The Trick User Interface

I use a computer provided by my customer to do all my work on the project. Guess this is due to security. The configuration of this computer is on lock down. Only approved software can be installed. Originally system administrators handled all software installs. Now that responsibility seems to be delegated to users themselves.

Our project has some software requirements tracking software from IBM Rational called ReqPro. I don't have the software. We have a separate requirements/analysis team on our project. They all have this software. Some other security team did an audit and found people like myself without direct access to the requirements. Not good. Now my mission is to install ReqPro on my machine.

So what do I do? My manager said call the customer help desk and have them open up a ticket for the install. I tried that twice. They refused. LOL. I ended up submitting a ticket online for the install. Then I got word that my access to the software was approved, and I was supposed to download and install the thing.

I accessed our Symmantec Software Portal, which knows what software I am authorized to grab. I selected the Rational Utility Selector. This brought up  a window in my browser to schedule an install. The only problem was that I could not see any OK button to confirm my request. The window was a weird one in my browser. It would not leave the client area of the browser window. I could not scroll in the window. What gives?

I tried to change my screen resolution in the hope that I could see the whole window. Nope. Screen resolution maxed out. Then I figured I might be able to change the Zoom ratio in my browser. That did the trick. Are these guys trying to prevent me from installing the software? So I get an install scheduled. After a few minutes, a program starts up. I choose to install my software. Then I get an error message stating that my machine is not authorized to get this software.

Oh boy. I can't take this much fun.