Upgrading BMC Digital Workplace

The BMC Digital Workplace installer supports direct upgrade to BMC Digital Workplace 18.08.00 from BMC Digital Workplace 18.05 Patch 1.

Related topic

Uninstalling BMC Digital Workplace

Available upgrade paths

Upgrade_1808

Considerations prior to upgrading

The following table provides information about specific scenarios that you should consider prior to upgrading to BMC Digital Workplace 18.08.00:

Scenario	Consideration or action required	Additional information
You are using BMC Remedy ITSM 9.1.x or later.	Upgrading to BMC Digital Workplace 18.08.00 restarts the BMC Remedy AR plug-in server process.	The server restart causes a downtime of a few seconds. This allows you to schedule a planned downtime.
You are using BMC MyIT 2.6, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 or BMC Digital Workplace 3.3, 3.5, or 18.02. You plan to upgrade to BMC Digital Workplace 18.08.00 .	Before upgrading to BMC Digital Workplace 18.08.00, you must upgrade to BMC Digital Workplace 18.05 Patch 1 .	The AppZone integration is removed when you upgrade to BMC Digital Workplace 18.05.

For more information, watch the following BMC webinar. (Go to 29:07 in the video to learn about the upgrade process.)

https://youtu.be/nAt58AZpuxw

Upgrade recovery

The installer provides the option to recover from an upgrade failure. If the upgrade fails, the installer rolls back all the changes made to the database and configuration files. Rerunning the installer resumes the upgrade process from the point where the upgrade failed in the previous attempt.

Notes

Do not exit the installer while the upgrade is in progress.
It is recommended that you take a back up of the BMC Remedy AR server and BMC Digital Workplace database, indicated as a step in the upgrade process.

Upgrade stages

Best Practice

Install BMC Digital Workplace on a dedicated server. To avoid performance issues, do not install BMC Digital Workplace on servers that host other applications, such as BMC Remedy Mid Tier.

BMC Digital Workplace upgrade comprises the following stages:

Stage 1: Prepare to upgrade BMC Digital Workplace

Task	Action	Additional information
1	Review the system requirements	Make sure that you meet the system requirements for this release.
2	Review the known and corrected issues	Review the Release notes and notices.
3	Complete the upgrade worksheets	Before you start installing the products, you must gather information about the parameters that the installer requires for each product. The planning spreadsheet provided in this section helps you gather these parameter values. To avoid installation errors, refer to this spreadsheet when you run the installation.
4	Downloading the BMC Digital Workplace installation files	This topic explains how to obtain the files that you need for the upgrade from the BMC Electronic Product Distribution (EPD) site.
5	Apply patch 1 for BMC Remedy AR System 9.1.04	This patch enables cognitive service management.
6	Upgrade to 64-bit Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 8.	Upgrade to JRE 8 on all the servers where you have BMC Digital Workplace installed.
7	Take a backup of the BMC Remedy AR server database, and BMC Digital Workplacedatabase.	To recover from any unexpected upgrade failure and resume upgrade from the last executed stage, take a back up of the following databases: BMC Remedy AR Server BMC Digital Workplace

For more information, watch the following BMC webinar. (Go to 22:39 in the video to learn about data migration.)

https://youtu.be/nAt58AZpuxw

Stage 2: Upgrade BMC Digital Workplace

Note

If you are on BMC Remedy IT Service Management (ITSM) 9.1.x and later, upgrading to BMC Digital Workplace 18.08.00 restarts the AR System plug-in server process. The server restart causes a downtime of a few seconds.This allows you to schedule a planned downtime.

Task	Action	Additional information
1	Resolve issues indicated by the installer, if any	Ensure that all the following pre-install checks run by the installer are successful before proceeding with the installation: Disk space JAVA runtime version Database version Directory permissions BMC Digital Workplace installed version Components operation status Installation does not proceed if the pre-install check detects inconsistencies in the required components.
2	Performing the BMC Digital Workplace upgrade	Do not use Xming to install the BMC Digital Workplace server, because it might not perform reliably during installation. Instead, use VNC, MobaXterm, or any other client.
3	Verifying the BMC Digital Workplace installation	Verify whether the upgrade is successful.

