Connect with Remedy: SmartIT: Social Event Manager Webinar Q&A

Transcription

1 Connect with Remedy: SmartIT: Social Event Manager Webinar Q&A Q: Will Desktop/browser alerts be added to notification capabilities on SmartIT? A: In general we don't provide guidance on future capabilities. Please make sure to use the BMC communities to add this as an idea and those are all evaluated by our Product Management team for inclusion into future releases. Q: Does chat integrate with Lync or Skype for Business? A: This is not currently supported. Q: Can we write our own plugins/providers? A: While the provided framework is open, we don't currently support adding or changing existing providers. Q: Is there anything in docs that shows what specific web service / Rest API calls are being used? For each of the activities? A: These rest calls are not exposed to public. Q: Are all the events that get sent to MyIT/Smart IT get stored in Social DB? Does that mean the same events data is stored in Social & AR DB? A: There are a few sets of data that goes into social. The events get created in ITSM as worklog entries, and those worklog entries are sent to social. This allows the data to be seen both in the midtier and in Smart IT. Also, worklog entries added by users are sent to social, again so that it is available in both SmartIT and midtier. Q: Current Smart IT UI doesn t allow user profile picture updates, will this changes based on what just mentioned? A: In the current ITSM application there's no provision to store profile pictures. We store the profile picture in Social Data store. Q: When the data is archived/deleted on the ITSM end, does the associated social data also get archived/deleted? A: No social data is archived separately via Mongo.

2 Q: So the Rest/API calls being used to create tickets, updates, etc. aren t using the web services that you can see in Dev Studio? If not and they're not public; why is that? I would think it would be beneficial to use these for other integrations A: If you are talking about rest calls for creating tickets in smart IT, these can be viewed in browser debug window. I was talking about the rest calls for Social updates. Smart IT makes use of the JavaAPI and communicates directly to AR via the ITSM interface forms. So, from that perspective we are using the published ITSM interfaces. What we are not publishing is the internal REST calls that the Smart IT UI uses to communicate to the Smart IT server. Q: Is SEM available in version 8.1 A: SEM is available since SmartIT 1.0 and it is installed part of User Experience Patch Q: Profile pics sync with people record on ITSM A: Profile pics don t sync with people record in ITSM. In the current ITSM application there's no provision to store profile pictures. We store the profile picture in Social Data store. Q: Can you share Demo link for Smart IT? A: Contact your Account Manager for demo information. Q: All clients shown on slide 13 doesn t have mobile apps, do they use diff data flows A: The picture represents all the web application clients that can talk to AR server. Web and Mobile clients talk to these web applications and then that data is directed to AR server. Q: How can you capture support group reassignment events with SEM? A: We have workflow in ITSM that capture those events, and it is created as workinfo, then it is sync to display in Smart IT as activity. Support Group change is currently not supported, but you can customize to get this shown in the activities section. Q: So the archiving features of ITSM & Smart IT are not linked? They have to be setup separately? A: We have documentation and utilities for archiving the data in Mongo. That is separate from the AR Server archive feature. Q: Is SEM available now? If not, when will it be available? A: SEM is available since SmartIT 1.0 and it is installed part of User Experience Patch

3 Q: When we mention user or group, will it send notifications to user or group? A: When you mention a user they will see the posts show up in their update feed on the dashboard. we don't send s for at this time. Q: What are the impacts if you archive the ITSM data, but not the social data? Are there any? A: You will want to archive social data periodically just like you do ITSM data to help in overall performance. Q: Are all the activities performed in SmartIT on an incident available as work info to track changes on the ticket? A: Activities like incident creation, Status change, Priority change, Assignment change are available as work info Q: If I attach a custom menu to CI field on Incident form, will this change reflect in SmartIT? A: No the menu lookup is handled in the Smart IT code. However, you can bring in custom fields, and their menus those will be used in Smart IT. Q: If we delete worklog entry from ITSM, will it remove the entry from SmartIT Updates A: No, it won't get deleted as we store the SmartIT social updates in MongoDB Q: Where is this social archiving documentation at? I just searched with "archive social" on docs under Smart IT 1.5 and got zero results A: Social data is stored in Mongo, so you have to mongo utilities to archive Mongo DB. Here is where you can get additional information Q: So I can t have a custom menu attached to an OOB field on Incident form and have this reflect in SmartIT incident screen? A: Yes that is true at this point. Certainly an area we can look at enhancing. Please make sure to add this idea to the BMC communities so we can track it. Q: Hope Active links will work on Smart IT? A: Active links are not supported in SmartIT.

