So maybe I’ve been slow writing up on the dell plugin but it’s here now…

So about a 3 months ago Spiceworks managed to team up with CDW to make the “CDW Search” as that is a US plugin Unofficial Spiceworks hasn’t reviewed it as its not much use to UK people. This went off well and now has 700 downloads. Then 2 months into this being live Dell and Spiceworks teamed up to produce one to allow you to instead of search CDW search the dell website for products and services.

This would allow people to quickly find Dell products from directly in Spiceworks.

I gave it ago my self it works well, I don’t use Dell myself but it was definitely good to see what they had to offer in the different sections.

If you have dell on your network it is well worth giving ago. Its great to see Spiceworks working with companies like Dell to produce plugins like this, its what makes Spiceworks invaluable.

Screenshots

Get the Dell search plugin now

Jump on over to the community…

Ok taken a lot longer than hoped but here they are some screenshots off the new Microsoft SQL plugin!

Its taken longer due to bugs with 4.5 beta and the plugin in which were fixed very quickly by the Spiceworks staff.

Read More…

The first Spiceworks Plugin Contest is coming to a close. Plugins you build and share help add even more features and functionality to Spiceworks. The winners of this contest receive US$ 250 gift certificates to Amazon.com and the grand prize winner (chosen by Spiceworks) wins an expenses paid trip to Spiceworld Austin! (See more details)

The winners will be announced at Spiceworld Austin in Oct. But now it’s your turn to help us pick the winners. Before getting started first check out the plugins in the plugin section of the community.

Vote for the plugin contest winners!

Want to keep track of our latest news from within Spiceworks? Now you can with the Unofficial Spiceworks News plugin.

Its a simple RSS reader for your dashboard to show you all the latest goings on in the world off Spiceworks.

Check it out and download it now from the Spiceworks community ( here )

Announcing the Spiceworks Plugin

Think you have an idea on how to enhance Spiceworks? Been waiting for a good opportunity to flex those scripting skills? Here’s your chance!

Tabrez recently announced Spiceworks are running a Plugin contest in which you could win a trip to Spiceworld Austin! Expenses’ Paid!

There are 7 categories you can enter your plugin into:

1. Extending Help Desk Functionality
2. Extending User Portal Functionality
3. Extending Inventory Functionality
4. Extending Monitoring Functionality
5. Most Useful
6. Most Creative
7. Most Entertaining

What do I win?
Each of the category winners will receive an Amazon Gift card valued at US $250.

In addition, each of these winners is eligible for the coveted “Best-in-Show” grand prize. This winner, select by a vote of Spiceworks employees, will win an all-expense paid trip to Austin (up to US $1,000) and free admission to Spiceworld Austin. All contest results will be announced live at Spiceworld Austin on October 23rd.

Read more and enter now

Live office are the first company to produce a plug-in for Spiceworks. Worked around there MailArchiving software it quickly allows you to track archive levels in the Spiceworks dashboard.

A simple plugin that provides email archiving, unlimited email storage and continuity services for up to 5 users. The pie chart displays the number of emails archived per user as well as some helpful stats about email storage.

The plugin also provides a link for you to log into the Administrator Console where you can:

• Quickly search and restore old or deleted emails and attachments
• Create policy alerts based on specific keyword and phrase violations
• Tag emails for further review and/or investigation

LiveOffice Mail Archive is a comprehensive solution designed to help you archive, monitor, search and retrieve your organization’s emails without making costly upfront investments in hardware, software, or integration services.

There has been LOTS of hype about this:

• http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090622005344&newsLang=en
• http://ow.ly/fBxq
• http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/liveoffice-launches-first-email-archiving-plugin-to-spiceworks-community,868698.shtml
• http://www.euroinvestor.co.uk/News/ShowNewsStory.aspx?StoryID=10503104
• http://finance.yahoo.com/news/LiveOffice-Launches-First-bw-3644321394.html?x=0&.v=1
• And many many more on google http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en-GB&q=LiveOffice+Launches+First+Email+Archiving+Plugin+to+Spiceworks+Community++&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_en-GBGB327GB327&ie=UTF-8

Hopefully we will see more companies making plugins soon.

If you use Live Office download it today

Did you think I wasn’t going to cover this? I thought I would leave it till near the end…

Extend Spiceworks to meet your needs

So your using Spiceworks but want to do more fun stuff with it? Have a look though the plugins, some are really useful while others are just for fun.

From ticket gauges to Dilbert comics plugins are easy to make and use.

Plugins make it easy to:

• Change how the user interface looks and make it match your companies needs.
• Create and add new widgets to the dashboards.
• Edit the way the data is displayed to suit you.

How could you use a plugin?

• You can add a subnet calculator to the dashboard
• Highlight tickets open for more than x days or that have been opened by managment.
• Show your teams colours on the spiceworks background.
• Add RSS feeds from the sites you love

The plugins are built by the Spiceworks team and the community the possibilities are endless. Use them, rate them, make them, share them. All plugins like Spiceworks are 100% free to use.

Using Plugins

So you want to use a plugin?

Make sure you are running the latest version of Spiceworks so that you have the best chance of the plugins being fully. Find the plugin you want to use and click install. This will then install the plugin directly into your Spiceworks. Once installed you simply activate the plugin in the settings area.

For more help read me

Making Plugins

Fancy giving development a try or are you a professional who wants to build something cool for the thousands to use.

In 3.5 you can now enhance parts of Spiceworks to make it work and look how you want. Why not give it a try, a plugin is a small snippet of javascript code, how hard can it be?

Spiceworks uses Prototype and Scriptaculous to help make things easier for you. Learn more about Prototype here and Scriptaculous here.

The Spiceworks team have also spent the time to help you out and created a API to make plugin writing even simpler.

For more help read me

Check out the plugins now

So you joined the best community of the best network management software around? Now what?

The up coming posts (unsure of how many yet) will guide you though the different things you can do within the community.

From Ratings and reviews to the best practices from IT pro’s like you. Then right back to simple questions about installing windows to complex ones about creating multiple VLAN networks with Cisco gear.

The community will provide you with all the tools you need to make your job easier. All of this for free…

Over the up coming day’s well be going though bit by bit the different things within the Spiceworks community.

• Ratings and Reviews
• SpiceLists
• Whitepapers
• Asking and Answering Questions
• How-to’s
• Discussions Groups
• Spreading Spiceworks
• Water Cooler
• Jobs and Careers
• IT Calendar
• Shared Reports
• IT News
• Plugins
• Badges

Coming tomorrow, Part 2 – Ratings and reviews