A Chrome extension written for Northwestern IT to extend the functionality of the Footprints IT Service Manager.
This extension provides a number of features that improve the experience of using Footprints.
Tier 1 of the IT Support Center is required to set the Location field on all tickets that we complete. To streamline this process, the extension uses the subnet of the computer that it is currently running on to determine whether the user is at our 1800 Sherman location or our University Library location and it automatically sets the location accordingly on all tickets created or edited during that session.
In the event that the location cannot be accurately determined (for example, if the user is on the wireless network), a warning is shown that a location has not been automatically selected, and the location can be set manually through the menu under the extension's icon.
For non-Tier 1 users of the extension, we recommend that you turn off the location features in the extension settings. This will disable the warning and it will stop the extension from automatically setting the Location field.
The extension also applies a more aesthetically pleasing theme to the ticket page. This can be disabled in the extension settings.
Conweb will display a warning by default that this extension is not installed. Once this extension is installed and Conweb is refreshed, the message will be removed.
Since Footprints has nearly 1000 distinct categories, it can be difficult to remember where all of them are or even to know that some of them exist. This extension provides a method of searching for categories and displaying the closest matching ones.
In the case that multiple categories match your search terms, the dropdown above the search box will allow you to select from one of them.
Similarly to categories, since Northwestern has somewhere in the area of 150 assignment groups (in this workspace alone), this extension provides a search box for assignees. The search enables you to search for any of these fields:
- An individual's NetID
- An individual's name
- An assignment group's name
For example, to find NUIT-TSS-USSTier2, you could search for "sst" (since that's in the name), "kbb0737" (a member's NetID), or "barnick" (part of a member's name).
To make finding a Quick Issue Template easier, the extension adds a search bar to the left of the template menu. The template list will be filtered to show only templates whose names contain the entered text (case-insensitive).
Generally, because of the way that Footprints was written, tickets end up opening in new windows the majority of the time, regardless of whether your browser is configured to prefer new tabs or new windows. This extension changes that and makes it such that tickets open in new tabs in most places. This behavior can be disabled in the extension settings.
Because of the way that the Footprints address book form was designed, when pressing "Enter" or "Return" to auto-fill contact information for a ticket, this sometimes caused the last description for a ticket to open in a new window. This extension resolves that issue.
To view images that are attached to Footprints tickets, Footprints requires that they be downloaded to your computer and then viewed using a photo viewer on your desktop.
This extension allows for image attachments (.png, .gif, .bmp, and .jpg) and text attachments (.csv, .txt, and .json) to be previewed when hovering over the Download button for said attachment.
Since TSC Tier 1 is required to use this extension, we tried to give as many hints as possible that the extension is installed so that it is more evident if ever it is not installed. Accordingly, a new favicon was designed for Footprints to match Northwestern's purple theme. When the extension is installed, the favicon in the browser looks like this:
The Footprints WYSIWYG editor has plenty of glitches in its behavior. Often, a description that looked good while typing appears different after being submitted and results in tickets that have strange discrepancies in formatting, like this one:
This extension adds what we lovingly call the Fixify button to the description editor. When you click the Fixify button, the following happens to your ticket description:
- All background highlight colors are removed from the text.
- The text is all set to 13px (10pt) Verdana.
- The color of all text in the ticket is set to black (except for links).
Of note, bolded, italicized, or indented text will remain bolded, italicized, or indented. All of the above changes will still be made.
Even when it appears that the formatting of a new ticket description is okay, we recommend using the Fixify button to ensure that all redundant and unnecessary formatting is cleared from the text before submitting. Often, the offending formatting tags are already in the text but don't cause an issue until the email has already been sent to the user. Fixify prevents that.
This extension adds a few shortcuts to jump to tickets quickly. From anywhere within the browser, you can do one of three things to jump directly to a specific ticket:
- Enter the ticket number in the extension menu.
- Highlight the ticket number in text and select "Jump to ticket" from the context menu.
- Type "FP [ticket number]" in Chrome's Omnibox.
This extension greys out the names of Feinberg IT contacts in the list of CONDUITS Work Order Contacts since these names are rarely relevant and should not be given to the users as valid work order contacts. This setting can be disabled in the options.
Simply click on the extension menu in the top right, enter the ticket number in the "Jump to ticket" box, and select "Go".
Highlight a ticket number in text anywhere in the browser, right click to show the context menu, and select "Jump to ticket".
Go to Chrome's Omnibox, clear the contents, and then type "FP [ticket number]" (e.g. "FP 839901") and press "Return" or "Enter".
The extension can be installed in Google Chrome on the Chrome Web Store here.
Thank you to @tuchandra for the original idea to create a Chrome Extension for Footprints.