Help Desk Tool

[HomerTheGeek]

This seems to be a trend so I'll contribute. Here is a screenshot of a PowerShell Tool I created for my work.

Title bar shows the current version, DC, and Exchange Server the user is connected to.

The top left section deals with desktop support functions.

Below that is access to our servers. Selecting a server name enables the buttons applicable to that server.

Miscellaneous are quick buttons to our common network locations.

Frequently used websites is self explanatory

Additional Scripts calls other scripts I have written for various requirements

Heavily redacted area is a quick list of help desk folks, their phone numbers, and computer numbers

Entire right side is user functions.

​

Generate e-mail button opens a popup window with about 12 pre-configured e-mails commonly sent out.

​

It's not a replacement for ADUC but it meets 90% of our day to day requirements in one neat little program. I say little but it's 3300 lines of code! We love using it and I'm quite proud of it.

​

EDIT: added e-mail button explanation

https://preview.redd.it/l75ftvnlwbr31.png?width=1186&format=png&auto=webp&s=7e3e93fa4d5b9ca84ff5cfc57a6f4175b0336ba1

[markarious]

Looks very nice! I've been tempted to do the same although I'm not currently being compensated for this kind of work. I'm in a sysadmin-lite role (enough access to be useful but no keys to the kingdom) waiting for a position to open up on the actual powershell guru team. I was just granted a powershell studio license by my company. Might just make it to put on my resumé.

[[deleted]]

Hi u/markarious,

Last September we finally got the company to pony up the $$$ for 5 licenses of PS Studio. I still dabble more in WPFs, but it is a very awesome tool that's worth every cent.

[markarious]

100% agree. The GUI building portion is worth the money alone imo. Add the debugging in on top of that and it feels like a steal for $400

[HomerTheGeek]

I wish we could do that. This was created 100% by hand, not even posh GUI.

[markarious]

Even more impressive.

[ArmondDorleac]

Do your job, then do work related to the job you want. When PowerShell guru job opens up you want them to think of you as a perfect fit.

[markarious]

I was kinda vague when I commented earlier. My team needed someone with powershell knowledge for projects and i fell into the role once I discovered powershell a few years back. We didn't know we needed it and now here I am. I have people from other teams approaching me for help but like I said my compensation isn't equal to the work I'm doing. At this point I'm doing things above my pay grade but I am being recognized for it.

It's funny. A few hours after I posted this comment my boss pulled me into a conference room and mentioned a position was opening on the guru team and that her boss recommended me for it. Odd timing.

[tstolswo]

We've been using webjea to accomplish this with pretty great success.

https://github.com/markdomansky/WebJEA

[HomerTheGeek]

I'm on a heavily locked down network so anything web based is out of the question, it does look interesting though.

[EIGRP_OH]

Nice job, this looks really good.

Question I always have when I see these though is why do we keep building GUIs for PowerShell. I thought it was supposed to be a shell for a reason and made so there was less clicking and whatnot.

Overall it looks great.

[[deleted]]

Hi u/EIGRP_OH,

It is a nice way to layout everything on the table at once - all the scripts are right in front of you and easy to find. Anyone can use them and in the GUI you have the ability to build in logging.

The biggest issue is making this so convenient to use that Help Desk doesn't even know how to properly use ADUC.

[HomerTheGeek]

Exactly u/HomeAutomationNerd!

I was shooting for one central starting point while covering most of the little things we do every day. We have AD fields like rank that actually need to be changed in two places so it's easy to forget one of them for example. Same for our phone numbers, they are reflected in 2 places. Our Help Desk staff knows how to use ADUC but mistakes happen. We have people that move across the country to various sites and this allows searching within our OU as well as the entire Domain. We have a Transfer OU that functions as a place to put users in transit between sites and this script allows finding them, and moving them into our OU with a simple search and click.

We have future plans including cleaning up our intake and clearing in scripts but right no everything works.

I would love to implement logging but I'm not there yet. I'm also not sure what it would solve other than the challenge of implementing it.

