Adding and updating bundles
Service bundles are catalog items that contain multiple services fulfilled from a single user request. BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog administrators and internal service suppliers can create service bundles to package items that users should consider ordering at the same time.
You can bundle service items for fulfillment in one of the following ways:
- Individual service workflows—When a user requests this bundle, the user is presented a questionnaire for each service to be fulfilled in the sequence you specify. This is the simplest and most common method for fulfillment.
- Custom workflow—When a user requests this bundle, the services are provisioned according to the fulfillment process you designed. Use this method to fulfill services in a particular order.
Service bundles for end users
Service bundles appear in the BMC Helix Digital Workplace end user console along with individual services. When a user clicks a service tile, the catalog profile opens to show the services that are provisioned when the bundle is requested. The bundle catalog profile can contain a unique icon; rich text descriptions; and, if enabled, an image carousel, downloadable resources, SLA, and cost profile information.
To be able to find and request a bundle, users must be entitled to view and request the bundle. The user can open the catalog profile for a bundle to see icons for the individual services that are included in the bundle.
If the user is also entitled to view and request the individual services, or if the catalog administrator has enabled full catalog view, the user can click the icon to view details of the individual services.
End users can view and request bundles even if they are not entitled to the individual items in the bundle.
Tip
For more information about enabling full catalog view, see Entitling end users to services, bundles, and banners.
Before you begin
- Create each service that you will include in the bundle, as described in Adding and updating services.
- If you are adding services that already have dependencies defined, do not add services that will be automatically requested. For more information, see Specifying dependent services.
Fulfillment by individual services workflows
When a bundle is fulfilled by using the individual services workflows, you can drag and drop the services to change the order that the service tiles appear on the catalog profile. The order does not affect the provisioning sequence; BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog provisions the requested services in an arbitrary order.
Important
Services with External Link in the Fulfillment field in their profile cannot be added to bundles.
For more information, see Adding catalog profile details to a service.
To set fulfillment by individual services workflow
- In BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog, select Services > Services.
- Click Create New > Bundle, or edit an existing bundle.
- If creating a new bundle, name it and select the catalog that contains the services you want to include.
- Complete the Bundled Services and Profile Details sections.
- Open the Workflow & Questions section.
- Under Manage Workflow, turn on the Use bundled services workflows toggle.
- Drag and drop services to reorder the fulfillment sequence.
- Click Save.
Fulfillment by custom workflow
When a bundle is fulfilled by using a custom workflow, you choose the order in which the services should be provisioned. You can have the services fulfilled in sequence or in parallel. For more complex requests, you can have the request fulfilled based on the user's answers to the service questions at the time of the request.
Example: Workflow to provision services in sequential order
In this example, the workflow executes a request for each service after the previous service is submitted. If the service workflow contains a blocking process, the system waits until the blocking process is completed before continuing to the next request.
Example: Workflow to provision services in parallel order
In this example, a parallel gateway splits the sequence flow into five parallel threads that are executed at the same time. The parallel gateway used after the requests creates a blocking join that waits for all the threads to be completed before continuing to the end.
Example: Workflow to provision services in a complex manner
In this example, exclusive gateways test the user's responses against conditional expressions to control the sequence flow through a series of requests. After each conditional block, an exclusive gateway must be used to combine the sequence flows to flow into another choice.
At the end, the process includes a final action to notify the user through the activity timeline.
Important
When you attach a custom workflow, any bundled services previously set to Optional become required. If you specify any services in the bundle as Optional, the fulfillment method is automatically set to use bundled services workflow.
Bundles containing services with dependencies
When you add a service that has dependencies, the required services are also added to the bundle. For example, if a user requests an IoT device, which requires an IoT logger, the IoT logger is automatically requested before requesting the IoT device. For information on configuring dependent services, see Specifying dependent services.
Important
A bundle that contains one or more services that have dependencies cannot be added to the cart, and must be requested immediately.
Service bundling tutorial
In Bundles 1 - Creating a bundle using individual services, you will learn how to create bundles. The tutorial describes how to combine services into a simple bundle with option items that are fulfilled using the workflows of each individual service.
Important
BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog enables you to add service bundles in multiple languages. You can publish service bundles and their translations for end users in different locales. For more information, see Localizing catalog items.
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