The automatically generated Service Dialog is far from being perfect. It might confuse the user with too many input fields. For example, the user is asked to select the “Machine Credentials”, although they have already been defined in the Service Catalog Item and the user provided input will have no effect. It also asks for the “Host”, but this one is automatically calculated by CloudForms and set to the currently selected Virtual Machine. And finally the field “package_name” could benefit from a more descriptive text to be more user friendly.
In the following steps, we want to make the Service Dialog more user friendly by simplifying it.
Navigate to Automation -> Automate -> Customization.
Click on Service Dialogs in the accordion on the left.
Click the check box next to “InstallPackage”.
Click on Configuration -> Copy the selected Dialog to a new Dialog.
Let’s improve the Service Dialog by applying the following changes:
Dialog’s name: Install Package from Button
The edit icon only shows if you move the mouse pointer over the “Hosts” text box.
Click on Options and switch Visible to “No”.
Click Save to close the dialog window and save your changes.
Do not delete the element, only hide it! The element is still needed for some CloudForms internal logic and should not be removed.
The edit icon only shows if you move the mouse pointer over the “package_name” text box.
Label: Package Name
Do not change the field “Name” - it is the name of the variable used internally by CLoudForms and the Ansible Playbook. if you change the name of this field, the Playbook will not pickup the new variable and hence ignore the user input.
Help: Enter the name of the RPM package to be installed on the system
Click Save to apply the changes
Click Save To save all changes we made in the Service Dialog