Requesting multiple enhanced catalog items with a cart

BMC Digital Workplace Advanced users can add enhanced catalog items to a cart to request all items at the same time, instead of submitting individual service requests one at a time.

Difference between Request Now and Add to Cart

As an end user you can preview a service or a bundle that is provisioned through BMC Digital Workplace Catalog  by selecting one of the following options:

• Request Now: Begins the request process for the previewed item immediately. The system submits the request after you answer all the required user questions.
  
  If you want to save the Request Now item for later, you can move the item to the saved cart by clicking the Save for later button in the Checkout window, as shown in the following illustration:
  
  
  All the inputs that you have provided so far for this request are saved.
• Add to Cart: Adds the previewed item to a list of items in your cart. When you are ready to order all items in the cart, you can view the cart and then click or tap Begin Request. The system submits the request after the user answers all the required user questions for all the services in the cart.
  

Items added to a cart are saved between sessions

When a user adds enhanced catalog items to a cart, BMC Digital Workplace automatically saves the cart during the session in case an event interrupts the checkout process.

A user's cart will still available under conditions such as:

• The user leaves a cart in progress to place individual requests.
• The user logs out of BMC Digital Workplace .
• The user is disconnected from the network while a cart request is in progress.

The next time the user logs in to BMC Digital Workplace , the user does not need to create the request again. The system saved the user's responses to the service questions so the user can resume the checkout process and continue from the point before the interruption occurred.

A user can maintain only one cart at a time. To support saving a single item request in a draft state, the user can create a cart that contains only one item. Items remain in a cart indefinitely until the user completes the request or removes the items from the cart.

If the user has already answered service questions before interrupting the checkout process, the user's responses are saved for when the user resumes the checkout process.

If the questions for a service in a cart change before the user resumes the cart, the system will retain the user's responses that are still valid for the updated questions. If a user's saved response is not valid for an updated question, the system marks the error inline if possible.

Scenario: User leaves a cart to research information required for a request

In this example, Mary is a manager who is preparing to onboard a new employee, Roger. Mary searches for the following BMC Digital Workplace Catalog items in the BMC Digital Workplace catalog to add to a cart:

• Work area assignment request
• New user account
• Laptop computer
• HR benefits package

While processing the request and answering the service questions, Mary discovers that she is missing some details for Roger's assignment. Mary can leave the cart while in progress and log out of the system to find the required information.

When Mary logs back in to BMC Digital Workplace , she sees that her cart with the four items is still available for her to resume the checkout process and complete the request.

Scenario: User interrupts cart checkout to process an urgent request

In this example, Sam is an administrator who is preparing a request for 15 tablet devices to outfit his organization's marketing department. While processing the request for the seventh device, Sam's manager asks for him to send an urgent request to activate a projector in the media center for their director's presentation in an hour.

Sam can leave the current cart request in progress and search for the required service that sends an activation code to the media center. Sam clicks Request Now and answers the required questions. After Sam submits the request, he can open the cart he left in progress and process the rest of the request. Sam is happy to see that the system saved his earlier responses, including the seventh item which he left only partially completed.

Request status of each item shown when user resumes cart checkout

A user can continue to add BMC Digital Workplace Catalog items to a cart until the user finally submits the request. If the user begins the checkout process, and then leaves the process to add additional items, BMC Digital Workplace indicates the items that were on the initial request before the addition.

In the following illustration, Mary added a Laptop computer to a cart and began the checkout process. While answering the questions, Mary left the checkout process to add a backpack to the request. When Mary returned to the cart, the system showed that the request for laptop computer was already in progress, but the process to request the new backpack item had not yet begun.

Order description field can be assigned to all items in a cart

When a user begins the checkout process for a cart, the user can add a 60-character order description to identify the request. After the user submits the request, all items on the cart inherit the same order description. A user can enter any text into the order description field, such as a new employee or a contractor who does not yet have an account, a tracking number, or other description that makes sense to the user.

In the following example, Mary chose to add a capital project planning budget number to the order description to enable her request to be grouped with other items that have been approved under the same budget.

The following illustration shows an example of Mary's activity timeline where the budget number used in a search query retrieves a list of requested items where the number was entered into the order description field.

