2021 enhancements

Review the BMC Helix Portal 2021 enhancements for features that will benefit your organization and to understand changes that might impact your users.

December 30, 2021

In-app notifications

BMC Helix Portal provides the following types of in-app notifications:

• Bell notifications 
• Banner notifications

Depending on the notification content, you can take appropriate actions. For example, if you get a notification that an upgrade is planned, for which a downtime of 4 hours is required, you can plan the downtime well in advance. For more information, see Common services.

November 19, 2021

Updates in the navigation bar

The BMC Helix Portal navigation bar includes the following updates:

• Use the options in the Application Switcher menu  to view the recently accessed integrated products.
• Use the new option, Helix Portal in the Application Switcher menu  to launch BMC Helix Portal from an integrated product.

You can no longer access the common services by using the Configure option  in the navigation bar of an integrated product.

October 22, 2021

Change in the display names of permissions

The display names of the permissions for the following products are changed for better representation:

• BMC Helix Portal (Identity Management Service)
• BMC Helix AIOps

For more information, see BMC Helix Portal permissions.

Search for permissions via API

Use the permissions/search endpoint to search for permissions by display name and ID.

For more information, see Application endpoints in the REST API.

September 21, 2021

Advanced user filtering

You can filter users by source to find users that were created in BMC Helix Portal or users that were synced from an external IdP or BMC Helix ITSM.  

LDAP sync agent location change

You can access the LDAP sync agent from the Configure menu in the product console.

For more information, see Downloading and configuring the LDAP sync agent.

Cross-launch to BMC Helix Business Workflows

You can request the BMC SaaS Operations team to enable cross-launch for BMC Helix Business Workflows.

For more information, see Orientation.

July 27, 2021

Flat user group hierarchy

User groups are now displayed as a flat list without the parent and child mapping. Similarly, you cannot run API endpoints to create parent groups and assign child groups.

Former child groups do not inherit parent group permissions, however their user mapping remains intact.

For more information, see User groups and User group endpoints in the REST API.

Sort search results

You can sort results of API endpoints that are used for searching and getting details of all the objects. Sorting can be applied on multiple fields and the results can be sorted in an ascending or descending order. 

For more information, see the endpoints for users, user groups, roles, and access keys.

Edit user groups and roles assigned to a user

Edit user groups and roles assigned to API users with programmatic access and users with console access.

While editing the group and role assignments of an API user, you can also edit other details. 

For more information, see Setting up API users for programmatic access and Setting up users for console access.

Edit user assignments for groups and roles via APIs

Add, remove, and replace user assignments for groups and roles by running the user_mappings API endpoints.

For more information, see User group endpoints in the REST API and Role endpoints in the REST API.

Dynamic user sync from BMC Helix ITSM

If cross-product access is already configured, read-only users from BMC Helix ITSM are automatically synced at log on time. Also, the user groups and permissions associated with such users are imported and displayed on BMC Helix Portal. For more information, see User identities. 

BMC Helix Capacity Optimization product name change

BMC Helix Capacity Optimization is renamed to BMC Helix Continuous Optimization.

June 18, 2021

Access BMC Helix Intelligent Automation

You can now access BMC Helix Intelligent Automation from the BMC Helix Portal console.

For more information, see Orientation.

May 27, 2021

Sync LDAP groups and users

Download and configure the LDAP sync agent to sync LDAP groups and users into BMC Helix Portal.

For more information, see Syncing LDAP groups and users. 

View groups and roles assigned to a user

View groups and roles assigned to API users and users who require console access.

For more information, see Setting up API users for programmatic access and Setting up users for console access.

View changes to the user interface

This release introduces the following changes in the BMC Helix Portal console:

• The Common Services menu is renamed to User access.
• The Group Management page is renamed to User groups.
• The Role & Permission page is renamed to Roles and permissions.

For more information, see the instructions for creating users, API users, groups, and roles.

Access BMC Helix Discovery

You can now access BMC Helix Discovery from the BMC Helix Portal  console.

For more information, see Orientation.

BMC Helix Vulnerability Management product name change

BMC Helix Vulnerability Management is renamed to BMC Helix Automation Console.

April 22, 2021

View permissions assigned to an API user

You can view permissions assigned to an API user. To learn more, see Setting up API users for programmatic access.

View your own permissions

You can view your own permissions in your profile. For more information, see Viewing your profile information.

Search for objects with additional fields and with multiple values via APIs 

While running the search API endpoints, you can search for:

• Users, groups, and roles by specifying IDs.
• Tenant-level access keys by specifying the access key.

In addition, you can pass multiple values for the fields supported for searching users, groups, roles, and access keys.

March 20, 2021

Sync BMC Helix ITSM users into BMC Helix Portal

You can request the BMC SaaS Operations team to sync BMC Helix ITSM users into BMC Helix Portal. This capability enables cross-product access and allows BMC Helix ITSM users to authenticate into BMC Helix Portal with their existing credentials. For more information, see User identities.

Cross-launch products

You can request the BMC SaaS Operations team to enable cross-launch for the following products from BMC Helix Portal:

• BMC Helix ITSM: Smart IT (available with BMC Helix ITSM) 
• BMC Helix Digital Workplace 
• BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog
• BMC Helix Innovation Suite

For more information, see Orientation.

Access integrated products

BMC Helix Portal supports the following products:

• BMC Helix Continuous Optimization
• BMC Helix AIOps
• BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations

For more information, see Orientation.

February 19, 2021

Search users by additional fields 

You can search users by additional fields such as the user type, login ID, email ID, and so on.

For more information, see User endpoints in the REST API.

Add subgroup to a group

You can directly add subgroups without manually editing an existing group.

For more information, see Setting up user groups. 

February 05, 2021

View permissions assigned to a user

You can view permissions assigned to a user. For more information, see Setting up users for console access.

Edit the user profile information

In addition to your first name and last name, you can edit your email address in the My profile page.

For more information, see Viewing your profile information.

January 15, 2021

Search groups and tenant-level access keys via APIs

You can search for groups and tenant-level access keys by running the API endpoints.

For more information, see the following links:

• User group endpoints in the REST API
• Access key endpoints in the REST API