4 Q: We have had issues with large numbers of transactions hitting the social bridge form due to reconciliation jobs in our environment. Are there plugin tuning parameters which should be considered to deal with that situation better? A: In the upcoming release of Smart IT, we have stopped sending Reconciliation job transactions through social bridge form. Q: Smart IT is Java based and that's why the Tomcat installs. Not sure why the UX has a separate installer yet or what it does? A: The UX patch loads some workflow and the SEM plugin into the AR Server that ITSM is running on to support the social integration to Smart IT. It also loads some other forms which are used to support how data is queries in Smart IT. Q: What does SEM stand for? A: Social Event Manager (SEM) Q: What does UX stand for? A: User Experience (UX) Q: Another point to note if you are on Server group, run the UX on Admin server first? A: Run on the admin server first, and then all secondary servers. Installer will automatically detect and deploy only SEM plugin, configure it when running on the secondary servers. Q: Is there documentation on what new forms are added with SmartIT installation? A: We don't have it on our public documentation at this time. Support can help you, however, it you have specific questions. Q: Is it better to connect SEM to the Admin dedicated server in a server group that users do not access? Or is it recommended to connect to the load balanced servers that user s access? A: Recommended to connect to Load balanced servers to balance the load. Q: When archiving Incident Work Log in Remedy, it would be based on when the Incident is actually going into a closed status. I would not have that option in the MongoDB. So, it would be impossible to keep them in-sync, correct? A: There is an archiving script available under SmartIT/social folder which helps with this. Please reach out to our support for the Knowledge Article on this.

5 Q: Since the escalation is running almost every minute processing lot of search and modify... does the out of the box form comes with appropriate indexes or it s up to customers to find and fine tune? A: The form does come with out of box indexes. We also try to keep the data volume in the form down by cleaning out successful records every 24 hours. Q: So, if we build a new smart app on Innovation Suite, will we able to use social features available in SmartIT? A: Smart applications built using Innovation Suite are able to use shared service provided by the platform. The list of shared services is expected to grow over time, and it is planned to provide social capabilities as well via such shared service. We cannot make any statement yet about the specific interaction points between Smart IT and newly built smart applications. Q: Does SmartIT has survey functionality? A: We don't have survey capabilities yet. Q: Have customers experienced efficiencies on the service desk side using MyIT? A: Yes, many big customers have claimed that the productivity & efficiency has increased after using MyIT. Q: We are using Smart IT 1.5 and Remedy AR We noticed that when user using universal client and add a note with attachment file, it will not be forwarded to AR so another user on traditional midtier will not see the attached file. Any comment? A: It should pass the attachment. If this is not happening, please create a support case to help resolve. Q: How can we disable the offline users to be displayed in Smart IT recorder? A: This has been fixed in SmartIT 1.4 or later Q: Will the SEM plugin integrate with other deployable applications like HR Case Management? A: We are providing workflow out of the box for the ITSM applications. We have not integrated this into HR Case Management at this point, because we do not have a Smart IT interface for HR Case. Q: Can install My IT on Linux RHE A: Yes

6 Q: Is there in depth documentation available to build custom module on Smart IT? A: We do not support building custom modules in Smart IT at this point. Q: Can we broadcast using Smart IT? A: Yes, we can broadcast using SmartIT Q: Is there any roadmap to come up with client side validation script or mechanism in SmartIT as active link is NOT supported? A: We cannot comment on future roadmap items. This is a request we have heard about in the past. Please make sure that you submit this as an idea in BMC communities so that our Product Management team can track this. Q: SMART IT maintains data in two DBs? A: Smart IT stores some configuration data in the RDBMS, which can be the same database that the AR System makes use of. For social data, it is stored in MongoDB, which is an unstructured document database that is more appropriate for social data. Q: Do attachments in work logs also get copied to the social db? A: SEM generates thumbnails for the attachments and they get sent to Social DB via rest calls. Q: How can use Smart IT in Cloud RoD? A: Smart IT is available via RemedyOnDemand. Q: Could we change how the date time is displayed in the activity feed, from social time (1 hour ago) to absolute timestamp date? A: This option would be available in one of the upcoming release of SmartIT Q: As every event in Smart IT creates a register in the BridgeForm, does that mean that those registers should be deleted manually? A: They would be deleted via escalation every 24hrs. Q: Social groups and Support Groups in ITSM will be the same or separate? A: They are different

7 Q: When installing SmartIT, is the mongo DB install need to be done...or can we do this outside of the SmartIT install? A: You can do this outside of SmartIT install and configure later Q: Broadcast from SmartIT goes to corresponding MyIT companies? A: Broadcast from Smart IT makes use of the companies from ITSM. Q: Can the profile picture sync with HRMS Data? A: No, We do not currently have HRCM integrated with Smart IT/MyIT infrastructure. Q: Does BMC provide support for the MongoDB implementation within Smart IT or is this a MongoDB support issue? A: BMC provides all required documented steps to deploy Mongodb for MyIT/Smart IT (basic deployment/ security recommendations /HA etc.). Support can also help in troubleshooting any challenges during the installation process based on our documentation. Q: If work log is set to private... (Not public) how does it work with smart IT? Does it show up? A: Private worklogs stay only with the ticket, while public will also get posted to the service request that is connected to a ticket. Q: Can we have different picture or video while viewing the Service Request in MyIT? A: There is no picture or video on the service request, if you are referring to icons for SRD, MyIT allows you to add different icons for SRD from Admin Console. Q: If errors occur, once the error is fix like server down, does it automatically retry A: The retry mechanism will be triggered depending on the retry counter in the Social Bridge form. The current system does not have the capability to verify the system's state and then process all failed entries. Q: When we attempted to add custom fields in Smart IT to the asset management view, we could see the fields but the data was not being displayed. Are there any additional steps other than adding them via the administrator panel? A: It could be permissions. Please create a support case to resolve. Q: What about custom forms, can they be added and used in SmartIT A: No, We do not support custom forms in Smart IT.