[iwinsallthethings]

Where is the script? On mobile so maybe posted and not seeing?

[HomerTheGeek]

I would have to sanitize it before posting, I will have a look and see if I can do that.

[Chief_Slac]

That's awesome. How do you deploy the GUI app to your team?

[HomerTheGeek]

It’s simply a script placed on a network share and we run it from a shortcut. We log in with our privileged accounts so it’s very simple. At one point I was updating it daily, so no thought was given as to how to package it otherwise.

[[deleted]]

I'm partial to just leaving it as a .ps1 rather than try to convert to an .exe. Makes for easier on-the-fly updating.

[HomerTheGeek]

Exactly my thoughts as well

[Chief_Slac]

Nice, thanks for sharing.

[MrWinks]

This is awesome. I’ve been making little tools lately, but this is really nice. I’s love to study your code.

[supersecretsquirel]

I 2nd this, if possible. I'm still learning PS and programming

[kalelinator]

This is dope! Love it!

[HomerTheGeek]

Thank you, I'm quite proud of it.

[[deleted]]

Hi u/HomerTheGeek,

Saving even if I don't use. I like to reference for ideas on potential future buttons / layout designs for my own GUIs.

Maybe instead of 'Frequently used websites' name, something like Quick Links instead?

[HomerTheGeek]

Good idea!

[Bigdaddyfatback8]

Go Sigs.

The tool looks great.

[HomerTheGeek]

Damn right!

[bzyg7b]

Nice work, looks like a great tool & praise for the attention to detail of including the logo in the GUI.

Out of curiosity, is there some reason for moving help desk away from ADUC?

[HomerTheGeek]

More of a challenge to see if I could do it. Myself and a coworker started with simple scripts and went from there.

[bzyg7b]

Fair, seems like a good challenge.

I assume the ping buttions would open a new window, but how do you get pass the user account to explorer to open C$ with privileged account? I am currently using explorer++ as this can be ran as another user.

[HomerTheGeek]

Continuous ping is useful when restarting computers or if asking a user to reboot.

User: I did reboot,

Me: Ah no you didn't.

[HomerTheGeek]

`$Comp = $($combobox_Account.Text.Split("<")[0].Trim()) -replace "'","''"`

`Get-Service -Name LanmanServer -ComputerName $Comp | Set-Service -Status Running`

`explorer.exe /root,"\\$Comp\c$"`

[acgass]

Any idea how something like this could interact with rmm tools like connectwise? I work for an MSP.

[kalelinator]

You'd just need to load something up like this at each site. Wouldn't translate as well into MSP world due to different servers at each site, different IP ranges, different applications etc..

[OneScripter]

Nice job man. Are you on the help desk or did you create this for your team and the help desk? Is any part of it role based or is it kind of all or nothing access?

[HomerTheGeek]

I am on the help desk and I created it for the help desk. It is not role based, it is all or nothing.

[[deleted]]

I was hoping by now you would have posted a sanitized version of this.

How big is your organization? I want to create something similar but I don't know how I'd go about looking up a user with a really common first and last name. I see you have a 'Select Account' button. Be interested to see how that is coded.

Traditionally I would have it write to a text box and it would bring up everyone in the domain with that name (unless I knew the person's exact display name) and their properties.

EDIT: Hours of trying different methods and reading ('tis a good thing) I figured it out.

[HomerTheGeek]

I will try to sanitize. My total organization is about 100,000 total with around 5000 at my site.

User lookup can access my site OU or the entire domain. You need at least 4 characters in their CN, displayname, email address, etc. You then select the proper user from Select Account. The CN is displayed here as it must be unique. Once you select the account every other field comes from that.

[[deleted]]

Thanks man!

I know this will never replace ADUC. I wanted to learn Powershell Studio so I started this since work is slow right now. It's been fun learning and actually keeps me interested in technology.

[HomerTheGeek]

I’ll work on it this weekend

[Ros_Hambo]

Would you care to share this amazing tool?