These slides were used as part of a workshop at Spiceworld Austin 2015. To follow along with the activities from the workshop, checkout the following How-Tos in the Spiceworks Community: https://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/123449-building-a-hello-spiceworld--app-with-ibm-bluemix Dabbling in the development world? Or thinking about it? Come to our workshop, where we’ll show you how to get started on building Platform Apps for Spiceworks so you can add the new features to Spiceworks that you and your fellow SpiceHeads want (how awesome is that?!). We’ll walk through Platform App architecture, how to add a new Platform App to Spiceworks, building a basic web app, and using the Spiceworks API. *Please add this workshop during the registration process.

1. How to Build Spiceworks Apps
Sponsored by IBM Bluemix
Michael Gerbush
Technical Product Manager,
Spiceworks
David Barnes
Technology Evangelist, IBM

2. Why make apps for Spiceworks?
Apps, so hot right now.
• Keep Spiceworks light and easy
• All about the common IT pro
• Loooong tail of feature requests
• Leverage our awesome community
• Want to be Everything IT

3. What’s App (Center)?
Built on the SW Core
• Apps
• Reports
• Language Packs
Not Included
• Scripts

4. Workshop Agenda
I. Intro to Apps
II. Project 1: Our First App
III. Developing with PaaS: IBM Bluemix
IV. Project 2: Using the Spiceworks API
V. Project 3: Hacking a Real App
VI. What’s Next?

5. Spiceworks Apps
Cloud Apps
• Use Your Own Technology
• Store Your Own Data
• Can Integrate with Off-Network Services
• Easy to Update
• More Secure Inside of Spiceworks
• Less Likely to Break Between Releases
Plugins
• Easier to Write
• No Server Costs
• Unlimited UI Integration
• Data Can Stay On-Premise

6. Cloud Apps
• Comfortable writing and deploying a web
app
• Integrating with a 3rd party hosted service
• Storing large amounts of data
• Leveraging network effect
Plugins
• Need Special UI Integration
• Want to keep all data on premise, forever
What Should I Build?

7. Spiceworks Cloud Apps

8. Using Spiceworks API
DEMO – Empty Slide
Our First App

10. Using Spiceworks API
DEMO – Empty Slide
Using Spiceworks API

11. Spiceworks API Basics
Cards
• Represents an instance of your app
• Your window to the Desktop
Services
• API for a Spiceworks app (e.g.
Inventory, Helpdesk, etc.)
• Responds to requests

12. Spiceworks API Basics
Creating a Card
var card = new SW.Card();
Variable
Spiceworks Library
Card Constructor

13. Spiceworks API Basics
Accessing Services with a Card
var card = new SW.Card();
card.services('helpdesk');
Services List
Service Name

14. Spiceworks API Basics
Passing Parameters
card.services('helpdesk').request('ticket:update', 2, {status: ‘open’})
Request Name
(‘object:action’)
Required Parameter
Optional Parameters

15. Spiceworks API Basics
Handling Responses
card.services('helpdesk').request('tickets', { status: 'open' })
.then(function(data){
// do something with tickets...
}, function(error){
// handle error...
});

16. Spiceworks API Basics
Paging
card.services('helpdesk').request('tickets', { status: 'open',
page: 2, per_page: 50 })

17. Spiceworks API Basics
Paging (Cont.)
{
"meta": {
"total_entries": 205, // total number of items, across all pages "page_count": 7, // total number
of pages
"per_page": 30, // number of items per page
"current_page": 2 // the current page number
},
“tickets”: […]
}

18. Spiceworks API Basics
Searching
card.services('helpdesk').request('tickets', {
search: {
query: {
terms: ['Microsoft', 'keyboard'],
operator: 'and'
},
fields: {
names: ['summary']
}
}})

19. Using the Spiceworks API
Try It Out!
https://developers.spiceworks.com
Documentation > Cloud Apps
API Basics
API Reference

20. Using Spiceworks API
DEMO – Empty Slide
Our First REAL App

21. Where to go from here?
Learning Resources
• Coding Resources
• Code School
• Khan Academy
• Bootcamps
• Stack Overflow
• Nodeschool.io
• Spiceworks Developer Resources
• developers.spiceworks.com
• Extending Spiceworks
• Checkout Feature Requests

22. Future Plans
What’s coming next?
• App Center
• Better browsing
• Free trials without credit cards
• More apps!
• Developer Tools
• API Improvements
• Tiered Purchasing
• Open Submissions

23. Thanks!

24. Thanks!