I am wondering if anyone has developed a script/executable which can be published in the SCCM appcatalog to have the end-user select and deploy multiple applications at once. Today the appcatalog will allow for only 1 app install at a time, is there a UI available to sequence applications from the appcatalog? A task sequence likely will not be an option as the selection and number of apps will vary per user selection.

thanks!

What exactly is you goal? It sounds like you want those apps to be installed automatically. If that's the case there might be easier solutions, like a required installation.

Hi Peter, thanks for your quick response!

We'd like to offer a multi-app install process from the application catalog to the end-user / support center staff where they don't have to wait for an app to finish installing before triggering the next app to deploy from the app catalog. These applications are offered as non-required and the number of apps per user might very depending on their AD group membership, one end-user might just deploy 3 apps where another user might deploy a dozen apps.

Note that a large number of apps are offered in the app catalog which are published over AD user groups, meaning the apps are not published to systems and thus not offered in software center to the end-user.

Any ideas if anyone has ever built something like this to trigger a selection of apps from the app catalog by an end-user?

thanks!

I'm not aware of the existence of a tool that would do something like that.

I do wonder why it would take that much manual labor to install applications. Would it be better to install the applications during the deployment of the device and do something like this: http://www.petervanderwoude.nl/post/install-user-targeted-applications-during-os-deployment-via-powershell-and-configmgr-2012/

Hi Peter,

We indeed offer a UI to select a customized set of applications at the TS to deploy applications during the OS deployment. This UI queries which apps the user had deployed previously and queries the AD group membership of the end-user,  and then combines both lists of apps into the UI which is presented to the end-user/support tech.

The intent of this new feature to run a multi-app deploy from the AppCatalog would be regarding machines which would be pre-imaged , meaning not specifically imaged to an end-user. Once the pre-imaged system is scheduled to be handed out, the end-user or support tech can then run the multi-app install program from the AppCatalog and deploy all desired apps for the end-user sequentially. (not having to click each one of the apps individually from the AppCatalog)

thanks!

There are probably several ways to do this, but nothing as simple as you might like. If you already have the logic in place in your OSD task sequence to do the dynamic queries and application list prompt, then maybe you can just use a simplified copy of that same task sequence?

Something like this approach ought to let you trigger the task sequence via the application catalog. I can't test this right now, but Ryan is basically running a Powershell script as the user-advertised application so it shows up in the Application Catalog. The Powershell script launches a pre-advertised task sequence. Seems like a functional solution.

http://ephingadmin.com/run-a-task-sequence-in-the-app-catalog/

Alternatively you could probably write and advertise an HTA with similar logic as the wrapper UI you're looking for.