18.11.00 enhancements

This section contains information about enhancements in version 18.11 of  BMC Digital Workplace .

Collaborate with colleagues on service requests

If you need other users to view the progress of your service request, you can now add them to your new or existing unfulfilled service requests. Collaborators can view, comment, and delete your request. You can save the list of collaborators, and reuse this list for all your future requests. For more information, see Enabling collaboration on service requests.

Specify dependency between services

BMC Digital Workplace Catalog administrators can now associate dependent services to new or existing services, which are treated as a prerequisite for requesting the service. Use this feature to check and mandate a required service before requesting a related service. For more information, see Specifying dependent services.

When users create requests, they are notified of existing dependencies. Users can meet the requirements by creating new requests or specifying an existing request.

Assign actions to asset class attributes

Rather than being able to assign a service action to an entire asset class, catalog administrators have got an ability to assign a service action to queried assets. You can now define conditions on asset classes to restrict the number of assets that will be associated with a service action, so that end users can see only specific asset actions on their My Stuff page.

The following image shows the Asset Connection section where you can add asset conditions. In this example, the "HP only computer system" query is configured for the BMC_FederalProductLink asset class.

For more details about this feature, see Managing service actions.

Enhancements for enabling services in Chatbot

Starting with 18.11 product release, the BMC Digital Workplace Catalog administrator can automatically log in to BMC Helix Chatbot while using the Enable service in Chatbot option. Chatbot is loaded in iFrame wizard, and double logging in is not required if the following parameters are configured in Chatbot Settings of BMC Digital Workplace Catalog : RSSO URL, Private Key, and Private Key Passphrase.

For more information about integrating with BMC Helix Chatbot, see Integrating BMC Digital Workplace Catalog with BMC Helix Chatbot.

For more information about BMC Helix Chatbot, see BMC Helix Chatbot online documentation .

Questionnaire enhancements for an improved end-user experience

Enhanced options are now available in the Questionnaire Designer. In BMC Digital Workplace Catalog version 18.11, catalog administrators can do the following:

• Prepopulate questions with answers from selection menu questions — In addition to other question types, you can now create actions that trigger responses for selection questions: dropdown, multi-select drop down, radio button, and checkbox questions. For more details about this functionality, see Creating questions with default responses.

• Add questions based on conditions applicable to one or more fixed or dynamic responses — For example, users can request an additional monitor if they already have a laptop and a docking station. For more information, see Building conditional questionnaires.

• Lookup values from Innovation Suite — BMC Digital Workplace Catalog administrators can use Records and Named Lists from Innovation Suite while building questionnaires that use the Innovation Suite connector. For more information, see Innovation Suite connector.

Custom connectors for on premises installations

If you have an on-premises installation and prefer not to develop custom connectors in Integration Service, the Remote Connector Servers features provides a new option to develop custom connectors. Explore this option only if the other available types of connectors do not meet your connector needs. For example, Integration Service connectors, and other built-in in-process connectors such as the Remedy connector are available out-of-the-box.

Use the provided guidance to build you own connectors and use them in BMC Digital Workplace Catalog . Your remote server will host connectors that can be used by  BMC Digital Workplace Catalog for transferring data to and from external systems via REST calls. .

For more information on developing and configuring these connectors, see Integrating BMC Digital Workplace with remote servers.

Saved carts quantity

With  BMC Digital Workplace  18.11, additionally to the quantity of saved items in the current cart, the quantity of saved carts is also displayed in the Cart quantity indicator. For example, in the following illustration, the indicator shows a total number of three items, which consists of one item in the current cart and two saved carts:

For more information about the current shopping cart and saved carts, see Requesting multiple enhanced catalog items with a cart.

Limited updates for Apple iOS and Google Android mobile clients

The iOS and Android mobile clients packaged with this release do not contain the features released with BMC Digital Workplace  18.11. For planned changes to the mobile clients, see Product announcements.

Reassign approvals to other business users

Business users can now reassign their approvals to other business users by using the Reassign option:

The Reassign option is applicable for all types of approvals in  BMC Digital Workplace . Additionally, commenting and attachment sharing is now supported for approvals from  BMC Digital Workplace Catalog  and  BMC Helix Business Workflows .
Requesters and approvers can also review questions and answers for a submitted  BMC Helix Business Workflows  request.

As in 18.08  BMC Digital Workplace  version, approvers can delegate their business requests to alternate approvers by creating the delegation rules.

For more information about approvals and related processes, see Processing business requests.

Full text search for service request definitions

Full text search capabilities are now provided for the search of service request definitions (SRDs) from Remedy Service Request Management. Search terms stemming and case insensitivity are supported. Additionally, search results are displayed according to SRDs' popularity and the quantity of requests. For more information, see How search works in BMC Digital Workplace.

Additional capabilities for browsing categories in  BMC Digital Workplace

By default, in the Browse categories menu of  BMC Digital Workplace , Service Request Management and HR Case Management items are displayed in one list. Starting with  BMC Digital Workplace  18.11, administrators can create separate top-level (root) categories for different items, as shown in the following illustration:

This feature helps to improve findability and convenience of use for end users. For more information about root categories, see Creating separate top-level categories for HR and IT requests.

Additional localization

The BMC Digital Workplace  universal client is now localized into both Romanian and Greek. For a full list of supported languages and locales, see Supported languages and locales.

Clear multiple notifications

In  BMC Digital Workplace , with a single click, users can clear all in-app notifications instead of deleting them one by one:

For more information about notification events and types of notifications in  BMC Digital Workplace , see Configuring status updates and notifications for end users. The option to clear all in-app notifications is also available in the BMC Digital Workplace Catalog console. For more information about notification events and types of notifications in  BMC Digital Workplace Catalog , see Status updates and notifications from BMC Digital Workplace Catalog.

Support tab removed

The Support tab functionality in the header menu of BMC Digital Workplace has been deprecated since the 3.2 product release. Since version 3.3, this feature has been available only for upgrades.

With BMC Digital Workplace 18.11, this functionality is completely removed from the application, and is no longer available, even for upgrades. BMC recommends that you use the Catalog functionality instead. The Catalog provides additional capabilities and is easily configurable. For more information, see Setting up sections in the Catalog.