Building a custom input map in a workflow
When you design a workflow, you can create custom parameters to send to an activity that can receive these parameters.
A single Build Input Set activity provides fields to create 10 key=value pairs. If needed, you can chain multiple Build Input Set elements to create more than 10 key=value pairs.
Population of custom fields into a Remedy work order
You can configure several Build Input Set elements and merge them together to populate up to 34 custom fields.
In this example, the workflow populates the following fields on a work order Details tab:
Work order field | Field label | Data type |
---|---|---|
WO Type Field 1 | Department | Text |
WO Type Field 2 | Equipment request | Text |
WO Type Field 6 | Date desired | Date/Time |
Important
For the Details and Details2 tabs on the Work Order Template in Remedy, the Create Remedy Work Order activity indexes fields in a linear order as they are declared by a unique field label. For the workflow to populate fields indexed 1, 2, and then 6, the workflow must insert unused parameters into the fields indexed 3, 4, and 5.
(Version 20.08.01 and later) You can use the Build Input Set action to map as many fields as you want to the Create Incident and Create Incident with Identifiers activities, see Remedy connector.
Before you begin
Open an existing workflow or create a new workflow, as described in Exploring the workflow designer.
To configure a Build Input Set to map variables to index fields
This example shows only how to configure input variables and populate Build Input Set to send the values to a Remedy work order. You can complete the steps to create the work order on your own.
Click the canvas, and then click Add/Remove Variables.
Click Add Variable and create the following input variables.
Name Data type DEPARTMENT Text EQUIPMENT Text DATE DESIRED Date/Time The variable names are similar to the field labels, but do not need to be.
- Click Build Input Set to view the Input Map.
For each Key parameter, add the field label. For each Value parameter, add the text or input variable that you created.
Enclose text values in double quotes, as shown in the following table:Input map parameter Value Key 1 "Department" Value 1 DEPARTMENT Key 2 "Equipment request" Value 2 EQUIPMENT Key 3 "Unused 3" Value 3 Blank Key 4 "Unused 4" Value 4 Blank Key 5 "Unused 5" Value 5 Blank Key 6 "Date desired" Value 6 DATE DESIRED When populating the Build Input Set parameters, the field label values for Key 3, Key 4, and Key 5 must be unique to generate the correct field index. For example, if the label for Key 4 duplicated the label of Key 3, then the field index would be short by one field.
- Click Create Remedy Work Order to view its input parameters.
- For the Detail field, click to open the expression builder.
- In the expression builder, under Activities, expand Build Input Set to select the Inputs parameter.
The field labels and values are sent to the work order as a list object. If you view the text, it renders as a JSON text string.
Where to go from here
Complete the remaining aspects of the workflow, as described in Workflows for service fulfillment.
Comments
This was helpful except when you need more than 10 variables or character fields on the Work Order template to use. Here it states, "A single Build Input Set activity provides fields to create 10 key=value pairs. If needed, you can chain multiple Build Input Set elements to create more than 10 key=value pairs." It would be helpful to provide a section on how to chain Build Input Set elements as I did not know how to chain multiple Build Input Set elements until I found something on BMC Communities.
I did the following: 1. Created two Build Input Set icons to my workflow. 2. Setup the Key fields for the first Build Input Set. 3. I updated the second Build Input Set by setting the Input Set1 value with Output of the first one. 4. I finished setting up the Key fields for the second Build Input Set.
When testing, the issue is my fields did not match up as I had WO Type Field 11 and WO Type Field 12 populated on the Work Order Template. However, my second Build Input Set populated the fields of WO Type Field 16 and WO Type Field 17.
Hello, Leonard Warren ,
Thank you for your detailed experience with trying out the chaining multiple Build Input Set elements. Please give us a few days to update the docs.
Aaditi
Hello, Leonard Warren ,
We have added the example for chaining Build Input Set activities in Mapping custom Remedy ITSM form fields in the Create Remedy Work Order form topic.
If you still find a mismatch between the populated fields, please contact BMC Customer Support.
Thanks,
Aaditi
I don't see how this addresses Details 2 fields 11+ on that page.
Who to map WO Tempalte fields 48 and 49 within the Workflow?
Do I add input set 3 (fields 21-30), input set 4 (31-40), and input set 5 (41-50)?
Or just input set 3 and 4 because the details 2 fields skip 31-47?
What does that look like?
Hello David Robinson,
This case needs investigation. Please give us some time, and we will circle back with the answer.
Thanks,
Olha
I'm interested in how to include fields 48 and 49 from WOTemplate Details 2 tab. In our version these are 2 of the only 4 date fields available. I did this in the Workflow by creating 4 input sets per WO to be generated. Input set 1 (fields 1-10), input set 2 (11-20), nput set 3 (fields 21-30), input set 4 (48, 49, 50, 51). Is this correct?
Yes, to get to fields 48 and 49, you would have to chain multiple input sets together.
It is important that the input field from 1-10 is chained to Input 1 for 11-20, then 11-20 is chained to Input 1 of 21-30 and so on until the last block is chained to the work order creation block.
Input 2 should not be used.
You also need to specify every single field in each of those input sets. For example, if you specify the first 6 fields and values in the first block, the second block would be WO Fields 7-16.
We are a little confused about the following fact: the last 2 date fields are 48 and 49. Looking at 20.02.03 and 22.1 servers as well at WO Type Field mapping Excel sheet, it shows only 34 fields. 2 Date/Time fields at 6 and 7, and the other 2 Date/Time fields at 31 and 32. We can see this shared in your last comment, “Input set 3 (fields 21-30), input set 4 (48, 49, 50, 51)”. We are not sure why it says input set 4 would start at 48. Maybe you talking about the internal field number? The numbering works off of the name of the field, which is 01 to 34, as seen on the chart below.
Yes, you would need 4 input sets, with each of the fields specified in the first 3 input sets.
DETAILS 1 (tab)
DETAILS 2 (tab)
Please let us know if this answer helps!
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