password);
userhandle = wsUSD.getHandleForUserid(sid, username);
string userEmailID = "myMail#company.com";
string[] attrs = new string[7];
attrs[0] = "type.sym";
attrs[1] = "ref_num";
attrs[2] = "open_date";
attrs[3] = "description";
attrs[4] = "status.sym";
attrs[5] = "last_mod_dt";
attrs[6] = "persistent_id";
//here is the important part
//note: 'CL' means closed
//where the cr is Object ref to SQL database
xDoc.LoadXml(wsUSD.doSelect(sid, "cr", " customer.email_address = '" + userEmailID + "' AND status != 'CL'", -1, attrs));
//here is other queries you can use the same way
xDoc.LoadXml(wsUSD.doSelect(sid, "cr", " customer.userid = '" + userEmailID + "'", -1, attrs));
wsUSD.logout(sid);

Answer 3

Add a web reference to the web services wsdl in Visual Studio (under Solutions Explorer, right click on References and click Add Web Reference).
If you are moving across environments I would recommend a .xml config file to specify the endpoint url to the WSDL.
Here is what it might look like in C# based on my use of it:
using webreference1;
public class WSExample
{
USD_WebService ws = new USD_WebService();
//set url when creating web reference to avoid this step
ws.Url = "http://yoursite.com/webservice?wsdl";
}
Now the ws object will allow you to access all of the methods specified in the wsdl. You can use the createRequest() method to create a request.
CA provides a Technical Reference guide, which includes web service methods. Consult their support site. If this is something you use frequently, I would recommend creating wrappers to abstract away the use of blank arrays.
Feel free to contact me if you need any additional support

Answer 4

A few months ago I wrote some PowerShell functions to look at CA Service Catalog and tell me basic things, like requests that were pending my actions, update request form details, etc. To do that I saved the wsdl xml file, cooked a .cs and then a compiled a .dll file.
Normally, I'd use this PowerShell function to compile a dll:
function get-freshDll {
param($url,$outDir)
$wsdl = #(Resolve-Path "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v8.1A\bin\NETFX 4.5.1 Tools\x64\wsdl.exe")[0].Path
$cscPath = #(Resolve-Path "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\csc.exe")[0].Path
& $wsdl $url /out:$outDir"\WebService.cs"
& $cscPath /t:library /out:WebService.dll $outDir"\WebService.cs"
}
which works for the other CA stuff, just not Service Catalog (which is what I care about). For Service Catalog you have to save the wsdl file and chop out the DataHandler node (maybe someone else knows how to work with it, I gave up). After that the basic flow to create the dll is the same (just point wsdl.exe at the saved/edited wsdl file instead of the url) and then compile the dll with csc.exe. Add a reference for this dll to your C#/VB project. Working in Service Desk the PowerShell function above should work just like it is, just feed it the wsdl url and the dir where you want the dll to end up (you may also need to change the directories for your specific versions of netfx and .net).
Once the dll is mounted in your project you can use the Object Browser to see the methods that it contains. I'm still working it out myself (hence I found this post, and if you think Service Desk is hard to find examples for, try Service Catalog!). I don't have a good reference for Service Desk, sorry, but this is the .cs code (almost literally) that got the getRequests and getPendingActions methods to populate a GridView from the Service Catalog API. The aspx:
<asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server">
<asp:GridView ID="GridView1" runat="server">
</asp:GridView>
<asp:GridView ID="GridView2" runat="server">
</asp:GridView>
</asp:Content>
Keep in mind this is from a web app so there's a line missing from above:
<%# Page Title="" Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Site.Master" .... blahblah #%>
The .cs code:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Net.Http.Formatting;
namespace MyNamespace
{
public partial class MyRequestStuff : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
RequestServiceImplService reqService = new RequestServiceImplService();
reqService.CookieContainer = new System.Net.CookieContainer();
string user = "userid", password = "password", unit = "Unit";
reqService.Url = "http://servicecatalog/usm/services/RequestService?wsdl";
string session = reqService.logIn(user, password, unit);
var myRequests = reqService.getRequests(session);
var myPending = reqService.getPendingActions(session, user);
reqService.logOut(session);
GridView1.DataSource = myPending;
GridView1.DataBind();
GridView2.DataSource = myRequests;
GridView2.DataBind();
}
}
}
Like baultista and za7ef mention in their code, you'll need to create an USD_WebService object (instead of RequestServiceImplService) and use the methods available there (like getStatuses()), the functionality will be pretty similar (they are in PowerShell). I know it's not quite on point (e.g. SC instead of SD) but I hope that you or someone else finds this example useful.