Shared responses between multiple services with matching questions in the same cart

When a user submits a service request for a cart where the same questions are asked across multiple enhanced catalog services, BMC Digital Workplace Advanced attempts to carry the user's responses forward as suggestions for matching questions in the same request. For questions to match, they must share the same label and expect the same data type. If your organization does not want to use this feature, the enhanced catalog administrator can disable the capability in BMC Digital Workplace Catalog . For information about how a  BMC Digital Workplace Catalog  administrator can prepare questions to facilitate response prepopulation, see Enabling questions to share responses between multiple services in the same cart.

Scenario: User submits a service request for multiple items and saves time by accepting pepopulated answers

In the following example, Martin is a department manager who has been given the following table of items to request that will be shared by everyone in the office. In this hypothetical example, Martin's company requires that the department's cost center number must be attached to each item. In addition, Martin must also record an equipment sponsor, who will assume responsibility for the equipment's upkeep.

The following steps show how Martin can save time by allowing BMC Digital Workplace to prepopulate responses to similar questions.

1. Martin searches for each service catalog item in the Catalog to add to a cart. We assume that the IT department has identified chosen model numbers for products based on a vendor contract.

2. Martin begins the checkout process to request the items in the cart.

   When Martin opens the questions for the first item, the network printer/photocopier, Martin submits the following information:

   Question	Martin's response	Comments
   Requested printer number	ZX-9000	Martin selects the best model from a dropdown list.
   Cost center number	4016-0299-7600	Martin selects one cost center number from a dropdown list of four numbers under his responsibility.
   Equipment sponsor	Martin Johnson	As the equipment sponsor for all IT-related requests, Martin entered his name as free-form text.

3. When Martin opens the questions for the next few services, Martin learns that some of his questions have already been answered, as shown in the following alert message:

   
   
   Based on this example, the Cost center number and Equipment sponsor fields would be prepopulated with Martin's answer from the previous service.

   For the questions where the answers were not prepopulated, Martin enters or selects new information.

4. When Martin reaches the first Generic equipment request service, Martin must override the suggestions for the Cost center number and Equipment sponsor fields, as shown in the following table:

   Question	Suggested response	Martin's response	Comments
   Generic equipment request	(none)	Indoor hockey table	Martin manually enters the description of the item.
   Cost center number	4016-0299-7600	4016-0012-7600	Martin selects another of the cost center numbers from a dropdown list that matches the type of item category.
   Equipment sponsor	Martin Johnson	Bridgitte Oswalu	Martin changes the answer from the previous service.

5. When Martin opens the questions for the next Generic equipment request service, Martin's latest answers from the previous service are offered as suggestions. Martin just needs to change the description for the general service.
6. After Martin reviews all the questions to ensure that the prepopulated answers are correct, he submits the request.

The current shopping cart and saved carts

Services and bundles can be added to the current cart, and can be saved for later in saved carts. 

The Cart quantity indicator shows the total number of items in all carts (current and saved carts), as shown in the following illustration:

The Checkout window shows the items in the current cart and also shows how many items are in each saved cart, as in the following illustration:

Saved carts

After end users save a shopping cart, they can interact with their saved shopping carts as follows:

• Move the items from the saved shopping cart to the current cart by selecting More actions > Move to Cart.
• Continue the saved request by clicking Continue request. The current cart moves to the Saved carts section, so that it can be continued later. The cart for the saved request becomes the current cart.
• Delete the saved cart by selecting More actions > Delete.
• Edit the description of the saved cart.
  The default description of the saved shopping cart includes names of the services and bundles that are added to the saved cart.

Submitted requests are assigned a unique Order ID and Request ID

When a user submits a request for services that are provisioned through  BMC Digital Workplace Catalog , each request is assigned two unique ID numbers:

• A Request ID is assigned to each item in a request.
• An Order ID is assigned for each request that is submitted. The same Order ID is assigned to all items submitted through a shopping cart or a request for a bundle of services.

In the following illustration, all items requested in the same shopping cart are assigned the same Order ID, even though each item is assigned a unique Request ID.

User can search based on Order ID or Request ID

Users can search for their own requests by entering either the Request ID or the Order ID in the My Activity timeline or the Superbox on the News Feed. For the Superbox to be visible, the  BMC Digital Workplace  Administrator must enable the Superbox from the Admin Console.