21.3 enhancements

This topic contains information about enhancements in version 21.3 of BMC Helix Digital Workplace.

Related topics

Build and customize a visually appealing functional workplace for each line of business

The revamped custom page feature includes a curated list of features for building end user pages based on their line of business:

Build multiple pages for each line of business that can be kept in a draft state until published for end users.
Select a default home page and use the navigation manager to order pages to be accessible through multi-level navigation menus.
Make individual pages accessible to all users or select People Groups created in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog to restrict access.
Drag-and-drop the following customizable components while designing your page:
- Rich text content blocks allow you to create highly customizable sections with custom text, images, embedded videos, and links.
- Search blocks allow you to select custom-sized boxes and labels with the ability to set sources relevant to users belonging to specific groups.
- Event blocks allow you to select whether active or past events belonging to specific event types, such as approvals and appointments, are displayed in a card or list view.
Duplicate individual components or pages to optimize the time spent on configuration and create multiple form factors.
Use variables such as first name and last name within text fields to personalize the end user experience.

For more information, see Studio pages and Creating workplaces for your lines of business.

Display work order, change request, and case details to end users

Functionality has been extended for ticket fulfillment details. In previous versions, end users could see details of the incident tickets only. This version of BMC Helix Digital Workplace enables a quick orientation among the flow of work order, change request, and case tickets. This feature applies to SRDs and BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog services

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End users can:

See the ticket ID associated with the single service requests on the My Activity tab.
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Card view

List view
Open the service request to view the fulfillment details of the ticket (ID, description, last modified date, and status).
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Leave comments on a particular ticket that are easily identifiable by the agent working on the ticket.
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For more information, see Configuring fulfillment details display in service requests and Setting up approvals.

Turn off notifications for approved or rejected requests

Approvers can disable push and email notifications upon approving or rejecting a service request. In previous releases, approvers continued to receive notifications even after approving service requests. In 21.3 and later, approvers can focus only on incoming service requests.

For more information about notification settings for end users, see Configuration options for the end user console.

Control over service health configuration and updates

BMC Helix Digital Workplace administrators can subscribe end users to services and add these services to users' favorites (auto-favorite). End users cannot remove these services from their favorites (unfavorite) list. Administrators can also configure default email and push notifications for Service health items that are part of end users' favorites. End users can choose to view only their favorite items from the My Stuff screen and they can configure their settings to receive these notifications.

For more information, see Setting up service health items and Configuring status updates and notifications.

Select the source of the end user's profile image

A new feature setting and provider property are now available in the BMC Helix Digital Workplace Admin console so that administrators can select an end user's profile image from BMC Helix Digital Workplace, BMC Helix ITSM, or BMC Helix ITSM: Smart IT:

For more information about end user's profile data synchronization, see Managing an end user's profile data.

What else changed in this release

Update	Product behavior in versions earlier than 21.3	Product behavior in 21.3
Configure intervals between surveys sent to end users	End users received multiple surveys.	BMC Helix Digital Workplace administrators can set a delay of a day to a year between subsequent requests for feedback from your end users.
New Asset Action type	The Actions Library had an Asset Action type named Request, which was used for requests created in BMC Service Request Management. This allowed end users to only raise requests created using BMC Service Request Management from the Floor Maps and Asset Details screen.	End users can now request for services created in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog from the Floor Maps and Asset Details screens. A new Asset Action type Catalog Request is available from the Actions Library. The existing Asset Action type Request has been renamed to SRM Request. For more information, see Managing asset types.
Item category renamed	The item category available when administrators added a new section was named Service Broker.	The category has been renamed to Catalog items. For more information see Setting up sections in the Catalog.
License entitlement upgrade for BMC Helix ITSM and BMC Helix Virtual Agent SaaS customers		BMC Helix ITSM and BMC Helix Virtual Agent SaaS customers will be entitled to use the BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog console. This console replaces the need to use BMC Service Request Management for creating and managing service request catalog items for your end users.
External Users feature available		The External Users feature was introduced in version 19.11 and requires the BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced – Self-Registered User license. This feature was not available with version 21.05, but is being made available with this release.
Additional log file for email notification errors	Issues with email notifications were not logged.	A dedicated log file logs issues encountered when sending email notifications to end users. The file contains errors related to the SMTP connection, failed email messages that could not be delivered, and individual email addresses that failed. The existing log config file setting used by BMC Helix Digital Workplace administrators is applied to this log file. For more information, see Configuring logs for BMC Helix Digital Workplace.
Additional options to control over the elements in the workflow designer	BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog administrators could copy only the entire fulfillment workflow by clicking Actions > Copy.	BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog administrators can copy and paste the canvas elements of one fulfillment workflow to another one preserving the item properties. For this and other enhancements in the workflow designer, see Exploring the workflow designer.
Change in the way a BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog workflow transforms dates to text.	In catalog workflows, the default format for a date-to-text conversion was mm/dd/yyyy.	In catalog workflows, because the default format for converting dates to text is m/d/yyyy, any leading zeros that appear in the month or day fields will be removed following the upgrade. We recommend that you use the Format Date Time string manipulation method in workflows to set the date format to include leading zeros if required. For more information, see String manipulation methods reference.