Rather than having to open the Authoring tool and create a temporary management pack to view the different classes and their properties, PowerShell can be used to quickly look these up using the SCSM PowerShell Cmdlets available from CodePlex here: http://smlets.codeplex.com/.

For this recipe, we needed the properties for the Windows Computer class.

Open a PowerShell session and type the following:

Import-Module SMLets
$CI = Get-SCSMClass -Name Microsoft.Windows.Computer$
$CI.PropertyCollection

This will list all the properties directly used by the class (but not relationships).

No, CSV import is not just for configuration items. The CSV import method can also be used to create work items such as incidents by targeting the data at the System.WorkItem.Incident class by using the XML definition file and defining the properties for the data such as Title, Description, Impact, and Urgency.

This can be very useful especially for scenarios such as migrating Service Desk tools.

Sometimes you will want to import data that isn't held by just a single class, but maybe spans multiple classes and in particular class relationships.

For example, you may want to import a new computer CI, but specify the Asset Custodian for that device.

This can be achieved through the use of Type Projection and defining these in the XML definition file rather than just a single class type.

Apart from using the previous recipe and creating a new computer CI based on the information such as Computer Name, Number of Physical Processors, Number of Logical Processors, and IP Address, we also now need to specify the user details for the custodian.

The original XML definition file started with the following code:

<CSVImportFormat> 
<Class Type="Microsoft.Windows.Computer"> 

This time the Type Projection needs to be specified first:

<CSVImportFormat> <Projection Type="Microsoft.Windows.Computer.ProjectionType"> 
<Seed> 
<Class Type="Microsoft.Windows.Computer"> 

Specify the properties as before, close the class section with the </Class> tag, and then ensure that the seed section is also closed with a </Seed> tag.

Next, the additional class information for the Custodian can be added by starting a new section with a <Component Alias> tag:

<Component Alias="Custodian"> 
<Seed> 
<Class Type="System.Domain.User"> 
<Property ID="Domain"/> 
<Property ID="UserName"/> 
</Class> 
</Seed> 
</Component> 

This allows the data to be added to the data file in the format of the Domain Name in the column after IP Address and then the username of the Custodian that should be assigned.

Finally, the </Projection> tag must be placed towards the bottom to close the Type Projection definition.

The final XML would look like the following:

<CSVImportFormat> 
<Projection Type="Microsoft.Windows.Computer.ProjectionType"> 
<Seed> 
<Class Type="Microsoft.Windows.Computer"> 
<Property ID="PrincipalName"/> 
<Property ID="PhysicalProcessors"/> 
<Property ID="LogicalProcessors"/> 
<Property ID="IPAddress"/> 
</Class> 
</Seed> 
<Component Alias="Custodian"> 
<Seed> 
<Class Type="System.Domain.User"> 
<Property ID="Domain"/> 
<Property ID="UserName"/> 
</Class> 
</Seed> 
</Component> 
</Projection> 
</CSVImportFormat>