8 Q: What about performance on high volume of tickets? Do you have any test results that you may share with us? New SEM plugin is working on the server that Escalation does. Escalation is on backend server that has other tasks as well. Any changes required? A: From our performance tests we did see good results with high volume of data. We have not made that information public as system and its resources differ. We even ship our escalation on a predefined pool. If there's conflict, we would like that to be moved to a free pool. If you still think there's a lag, then we recommend to use a new private RPC queue for the SEM plugin. Q: What are the efforts if we want to customize the Smart IT or MyIT? Rating from 1 as hard to 10 as very easy A: We do not support customization of MyIT other than what is allowed thru configuration and rebranding, which is fully supported and easy to implement with basic knowledge in css. Q: So to view an attachment, the support person in SmartIT would then have to go to the Midtier to view? A: Not required. When user clicks on thumbnail, attachment is automatically fetched from AR Q: Does SMART IT maintains info in two databases. I noticed in the presentation being mentioned maintaining data in two dbs via SEM. A: That is correct, SEM maintain the update from ITSM to Mongo, Mongo stores the data necessary to be displayed in Smart IT only and not a complete clone of the data from AR DB. Q: Do we have to take separate licenses for Smart IT and MyIT? If yes then is it based on number of users for MyIT or enterprise? A: Yes, you need separate licenses for MyIT and Smart IT. Please contact your BMC account Manager what best work for your scenario Q: Can we share attachments in social groups? A: Attachments are tied to a ticket and the group or people have permissions to view the ticket should be able to see the attachment. Yes you can in MyIT social group as part of post/microblog Q: Is there a way to disable Task Management in Smart IT? A: No, you cannot disable it Q: On one of your slides you described which events are sent, and there you have mentioned "Broadcasts". How exactly is this working? Do you mean that Broadcast can be transferred from ITSM to Smart IT (or vice versa)? A: Broadcasts are sent to ITSM and can be seen in the midtier, we also send the broadcast to social so they can be seen in the update feed in Smart IT.

9 Q: We don't use Task Management in our environment but the Smart IT incident screen shows a Tasks tab in it. Is there a way to disable that? A: You cannot disable Task management at this time. Q: RKM is there way videos can be attached to KB article by the user and can be viewed A: You can embed videos to article and viewed from MyIT. You can attach videos to RKM documents as well as other attachment types Q: All the default values what is the number of events does SEM can handle in one minute? A: It depends upon how many threads assigned for processing and System configuration and resources Q: Is there any possibility to provide feature for Auditing like audit logs in Remedy and the changes done in Smart IT reflect in audit log of remedy A: ITSM does support audit logs today, those are accessible via midtier but not Smart IT at this point. The events Smart IT adds to social is meant to track business events, not all data changes on a ticket. If you do need to see this in SmartIT you can make use of the URL launch action and launch the midtier UI for the audit log to make it visible. Q: How the permissions are taken care in Smart IT Example the people permissions in AR Server/ITSM? A: Field and business logic is enforced in the ITSM application on the AR Server. There is no difference in how that is enforced between Smart IT and Midtier. What has been implemented in Smart IT is the ability to evaluate the permissions of a user and not allow them to access some applications, and we also have implemented the same contextual permission that have been done in active links in the midtier to provide for better usability. Q: Retry timer is configurable? A: No, the retry timer events are not configurable. Q: If you have 2 different smart it servers in an environment, will each server do its own social processing; or does this route to the Master server = true one? A: Social will be sent to the MyIT server that is configured in Keystore form. It is recommended to put MyIT/Smart IT loadbalancer URL in Keystore form than an individual server Q: In regards to SEM events, in regards to Asset creation would there be events sent out for recon jobs as well. If so we will be expecting many events sent out due to recon jobs performing thousands of asset updates A: We took care of this in upcoming release of Smart IT. The recon events will not go to SEM.

10 Q: We talked about the Events from ITSM to Smart IT...Does Smart IT hold even the Assets from Asset Management? A: Yes, If it's a create/update of Single asset then those events are sent. In the coming release we stopped sending recon events through SEM. Q: Do you recommend the creation custom filters to pass new types of events to SEM and Smart IT? A: Creating AR filters alone would not show new types of events, there should be data templates added in SmartIT DB. Q: Currently there is no way user can add pdfs word docs, videos to article. This is an important requirement. What I m asking is not attachment to attachment field as embedded doc to the article A: It s possible to add videos to article. But documents like pdf, word etc. cannot be added to the article the way it s described in the question. These documents can be linked as attachments. Q: Is there an easy way to include knowledge articles into the MyIT how-to resources? A: You can configure it from MyIT Admin console Q: Is Smart IT integrated with ITSM foundation data (as Support Groups, People, etc.)? A: Yes, the foundational data is all from ITSM.