20.02 enhancements

This section contains information about enhancements in version 20.02 of Remedy Action Request (AR) System. The feature enhancements delivered in 19.11 BMC Helix ITSM (SaaS-only) release are also available in the Remedy 20.02 release.

Known and corrected issues

Release notes and notices

Additional Remedy ITSM 20.02 enhancements Open link

Remedy AR System enhancements

The following sections provide information about the enhancements in this release of Remedy AR System.

(Version 19.11 and later) Ability to send event notifications from AR System forms to external applications

You can use the webhook to send real-time event notifications to external systems from the AR System server. The webhook definition eliminates the manual effort required to create workflows and removes the need for continuous server polling. To receive automatic notifications when an event occurs on an AR form, you can register a webhook by using AR REST API. An event could be creating, updating, or deleting a record on that AR form.For more information about registering and using AR System webhook, see Adding AR System webhook to receive automatic notifications.

(Version 19.11 and later) REST API endpoints to retrieve menu metadata

You can use GetMenu and ExpandMenu endpoints to retrieve menu metadata. Menu metadata enables you to retrieve all the information required in a menu such as labels and values. The GetMenu and ExpandMenu endpoints help to perform faster design level integration between a Remedy application and a third-party application without using Remedy Developer Studio. For information about retrieving menu metadata, see Example of using the REST API to retrieve menu details. For information about GetMenu and ExpandMenu endpoints, see the Operations on menu objects section in the Endpoints in AR REST API topic.

(Version 19.11 and later) Improved search results (FTS and MFS) with exact match of search strings

You get improved search results because Full Text Search (FTS) and Multi-Form Search (MFS) support exact matches for quoted strings even if the quoted strings contain ignore words. On the AR System Administration: Server Information form or on the Remedy Management Console: FTS Management form, you can enable the Support Exact Matches for Phrases setting that returns accurate search results for quoted strings containing ignore words. Thus, the end users do not experience any inconsistencies in search results and get precise matches for their search strings. For more information about the Support Exact Matches for Phrases setting, see Enabling exact matches for full text searches and Configuring the Ignore Words List.

Remedy ITSM supported operating system updates

Remedy 20.02 deployments are now certified for latest versions of third-party software and platform as follows:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15
Oracle Solaris 11.4

For the complete list of the supported software, see BMC Solution and Product Availability and Compatibility Utility (SPAC) Open link

Removal of bundled Tomcat from the Remedy ITSM Suite installers

Starting with version 20.02, Tomcat is no longer included with the Remedy ITSM Suite installers. You must use an existing Tomcat while installing or upgrading Remedy ITSM Suite to version 20.02.

Thus, for a fresh installation of Remedy ITSM Suite 20.02, the option Install Tomcat server has been removed from the User Inputs screen. While installing or upgrading to version 20.02, you need to specify your Tomcat server details in the User Inputs > Specify Installed/Existing Tomcat folder section. While uninstalling Remedy ITSM Suite 20.02, the option Uninstall Tomcat has also been removed.

For more information, see Preparing your web server Open link in Remedy Deployment online documentation.

Additional configuration checks for Remedy AR System

The configuration check utility has checks to verify the following:

The maximum attachment size is set to zero in Centralized Configuration.
The record object relationship between Remedy Developer Studio objects is disabled.
BMC reserved field IDs are not used.

For more information about Remedy AR System checks, see Remedy AR System checks Open link in Remedy Deployment online documentation.

(Version 19.11 and later) The URL-Safe-Encode command to encode the URL input

The URL-Safe-Encode command enables you to convert a string into a valid URL format. This command encodes the URL input based on the UTF 8 standards. When this command is invoked, the AR System server takes care of the special characters in the URL. For more information, see URL-Safe-Encode command.

(Version 19.11 and later) Spudsoft Excel report format for AR Web reports

AR System Report Console features a new export format called Spudsoft Excel that supports both List and Chart views. You can export your custom Web report to this format.

For more information, see Defining custom web reports and Exporting a custom web report.

