20.08 enhancements

BMC Helix Platform is a cloud-based development platform designed for developers and application business analysts to co-develop custom applications and customize purchased applications.

Review the BMC Helix Platform 20.08 enhancements for features that will benefit your organization and to understand changes that might impact your users.

The following video (2:43) provides a summary of the some of the new features and enhancements in BMC Helix Platform version 20.08:

https://youtu.be/ETRAO75nNyI

Related topics

Known and corrected issues

Deprecated features and post upgrade behavior

Release notes and notices

BMC Helix Platform enhancements

Launch codeless applications in the new user interface for BMC Helix Platform

BMC has upgraded the user interface for BMC Helix Platform to the latest Angular framework. You can run your codeless applications that leverage out-of-the-box view components and actions in the new UI. However, BMC applications and your applications that contain custom code will continue to use the previous AngularJS framework.

For information about switching to the new UI for your codeless applications, see Enabling the new user interface for your codeless applications.

You can launch your codeless applications in new the UI by using the following URL:

https://<serverName>/helix/index.html#/<applicationId>

For example:

https://myserver/helix/index.html#/com.example.taskmanager

The new UI is not supported for Internet Explorer and older versions of Microsoft Edge browser that are not based on Chromium.
The following functionalities are not yet available in the new UI:

Launch Process Designer view action
Filter by Selection in Record Grid

The following image shows the page where you can configure your codeless application to use the new UI:

Run developer sandboxes on your local machine by using a docker container

As a developer, you can request and install a BMC Helix Platform Developer Sandbox on your local system by running a docker container. You can use this local Developer Sandbox to develop and test your applications on your machine without the same security restrictions placed on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Developer Sandbox instances.

Use the BMC Helix Platform Developer Sandbox instance to perform the following actions on your local system:

Test and debug custom code
Build and leverage Web APIs and External Record Definitions
Share folders between the laptop and the docker instance to have the logs available locally

For more information about creating a new local development environment, see Setting up a local Developer Sandbox environment.

Use your IBM Watson services to leverage BMC Helix Cognitive Automation

As an administrator, use your own IBM Watson services to avail the BMC Helix Cognitive Automation. You no longer need BMC SaaS Operations to provision the IBM Watson account and configure the cognitive services.

Learn how to onboard and configure cognitive services by using your own IBM Watson services in BMC Helix Platform at Configuring cognitive service for custom applications by using your own IBM Watson services.

Onboard Service With Own Cognitive Provider

View cognitive search and chatbot unique user reports on the UI

In addition to the existing reports, you can view consumption reports for cognitive search and chatbot unique users on the BMC Helix Innovation Studio UI.

By monitoring these reports, you can get answers to the following questions and make informed decisions:

How much of the cognitive search service am I using?
How many unique users logged in to the chatbots in a given month or over a period of time?
Do I need to purchase more capacity?

Learn more about how to access the reports and configure notifications at Measuring the cognitive service consumption. For chatbot reporting information, see Reporting and analyzing chatbot usage .

Number of unique users report

Cognitive search report

Foundation data updates

BMC Helix Platform provides the following updates to Foundation data:

Enhancement

Description

Set a default support group for an agent

If you have already moved your Foundation data, but not the default support group information from Remedy ITSM, then you can move the default support group data separately. For more information, see Updating the default support group data in bulk for existing users and Setting the default support group for an agent.

Support for Region and Site Group association with Site data

Because the Foundation data model differs between Remedy ITSM and BMC Helix Platform, you must update the Region, Site Group, and Site data model when the data is moved to BMC Helix Platform.

During the initial load, BMC Helix Platform can load the region and site group data that will adapt to the BMC Helix Platform Foundation data model. If you have already performed the initial load, then as an administrator, you must load the data manually by using the Data Management Console. For more information, see Loading the region and site group data in bulk for existing users.

