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The Software Catalog is an easy-to-use software delivery tool that lets you manage software on your computer from a library provided by the administrator.

The administrator creates packages of software products that are licensed within the company and places them in the Software Catalog library. You can place an order for this package using the Software Catalog. The software is delivered to your computer, installed, and made ready to use with little or no additional input.

The Software Catalog lets you perform the following tasks:

The administrator can fill the catalog folder in the Software Package Library with registered software from the other folders. Normally this software is for the use of all desktop users.

The administrator can restrict software to special computers or users by using the context menu option Software Jobs, Publish software in Catalog for computer or user groups and select dedicated software in the wizard dialog.

The administrator can also copy and paste Computer, User or Software Groups to the Catalog folder and configure them or register software directly into it.

The administrator is responsible for distributing the Software Catalog to a number of agents and needs to set up a library of software and make it available in the Software Catalog.

If the agent is configured to register User Profiles, the Software Catalog offers the user to install software for their own personal usage. A typical scenario for this feature is when a computer is shared among several users.

The Job Check icon in the Software Order Status screen enables the desktop user to initiate a software delivery process, if the software package has been staged and is ready to be delivered. This always happens automatically, but not necessarily immediately.

The administrator can disable the Job Check icon by setting the DSM/software delivery/Agent/HideJobCheckIcons parameter in the configuration store (comstore). If this paremeter is set, the Job Check icon does not appear in the Software Order Status screen. For the change to take effect, you must restart the Software Catalog.

Most software packages can typically be installed in only one way; however, depending on the company, the administrator may decide to package the same software program in a number of different ways. For example, the marketing department wants a word processor with a lot of extra clipart and fonts, whereas the accounting department only wants the bare bones installation. These types of installations are left at the discretion of the administrator.

The administrator may have a default type of installation, and this can be specified when registering the software package using software delivery functions. If there is a default type, the user can choose the default type of installation in the Select Type of Installation step or must explicitly select another type of installation.

You cannot enable procedures that use the $up macro for use from the Software Catalog. This is because the Software Catalog dialogs provide no means for the desktop user to enter a user parameter.

Currently, there is one kind of installation, the default installation. If you perform the express agent installation, the Catalog is selected by default.

Performing a custom installation and selecting Software Delivery as functionality and Agent as feature, you can use the Software Delivery button in the Configure Agent screen. The default selection is Install Software Catalog.

The Software Catalog can be installed additionally to a software delivery agent through the Software Package Library. In the DSM Explorer, open the package CA DSM Agent + Software Delivery Plug-in in the Software Package Library and drag and drop the procedure 'Catalog: Add' onto the target computer.

Using the Add Software wizard you can order software to be delivered to your computer or, if the User Agent is enabled on your computer, personal account (user profile).

The Add Software task consists of the following steps:

Finally, an acknowledgement dialog confirms that your order is in progress and lets you select to monitor the order status.

For detailed information on each of the steps, see the Software Catalog online help.