20.02 enhancements

This topic provides information about the enhancements in version 20.02 of the BMC Helix Business Workflows product.

Related topics

Automatic case initiation from phone systems that are integrated with BMC Helix Business Workflows

When a case agent receives a call from a phone system that is integrated with BMC Helix Business Workflows, Quick Case automatically opens. Depending on the configuration, some details are pre-populated in the case. Quick Case helps case agents to save time in collecting the details of the employee. Case agents can enter related information for the case and create the case quickly.

For more information about how the integration of BMC Helix Business Workflows with the phone system works, see Automating case initiation from phone calls by integrating BMC Helix Business Workflows with phone systems.

Email communication enhancements

Case agents can perform the following actions while communicating with a case requester or other case agents through emails:

Feature

Description

Communicate through email while working on a task

You can directly communicate with the case requester or other agents via email from within a task even when you do not have access to the case.

The following figure shows the email option on the task details page:

For information about how to communicate through emails while working on a task, see Updating tasks and tracking progress.

Reply to emails from a case or task activity feed

You do not need to draft a separate email to respond to an email communication that is added as an activity note in the case or task activity feed. When you reply to emails from within the case or task activity feed, recipients can view the previous email context.

The following figure shows the Reply and Reply All options on the task details page:

For information about how to reply to emails from a case or task activity feed, see Communicating case updates and Updating tasks and tracking progress.

Templates and qualification builder enhancements

Case business analysts can configure BMC Helix Business Workflows quickly by using the following simplified features:

Feature	Description
Add dynamic fields or associated fields in a template message	While creating a notification template, email template, activity note template, or document template, you can add dynamic fields or association fields as placeholders for current values of variables in the message body. When the notification message is sent, the current value of a dynamic field or association field is displayed in the message. The following figure shows the option for adding associated fields in a notification template: For information about how to insert dynamic fields or associated fields in a template message body, see Creating notification events and templates, Creating email and acknowledgement templates, Creating activity note templates, and Automatically generating PDFs for required information.
Enable automatic case resolution	You can enable automatic resolution of cases on completion of the last task so that cases are resolved automatically. For information about how to enable the automatic resolution of cases, see Enabling automatic resolution of cases and Creating case templates and task templates.
Create a copy of a default notification template	When you customize a copy of a default notification template, your customization is retained after an upgrade. The following figure shows the option to copy a notification template: For information about how to copy a notification template, see Creating notification events and templates.
Add second level associated field in a condition for a service target	While defining a condition for a service target by using the qualification builder, you can add the second level associations available for out-of-the-box data. This option helps you to define the service targets for your company accurately. The following figure shows an example of adding second level association in a service target condition: For information about how to define a service target, see Configuring service targets.

Knowledge Management enhancements

The Knowledge Management enhancements provide a consistent experience for users of the Knowledge Coach role by aligning assignment and categories options with the options in Case Management.

Change assignment and category filters

As a Knowledge Coach, you can perform the following actions for assignments and categories:

Choose specific companies for knowledge articles. Within a company, you can assign the articles to specific regions.
Assign reviewers from specific companies. Within a company, you can assign reviewers from the regions of the companies.
Click Assign to me on the edit knowledge article pane to assign the article to yourself. If you belong to multiple support groups, the Support Group that is the first best fit for the combination of the already selected Company, Business Unit, and Department is automatically selected.
However, when you click Assign to me from the Change Assignment pane, you can select the Company, Business Unit, Department, and Support Group.
View a list of knowledge articles based on categories in the Knowledge Management module and while searching for knowledge articles in cases.

Propagation of permissions from knowledge sets to knowledge articles

Changes that are made to the permissions of a knowledge set are automatically propagated to the associated knowledge template. However, a user with the Knowledge Coach role can choose how to propagate the changed permissions from the knowledge set to the associated knowledge articles. A new column in the knowledge set console Knowledge Access Changed shows whether updated permissions from the knowledge set are applied to the associated articles.

