Is it possible to extend vCloud Automation center self-service portal UI?

[anuragvr]

Hi,

I wanted to know is it possible to extend vCloud Automation Center self-service portal UI to add another functionality related menu item. I also interested to know is there developer guide for vCAC to describe how to use the vCloud Automation Center Development kit?

Thanks in advance.

--Anurag

[abhilashhb]

Hi Anurag,

Check this link http://www.vcacteam.info/

Its the vCAC Team's link. You will find a lot of tutorials regarding self service portal customization etc.

For Development kit have you seen the extensibility documentation?

Here's a link for that.

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vcac-51-extensibility-guide.pdf

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[anuragvr]

Before putting query in this portal, I already gone through these links and extensibility doc  thoroughly . I haven’t  found anything related with vCloud Automation Center self-service portal UI extension to add another functionality. I also did not found developer guide that describe how to setup a development environment to use  the vCloud Automation Center Development kit.

Still I have very basic question, is it possible to extend vCloud Automation Center self-service portal UI extension to add another functionality?

Thanks Abhilash for your response, unfortunately  my query not resolved..

[admin]

Hi Anuragvr,
In fact the site itself can be extended, but this is something which cannot later on be supported by VMware.
see my post: http://elasticskies.com/making-vcac-description-and-potentially-other-field-mandatory/

Regarding turning the "Decription" field of a VM request, to a mandatory field.

Furthermore, by "functionality regarding menu item" are you referring to a menu action to use on a deployed machine?
If so, this could be achieved using CDK license and creating menu items to trigger workflows on a machine.
This could be done fairly easily using the vCO plugin for vCAC.

[anuragvr]

Hi oKushmaro,

Thanks for your reply. I am looking the way how I can change or extendb the vCAC self-service portal UI, I want to extend the UI to add new menu item and in the action of menu item it will open new page for gathering inputs. On submit of the page it perform action to trigger workflows on a previously provisioned virtual machine.

I am new for vCAC just started before couple of days, I am not finding developer guide to setup development environment just like we have for other VMware products VCO etc..

Best regards

Anurag R

[admin]

As far as I know we have no publicly published methodology on customizing the self-service portal UI.  Simple menu and workflows are documented in the extensibility guide, but this wouldn't meet your case where you need to have input from the end user.

I know in extensibility trainings in the past there was a sample of doing exactly as you are asking, with the source code distributed during the class....  However, it was against the Administrative site rather than the self service portal which was very new at the time of the training materials being created.  The trainings may have changed a bit or have migrated to an online version that doesn't cover this topic anymore.

There might be some bloggers out there that have posted solutions and I have helped some people with minor customizations on the self service portal, but I personally haven't tried to solve this scenario (... a common request ...)

For what it's worth, in future, version 6.0 this is supported with vCO and advanced services designer, though I don't know about "build your own html page" if you really need to roll your own custom code.