Stage 3: Review BMC Digital Workplace configurations

Task	Action	Additional information
1	Configuring SSL for the Tomcat server	To provide communication security among applications, configure SSL for the Apache Tomcat server. If you enabled SSL as part of the installation , SSL is already configured.
2	Modifying ports for BMC Digital Workplace	Post-upgrade, you might need to change the ports if you did not specify an open port during installation, or if these ports are in use. These ports are used to connect the web and mobile clients to the BMC Digital Workplace server.
3	Integrating Remedy Single Sign-On	This topic describes how to configure the integration of Remedy Single Sign-On with BMC Digital Workplace . BMC Remedy Single Sign-On authentication applies to both the universal client and to mobile applications. When a user logs in to a mobile device, the user is prompted to enter the hostname and port. If the server has SSO enabled, the mobile client opens a browser to the SSO login page. The SSO server sets the SSO cookies after authentication on to the device browser. When the user relaunches the application, if the cookies are not expired, the mobile client displays the application. If the cookies are expired, the user is shown the login page again for authentication.
4	Setting up administrator authentication	The BMC Digital Workplace server supports both user and administrator logons. Both types of logons are authenticated using BMC Remedy Action Request AR System (BMC Remedy AR System). To assign BMC Digital Workplace administration permissions to BMC Remedy AR System users, you add the users to the MyIT Admin group in BMC Remedy AR System. The system creates this group automatically during installation.
5	Assigning administrator permissions	Administrators can grant or restrict access to the areas of the BMC Digital Workplace Admin console for other administrator.
6	Setting up service requests through BMC Service Request Management	If you use BMC Service Request Management to process requests and incidents submitted by BMC Digital Workplace users, you must create a series of service request definitions (SRDs) specifically for use with BMC Digital Workplace. You configure SRDs in the BMC Service Request Management Console.
7	Localizing titles and messages	Contact options that appear when a user taps Account Problems on the Login screen or IT Contact Information from the Assistance screen. The name of the screen that lists a user’s appointments and the instructions that tell users what to enter when creating an appointment. The categories listed in the Assistance window. The names of asset actions that appear when a user clicks an icon on a floor map. Using a similar procedure, you can edit asset actions.
8	Customizing the terminology used in BMC Digital Workplace	BMC Digital Workplace enables you to customize the names of items that appear on your users' desktop browsers and mobile devices. For example, you can update the name of the service desk to My Company Service Desk.
9	Enabling end user features	Within BMC Digital Workplace, you can enable and disable features that you might not want to use immediately in your deployment. For example, if you are not set up to support location services, you can disable that functionality. You can also configure the settings for features such as the Contact IT button and Virtual Chat cross-launch.
10	Making configuration changes to integrated applications	You can change the settings that BMC Digital Workplace uses to connect to the following applications: BMC Service Request Management BMC Remedy IT Service Management (BMC Remedy ITSM, the enterprise application) BMC Remedy Action Request System (BMC Remedy AR System, dedicated to the MyIT application)
11	Configuring multitenancy	The multitenancy feature of BMC Remedy IT Service Management (BMC Remedy ITSM) provides the ability to segregate data by operating company and customer company.
12	Configuring email notifications	To allow BMC Digital Workplace users to accept email notifications for services, you must configure your company's mail server information and verify that users have valid email accounts with the specified server. Users can then select email notifications for specific services.
13	Setting up VM requests through BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management	After integrating BMC Digital Workplace with BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management, BMC Digital Workplace users can view and request available VM offerings as part of the Unified Catalog. Create sections and then add BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management offerings to the section.
14	Setting up service requests through BMC Service Request Management	To create a service catalog, BMC Digital Workplace pulls in services, apps, VMs, and other resources available to employees from different sources, including BMC Service Request Management.
15	Integrating Digital Workplace with BMC HR Case Management	Self-service users use BMC Digital Workplace to open HR cases and to search HR knowledge articles. BMC HR Case Management can be installed either on the same server with BMC Remedy IT Service Management (BMC Remedy ITSM) or on a separate server. Note: The BMC HR Case Management server requires BMC Remedy Action Request System 9.1.

Stage 4: Deploy BMC Digital Workplace to users

Task	Action	Additional information
1	Deploying clients	IT users access BMC Digital Workplace through Apple iOS and Google Android mobile clients, as well as through the universal client (desktop web interface).