For more information about knowledge set permission propagation, see Creating and editing knowledge sets.

License Consumption reporting enhancements

As an administrator, you can view the total number of licenses that are in use in BMC Helix Business Workflows from the license usage reports.

License Usage By Requester - Summary

In the License Usage By Requester - Summary report, you can view the number of active and named users by company. By using this report, you can understand the number of licenses that are used per month, and whether the licenses are overused or underused.

The following image shows an example of the data that is displayed in the report:

License Usage By Requester - Details

When you click a company name in the License Usage by Requester - Summary report, you can view the details of the license usage for that company in the License Usage by Requester - Details report. By using this report, you can view month-wise details of the number of cases that each active user has created.

The following image shows an example of the data that is displayed in the report:

For more information about viewing license usage, see Viewing the license usage reports.

BMC Helix Business Workflows integration enhancements

The following enhancements are introduced for a smoother integration between BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced and BMC Helix Business Workflows:

Automatic service request creation in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced from BMC Helix Business Workflows at a company level

As a case business analyst, you can enable the automatic creation of service requests in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced for cases that are created in BMC Helix Business Workflows at a company level. You can choose to enable the automatic service request feature only for specific companies in the setup. For more information, see Enabling automatic creation of service requests in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced from cases.

Enable the display of survey feedback from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced

Case business analysts can configure BMC Helix Business Workflows to display the survey feedback submitted by BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced users for cases that are created through BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced service requests. Case agents can view the survey feedback in the case activity feeds of the cases. The survey information provides case agents an indication of the customer satisfaction level.

For information about how to enable the display of survey feedback, see Enabling the display of survey feedback from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced.

For information about how to view the survey information, see Viewing case activities and adding activity notes.

Additional BMC Helix Business Workflows fields available for use in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog for a service

As an administrator, you can use the following fields in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog for a BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced service:

Priority
Site
Region
Category tiers 1 through 4
Target Date

You can use these fields to specify service request details while creating a workflow for a service. You can also define the information that service requesters need to provide when they submit a service request. You can also use these fields as questions in the questionnaire for services.

For information about how to add fields in a workflow, see Creating workflows.

Case Dashboard in reporting

The Case Dashboard helps users view reports on cases based on categories and priorities. It also provides a report on case statistics. The reports help users get a snapshot view of the different open, pending, or unassigned cases in BMC Helix Business Workflows, and take appropriate actions. For example, a case manager can view the number of VIP open cases and ensure that those cases are resolved within the expected time.

The following image shows the Case Dashboard:

For more information, see Case Dashboard.

View customization enhancements

As a case business analyst, you can add custom fields by using extension container to views such as Case Create, Case Edit, Configure Case Assignments - Create, Edit Article, and so on. Extension containers help you to customize and extend a view so that after an upgrade the customization is retained. Based on the view in which you want to add custom fields, BMC Helix Business Workflows provides you options to select an extension container to display the view.

The following figure shows an example of extension containers that are available for Case Create view:

For more information about how to add custom fields to a view, see Adding custom fields to record definitions and views.

Usability improvements

The following table lists the usability improvements:

Improvement	Description
To select event and module for the Send Notification Using Event element, click Select Event.	A list of events and modules is displayed instead of specifying an expression. You can search for a specific event to select it, and you can select from the available modules from the drop-down list.
To specify the document template for the Generate PDF element, click Select Document Template.	A list of document templates is displayed instead of specifying an expression. You can search and filter for a specific document template.

For more information, see Creating processes to trigger notifications for cases and Automatically generating PDFs for required information.

Changes in this release

After BMC upgrades your environment, the following post-upgrade change takes effect:

If you have unresolved cases that are created by using BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced version earlier to 20.02, the cases are not resolved automatically on completion of the last task in the cases. For information about how to enable the automatic resolution of cases, see Enabling automatic resolution of cases.