Verifying configuration data integrity

Staff members often use templates, suggested owners, request definitions, and service level agreements (SLAs) in their daily tasks. A few fields in these records reference data from other objects. If this data is deleted, renamed, or made inactive in the referred object, the records do not work correctly. For example, say you have selected the Account Administration category in the qualification criteria of a service target in an SLA. If you rename this category to Account Admin, the qualification criteria are never met and the SLA is not applied to incidents. The Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity tool enables you to quickly identify and resolve such issues.

The following topics are provided:

How the Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity tool works

The Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity tool enables you to identify data inconsistency in your organization and proactively resolve issues. The tool uses the Remedyforce Utility Service to run a scan job and generate the Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity report, which helps you quickly identify and resolve data inconsistency issues.

The Remedyforce Utility Service runs a daily job at 00:00 Greenwich Mean Time (midnight GMT), to scan the following modules in your organization and identify active records that reference data in other objects that has been deleted, modified, or marked as inactive:

Template
Request Definition
SLA
Suggested Owner

For example, say you created a template that sets the Assigned User to Emma, but since the template was defined Emma is no longer with your company and his user record has been deleted or made inactive. When staff members try to apply the template to an incident, an error message is displayed. The daily scan job identifies such impacted records in your organization.

If the scan finds impacted records, an email with the Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity report is sent to Remedyforce administrators (users for whom the Remedyforce Administrator check box is selected). This report lists all impacted records that were found by the scan job and the scan summary. To view the report correctly, ensure that you enable your browser encoding settings for Unicode (UTF-8). You can also access the Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity report from the BMC Remedyforce Reports folder on the Reports tab. This report contains more detailed information and displays impacted records found by the current and last scan jobs. The impacted records found by all earlier scan jobs are deleted.

Although the Remedyforce Utility Service runs the scan job at midnight GMT daily, you can also run this job on demand by stopping and restarting the service. For more information, see To generate the Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity report on demand.

Note

In a new or upgrade environment, when you click the Remedyforce Administration tab for the first time, the Remedyforce Utility Service starts and the scan job runs. If the scan job finds impacted records, an email with the Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity report is sent to Remedyforce administrators.

Fields that are scanned to identify impacted records

The following table provides information about the fields that are scanned in different modules to determine if records are impacted.

Module	Fields included in the scan	Example
Suggested Owner	Fields that are added to the criteria for suggested owners	You configure the following criteria for the iPhone Issues - ABC Suggested Owners record, and then delete the iPhone record from the `Category` object: If `Category=iPhone AND Account=ABC Company` then `Suggested Owners=Incident ABC iPhone Queue` In this case, the scan job finds that the iPhone value that is selected in the iPhone Issues - ABC Suggested Owners record is no longer available in the `Category` object. The iPhone Issues - ABC Suggested Owners record is then listed in the Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity report, with the appropriate scan summary.
Template	Fields that are added to the template	You add the Staff field to the iPhone issues incident template and select Emma as the field value. You later modify Emma to Emma M from the `User` object. In this case, the scan job finds that the Emma value that is selected in the iPhone issues incident template record has been changed in the `User` object. The iPhone issues incident template record is then listed in the Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity report, with the appropriate scan summary.
SLA	Fields that are added to the qualification and measurement (Start Clock, Stop Clock, and Pause Clock) criteria for service targets	You add the following criteria for the Pause Clock condition of a service target in the iPhone delivery SLA and then delete the Waiting on Vendor status record from the `Status` object: If `Status=Waiting on Vendor` then `Pause Clock=Yes` In this case, the scan job finds that the Waiting on Vendor value that is selected in a service target in the iPhone delivery SLA is no longer available in the `Status` object. The iPhone delivery SLA record is then listed in the Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity report, with the appropriate scan summary.
Request Definition	The following fields are included in the scan: General Information tab – Service, Service Offering, Category, and Service Request Template fields Input tab – Fields for which the Invoke Template or Conditional check box is selected and Invoke or Input Fulfillment conditions are defined The scan job also checks the templates that are selected on the Fulfillment tab.	You add the Email category to the New Hire request definition and then delete the Email record from the `Category` object. In this case, the scan job finds that the Email value that is selected in the New Hire request definition record is no longer available in the `Category` object. The New Hire request definition record is then listed in the Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity report, with the appropriate scan summary.

Note

For the Request Definition, Suggested Owner, and SLA modules, the scan job can identify only the value of the missing and deleted fields that are referred from another object. For the Template module, the scan job can identify the value and ID of the missing and deleted fields that are referred from another object. However, for all modules, the scan job can identify the value and ID of inactive fields.

To view the Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity report

Click the Reports tab.
From the All Folders list, select the BMC Remedyforce Reports folder.

From the list of reports, click Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity.
The data in the report is grouped by the Scan ID field, which stores the unique ID assigned to all impacted records that are found during a scan. The report displays data only for the current and last scans. The following table provides information about the data that is displayed in the report columns.

Column	Description
Impacted Module	Lists the modules that contain a record that is impacted by other modified, deleted, or unused (inactive) records in BMC Remedyforce; for example, Request Definition, SLA, and Suggested Owners.
Impacted Record	Lists the records that contain modified, deleted, or unused field values that are referred from another object. For example, in the New Hire request definition record, the Account Administration value is selected in the Category field. The Account Administration value is referred from the `Category` object. If the Account Administration record is deleted from the Category object, the New Hire request definition record is displayed in the Impacted records column.
Scan Summary	Provides details about the modified or deleted field values in impacted records. For example, if the New Hire request definition record is impacted by the deletion of the Account Administration record in the `Category` object, the following scan summary message is displayed: `Account Administration record not found in the Category object, which was referred in the New Hire record of the Request Definition module`.
Severity	Error indicates that the missing field value and ID were not found in the referred object, or a lookup field value is NULL. Warning indicates that only the missing field value was not found in the referred object.
Missing Field ID	Lists the field ID of the modified, deleted, or unused (inactive) value that is currently selected in the impacted field.
Missing Field Value	Lists the modified, deleted, or unused value that is currently selected in the impacted field. For example, if the New Hire request definition record is impacted by the deletion of the Account Administration record in the `Category` object, the Account Administration value is displayed in the Missing Field Value column.
Missing Record Object	Lists the name of the object that is referred by the impacted field. For example, if the New Hire request definition record is impacted by the deletion of the Account Administration record in the `Category` object, the Category value is displayed in the Missing Record Object column.
Scan Instance	Indicates the scan in which the impacted records are found: Current or Last.

To generate the Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity report on demand

Click the Remedyforce Administration tab.
On the Home page, click the Application Settings tile, and from the menu, select General Application Settings.
On the General Application Settings page, in the Remedyforce Utility Service section, click Stop.
To restart the service and generate the Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity report, click Start.

Important

If you do not restart the Remedyforce Utility Service, the scheduled scan job at midnight GMT also stops running.

Verifying configuration data integrity

How the Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity tool works

Fields that are scanned to identify impacted records

To view the Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity report

To generate the Remedyforce Configuration Data Integrity report on demand

Related topics

Comments