Customize the MDM Self Service Portal User Interface

  • Article

2/9/2009

You can use System Center Mobile Device Manager Self Service Portal as part of a service solution for portal users. You can customize sections of the portal and extend user or administrator functionality.

The following table shows the two main page types that are provided in MDM Self Service Portal in Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager (MDM) 2008 Service Pack 1.

Portal page Description

User

All authenticated users can access user pages, such as My Devices and New Enrollment.

Users manage their Windows Mobile devices on these pages. Based on system administrator settings, users can enroll their devices, monitor enrollment status, reset the password for their devices, and wipe devices that they no longer want or that are no longer in their possession.

Portal Administration

Administrators can access the Portal Administration page. The access requirements for the Portal Administration page are described in Security Considerations for MDM Self Service Portal. By setting options on the Portal Administration page, administrators can configure the features for the users. This determines what users can do on the portal.

If you configure MDM Self Service Portal with the MDM Device Support and Server Administrator roles, a developer can use cmdlets to customize sections of MDM Self Service Portal. For more information about MDM Shell and cmdlets, see MDM Shell Cmdlets and Scripts for MDM Self Service Portal.

You can customize the MDM Self Service Portal user interface (UI). To change the portal UI, modify the .aspx files or apply a new theme. You can also extend functionality or make other changes. If you make major changes in the functionality of the portal, you must update the portal code, recompile the application, and then redeploy the portal. For more information about how the portal code is designed and implemented, see Design Details for MDM Self Service Portal.

Important

When you change a portal .aspx file, you must not remove existing controls. The code that runs the portal references the controls, and if you remove these controls, the portal application will not work correctly. Instead of removing a control, you can hide the control by setting the visible attribute for the control to false.

Changes that you can make to the portal include the following:

  • Replace a default image with a new image of the same size and type
  • Change a theme
  • Extend user or administrator functionality
  • Add content to the Terms and Conditions or Privacy pages

Replace an Image or Change a Theme

You can replace images or change a theme to modify the portal UI.

To replace an image, locate the image file. By default, image files are located in the Images folder. Replace an image file by using a new image file of the same size and type.

To change the theme that the portal uses, you publish the theme that you want to use into the App_Themes folder. Then, edit the Web.config file to set the <pages theme> element to the new theme name. For example:

<pages theme="NewThemeName">

Extend Functionality

You can also extend functionality in the portal. For example, you can add device name validation requirements. To add new requirements, in the StartEnrollment.aspx.cs file, examine how the code uses regular expressions to validate names for Windows Mobile devices. You can add conditions to the regular expression to impose additional restrictions on managed Windows Mobile device names. After you make changes, make sure that you recompile and redeploy MDM Self Service Portal.

Add Content to the Terms and Conditions or Privacy Pages

The Terms and Conditions page and the Privacy page are included in MDM Self Service Portal as placeholders. You can modify these pages to include content that meets your company requirements.

If you choose not to use the Terms and Conditions page or the Privacy page, you can hide the links at the bottom of the master page. To do this, you update the SelfService.master file to set the visible attribute to false. You must not remove the links because code references these links.

The following shows the default syntax for these pages:

<asp:HyperLink ID="LinkTermsOfUse" runat="server" NavigateUrl="TermsOfUse.aspx" >Terms of Use</asp:HyperLink>

|

<asp:HyperLink ID="LinkPrivacyStatement" runat="server" NavigateUrl="PrivacyStatement.aspx" >Privacy Statement</asp:HyperLink>

|

<asp:HyperLink ID="LinkHelp" runat="server" NavigateUrl="Help.aspx">Help</asp:HyperLink>

The following modified section shows you how to set the visible attribute to false to hide the Terms and Conditions and the Privacy links. You can remove the pipe separator (|) between the hidden links that is used in this example when you hide the links, as the following shows.

<asp:HyperLink ID="LinkTermsOfUse" runat="server" NavigateUrl="TermsOfUse.aspx" visible="false">Terms of Use</asp:HyperLink>

<asp:HyperLink ID="LinkPrivacyStatement" runat="server" NavigateUrl="PrivacyStatement.aspx" visible="false">Privacy Statement</asp:HyperLink>

<asp:HyperLink ID="LinkHelp" runat="server" NavigateUrl="Help.aspx">Help</asp:HyperLink>