What else changed in this release

The following table lists the changes in the product behavior:

Update	Product behavior in versions earlier than 20.02	Product behavior in version 20.02
Removal of Adobe Flash Player from Remedy ITSM	Remedy ITSM uses Adobe Flash Player for displaying rounded corners on buttons, tooltips, and panel headers, in the login page, and as storage object for global variables.	Remedy ITSM uses HTML standards for displaying rounded corners on buttons, tooltips, and Panel headers, and as storage object for global variables. The following settings for enabling and detecting Flash are removed from Centralized Configuration: arsystem.flash.enable_ui_rendering arsystem.flash.detect_flashplayer For more information, see For Adobe flash in Remedy in Remedy ITSM online documentation.
SAP Crystal Reports integration with Remedy AR System is no longer supported	The SAP Crystal Reports viewer is installed when you install Remedy Mid Tier on a server when an existing Crystal Reports Server or BOXI installation is detected.	SAP Crystal Reports viewer is no longer a part of the Remedy AR System installation. Crystal report integration with Remedy AR System (including Crystal Report and mid-tier integration) is no more supported. For reporting purposes, it is recommended to use Remedy Smart Reporting or BIRT (Web) report with Remedy Mid Tier. For more information, see Product announcements for Remedy IT Service Management Suite in the Remedy IT Service Management Suite online documentation. For more information about the changes due to Crystal Report integration with Remedy Mid Tier version 20.02, see the knowledge article Crystal Report integration changes for Mid Tier version 20.02 .
A form to analyze the time required to fetch data from a Row-level Security (RLS) query		The AR System:RLS Autodiscovery form provides you with some insight into the RLS queries used in the backend. The AR System:RLS Autodiscovery form displays the details of forms where the RLS query takes longer time to fetch the underlying data. For more information, see Analyzing the time required to fetch data through an RLS query.
A configuration setting to set the threshold for adding a record in the AR System:RLS Autodiscovery form		The Row-level security (RLS) query is logged in the AR System:RLS Autodiscovery form, if the Subquery algorithm is not enabled on the forms where the RLS query runs. For more information, see Rls-Autodiscovery-Minimum-Elapsed-Time.
By default, trace logs for the AR System Server startup events are logged in the arstartup_trace.log file	Manually enable the trace logs for AR System Server startup events by adding the `-t` parameter in the armonitor.cfg file.	When you perform a fresh installation of Remedy ITSM version 20.02, the trace logs for the AR System Server startup events are logged by default in the arstartup_trace.log file located in the <ARSystem_Install_directory>\ARSystem\Arserver\Db\ folder. When you upgrade to version 20.02, you must manually add the `-t` parameter after the upgrade. Perform the following steps: Navigate to <ARSystem_Install_directory>\ARSystem\Conf folder and edit the armonitor.cfg file. Search for arserver.jar. Add `-t` parameter at the end of the command. For example: `"%BMC_JAVA_HOME%\java" -jar "C:\Program Files\BMC Software \ARSystem\ arserver.jar" -i "C:\Program Files\BMC Software \ARSystem" -l "C:\Program Files\ Common Files\AR System\Licenses\ xxxxx" -m -t` Save the file. Restart the AR System Server. You can see the trace logs in the arstartup_trace.log file.
Ability to reindex all Full Text Search (FTS) enabled forms		You can reindex all the FTS enabled forms by using the following command: `Application-FTS-Reindex-Form <scanTime>` For more information, see Reindexing all FTS enabled forms.
Improved AR System Web Service output	If an XML element to be returned in a Web Service output has a NULL value, AR System server searches for any associated default value that is defined for that element in XML Schema Definition (XSD) or Web Services Description Language (WSDL). If the default value exists, AR System server assigns the default value to the XML element, but still adds the `xsi:nil` attribute with the value `true` to that element.	AR Server adds the `xsi:nil` attribute only if the XML element has a NULL value, is defined to allow NULL values (`Nillable=true`), and there is no default value assigned to it.
Updated Axis JAR file version for Mid Tier	The Axis JAR file uses version 1.4.	The Axis JAR file uses version 1.7.5.