Set allowed or disallowed attachments types

Administrators can modify the list of allowed or disallowed attachment types. Users are prevented from uploading files that are disallowed by their organization.

For more information, see Allowing or disallowing attachments by type.

Attachment file extension list

Create filter presets on a View that is locked for customization

Filter presets are filters created at design time used to control what is displayed to the end users at runtime. You can now create filter presets for a View that is locked for customization.

These presets are called shared filter presets and have the following benefits:

The shared filter presets now offer more control when you provide a search criteria. This helps in improving the system performance because only those records that match the search criteria are loaded.
As a developer, you can create any number of shared filter presets to suit your business needs.

To know more about filter presets, see Defining filter presets to search records.

The following image shows how shared filter presets are displayed at runtime:

Copy a process to your target application without reconciliation

You can extend a process and distribute it as a content package to customize your application. To do this, you can copy and override the process from the source application and extend its functionality to your target application. Data reconciliation is not required if the source process is changed or affected.

To learn how to copy a process, see Copying a process.

Configure and download server logs from BMC Helix Innovation Studio

In the Administration tab, access to logging has been expanded to include enabling capturing server logs and downloading them from BMC Helix Innovation Studio.

On the Server Logs page, you can enable server logs and download both server logs and logs per bundle. You can also set a beginning and end time interval for capturing server logs. The logs are only turned on for the given time interval and turned off when the set time has elapsed.

For more information, see Enabling and downloading logs from BMC Helix Innovation Studio.

Application development enhancements

Export and import custom record data between environments

The Data Management Console not only helps you load Foundation data in bulk, it also enables you to load or export data for custom records in your applications.

Use the Data Management Console to perform the following actions:

Export data from records and associated records.
Preview the data to be exported.
Import data into records.
Define data mapping, handle duplicate records, and transform the format of the imported data.

For more information, see Importing and Exporting data in applications using the Data Management Console.

Support for Danish and Norwegian languages

BMC Helix Platform supports Danish and Norwegian languages. When you use BMC Helix Innovation Studio and the applications built on it, you can view the application UI in these languages.

For a list of supported locales, see Localizing a Digital Service application.

Support for webhook definitions registered with DocuSign

BMC Helix Platform supports webhook callbacks from DocuSign, in addition to Adobe Sign. This functionality ensures that BMC Helix Platform receives real-time notifications whenever an event takes place in DocuSign. These notifications can then be used to trigger specific actions in applications developed on BMC Helix Platform.

To learn how to configure the webhook callback for DocuSign, see Configuring a webhook callback for external applications.

Display image from an attachment and enable rich text editing for application users

Views are the graphical user interface of your application. We've added two new out of the box View Components you can now leverage in your apps.

Image—Displays an image stored in an attachment field.
Rich Text Area—Enables application users to use rich text formatting in a text input field.

For details, see view definition components. To learn how to configure the Image components, see Displaying images from attachments at runtime.

Use The following view definition components can be used to display image from an attachment and enable rich text editing:

What else changed in this release

From this release, note the following significant changes in the product behavior:

Update	Product behavior in versions earlier than 20.08	Product behavior from version 20.08
Add fields from records and associated records in the content packages	The Expression Editor does not display the fields from the associated records.	You can include fields from records and associated records while creating a content package. For more information, see Creating content packages to deploy tailoring changes of applications.
New field when you create a REST API web request definition: Encode Request Parameters	This field is not present.	This field is added to enable developers to encode the REST API Request parameters. For more information, see Creating a REST API web service request definition.
New centralized configuration setting to define whether a user can access a particular record instance.	Disable-New-RLS-Implementation setting is used to enable or disable row-level access to a user.	The Disable-New-RLS-Implementation setting is replaced by RLS-Implementation setting. For more information, see Updating centralized tenant configuration settings.
Download attachments from a record grid.	This capability is absent.	Download attachments from a record grid by clicking on the file name. For more information, see Creating a tabular view of record instances by using a record grid.