Is there a way to migrate custom content into the software distribution section easily? My searching has come up blank. I’ve built all of my software distribution items as custom content, and we just recently started checking out the web UI. it’d make a lot more sense for folks if I could migrate some of the custom content into the software distribution section. I’m familiar with the dashboard for software distribution that generates content for that section, but doing that manually for all of things that are already built out would be incredibly time consuming.
any thoughts on this one?
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Hey all! I don’t really see any info on this one way or another, but I assume right now the only way to add content to the WebUI Software library is to create it either with the Software Distribution Wizard or via the Add Software WebUI tool? In other words, no way to migrate existing custom software fixlets to the WebUI software list?
Correct. There’s currently no official way to migrate a general custom Fixlet into SWD. Keep in mind that Fixlets created from the Software Distribution Wizard is completely different that Fixlets created from both the Manage Software Distribution dashboard and the WebUI Software Distribution.
There’s a couple of requirements for content to exist in SWD (either the dashboard or WebUI; they’re both part of the same family). You’ll need to have a package metadata exist and the Fixlets themselves need to contain certain MIME fields that refer to this package metadata.
There’s this documentation that provides a potential solution to creating SWD packages outside of the dashboard or WebUI, but it’s potentially outdated (I haven’t tried using this for many years already) - https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SS63NW_9.5.0/com.ibm.bigfix.lifecycle.doc/Lifecycle/SWD_Users_Guide/c_migrate_software_repositories.html
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Thanks for the link, Zevanty. I assumed that was the answer but I was hoping there was some kind of workaround that people may have been using.
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It might be possible to add metadata & stuff to existing custom content with the REST API to get it to show up. Not sure what the minimum would be.
Only one way to find out. Wish me luck.
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I think I misunderstood what this was asking until I rethought about this.
The ask is just to have custom content show up in the SWD section of the WebUI just because it is used to deploy software even though it wasn’t made with SWD? The content already shows up under custom, but isn’t obvious.
I think this could potentially be solved by having an easy way to tag custom content to also appear under SWD even if it isn’t technically SWD content, but then this would be confusing because if you try to use SWD capabilities to manage it, then it wouldn’t work with it because it isn’t real proper SWD content, but that might not be the end of the world if it was grouped and tagged differently than typical SWD content.
At the end of the day, the users of WebUI are usually not BigFix admins but maybe Helpdesk employees, and it can be counter-intuitive to tell them that if they want to deploy software they have to check both Deploy Software and Deploy Custom. I suspect that a lot of folks have a mixture of apps they rolled themselves and apps they used SWD for, so a way to get them both into Deploy Software would be pretty cool. I don’t think it matters in the console much because typically you just search your fixlets for the software title anyway (at least, I do).
A tag might be nice way to get around it.
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yeah - your interpretation you just mentioned is correct. It’s been a while since I posted this, we’ve since all defaulted to using the console… 
just reiterating: in the web UI, when you click on content -> software, it only displays software distributions created using SWD. We never really use that method to generate content, so all of our ‘custom’ tasks/fixlets don’t show up there. Maybe this is a fault of how we utilize bigfix, but it is what it is, and we’re in a hole that would be difficult to climb out of if we wanted this feature to work the way it’s designed.
there is always the options to go to content - > custom, but that displays and organizes things in a chaotic manner and it would not be easy for a new helpdesk person to know what they’re looking for there. there’s too much content being displayed there. unlike the console that has things organized in sites, this just sorta shows everything you have access to in one giant list.
I was curious if there was a method for me to pick something that shows up in custom, and easily integrate it in a manner where it’d show up under content -> software, as intuitively and without experience, most people would navigate to there while looking for it. it sounds like that is not a thing in current form. unfortunately it’s also one of the main things that prevented adoption of the web ui for us.
I agree, a way to tag it there could be really convenient, but not if it’s going to break design intentions. Some thoughts:
Another option could be to allow us to create our own choice on the drop down menu to call it something else, and let us tag or organize items that are visible there… or maybe let us browse all available fixlets/tasks that are stored in specific sites from a drop down menu choice?
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I also don’t use SWD to generate content generally.
I do agree that there isn’t great organization there. You can help matters a bit if you don’t really use SWD is to not enable that app in the WebUI at all so that it doesn’t appear. The other thing you can do is put only the content you think Helpdesk operators need into its own custom site and only give them read access to that site. That way they have a lot less stuff to wade through.
I think an option is coming to the webui to display custom content by site in the future.
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There is a new update coming to the WebUI in the next couple of months to allow you to view content by site, which may help. Currently, you can filter your view by site or category in the Custom app, or if you add icons to the SWD tasks (which you can do by editing the tasks in the WebUI), then they are pretty easy to spot vs other content, and it enables them for deployment via the Self-Service App:
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