Article
07/19/2016

Upgrading Management Packs to Work with the Authoring Tool in System Center 2012 - Service Manager

Updated: May 13, 2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 SP1 - Service Manager, System Center 2012 R2 Service Manager, System Center 2012 - Service Manager

During an upgrade of System Center Service Manager 2010 to System Center 2012 – Service Manager, all Service Manager customized, unsealed. (Unsealed management packs are management packs that you can modify. For more information about sealed and unsealed management packs, see Management Packs: Key Concepts).management packs are copied to the new Service Manager folders without any further upgrade-related processing. Using these custom management packs that were authored in System Center Service Manager 2010 in System Center 2012 – Service Manager is supported. However, there are some issues to be aware of, and you may have to make some updates to these management packs to ensure that they work properly and as intended after the upgrade to System Center 2012 – Service Manager.

Forms

The placement of a control in a form is determined by its top, bottom, left, and right margins in relation to either its parent control or to the form itself. In a customized form, this method can cause controls to be adjusted improperly when the margins of the parent control or of the form are modified.

As a result of new styles that were implemented in System Center 2012 – Service Manager, some custom forms that were authored in System Center Service Manager 2010 might have layout issues when they are imported into System Center 2012 – Service Manager. Depending on the customization, some controls might be placed incorrectly, causing issues such as overlapping and clipping. Some of these issues affect only how the form looks, and other issues can prevent some intended functionality of the form.

The following sections describe the issues that you might encounter when you import into System Center 2012 – Service Manager forms that were authored in System Center Service Manager 2010. These sections also describe how you can use the System Center 2012 – Service Manager Authoring Tool to rectify these issues to ensure that these forms look and function as intended.

Clipping and Overlapping Controls

Some controls on a form might appear clipped, with incomplete border lines and cut-off text. Sometimes this issue appears in conjunction with another issue in which controls overlap each other. Also, some controls on a form might not be visible, causing some functionality of the form to be unavailable.

To rectify these issues, you may have to use the Authoring Tool to adjust the control’s properties as follows. You may have to try several remedies, and you may have to make several attempts before the control is placed correctly.

Select the affected control, and check the value of its Margin properties: Bottom, Left, Right, and Top. For example, set the values of these properties to 0, or to a positive value, to ensure that there are no negative values that cause the control to be placed incorrectly.
Check the values of the affected control’s Layout group properties: Horizontal Alignment and Vertical Alignment. You may have to set the values of these properties to Stretch for better control alignment.
Place the affected control in a grid inside a Panel control for better control alignment.
Set the parent control’s dimensions to Auto to allow its size to shrink or grow dynamically.
Set the Height property of the container of the affected control to Auto. This allows the width and the height of controls to be automatically adjusted correctly to fit the container of the object.

Shuffling of Controls

Some controls on a form might be shuffled with each other, resulting in controls not being placed in their designated location on the form.

To rectify this issue, use the Authoring Tool to do one of the following:

Drag controls to their desired location on the form.
Select the control that is shuffled. In the Details pane, in the Margin properties group, adjust properties such as Bottom or Left to place the control in the desired location.
Select the control that contains the shuffled control. In the Details pane, modify its properties such as Bottom or Left, in the Margin properties group.

Workflows

Workflows that were developed in System Center Service Manager 2010 are supported in System Center 2012 – Service Manager.

Virtual Machine Management Activities

The Virtual Machine Management workflow activities in System Center 2012 – Service Manager support System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2008 R2. However, these activities do not support System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager (VMM).

If you are trying to automate IT processes that require the use of an activity that supports System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), using System Center 2012 - Orchestrator runbooks and VMM instead might be helpful.