20.08 enhancements and patches

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

BMC applies upgrades as described in  BMC Helix Upgrade policy . BMC applies upgrades and patches during Maintenance windows . 

20.08.16

Tracking flow status changes with additional audit details

The flow audit records include details the time and the user that changed the status of a flow to enabled or disabled to track the status of the flows. 

For more information about viewing audit details for a flow, see Viewing audit history of flows for tracking changes.

Managing the processing of a large number of records for integrations using BMC Helix ITSM or Jira connectors to avoid system overload

Throttling controls for the BMC Helix ITSM and Jira connectors include a fail safe for processing large number of records by enabling users to set the maximum limit for records to be processed. The records retrieved are processed based on their time stamp, and records that are not polled during the current flow run, are processed during following flow run to ensure no record data is lost.

For more information about how the connectors process the records, see Adding throttling controls.

Flow metrics API to retrieve detailed flow metrics data

The flow-metrics API enables administrators to retrieve the following flow metrics data:

• Average number of records processed
• Max number of records
• Max time for a flow run
• Average time for a flow run

For more information about viewing the metrics by using the flow-metrics API, see Viewing flow metrics by using APIs.

20.08.15

Configure polling limits to enhance connector performance

For flows that use the Jira, AR System, or BMC Helix ITSM connectors, enhance the performance of the connectors and avoid memory space issues by limiting the number of records processed for each flow run.

For more information about configuring the polling limits, see Adding or updating a configuration.

Updated memory allocation for ActiveMQ container

The default memory allocation for the ActiveMQ container, both minimum and maximum values have updated to 6 GB, instead of 4 GB to avoid memory for enhanced performance.

For more information about troubleshooting Integration Controller issues, see Troubleshooting Integration Controller issues.

20.08.13

Connector updates

The following connectors and out-of-the-box integration flow have been updated to support infrastructure-based service resolution integration use case of Proactive Service Resolution (PSR):

• Helix Ops Mgmt for PSR connector

• ITSM for PSR connector 

• Helix Operations Management Event to create ITSM Incident flow

In this use case, the incidents generated in BMC Helix ITSM for BMC Helix Operations Management events, include information about the affected CIs and impacted areas. 

Support to update date/time fields

Add minutes to the DateTime value by using the updateDateTime() function while transforming mapped fields in a new or existing flow.

For more information about the updateDateTime() function, see String transformation functions.

Automatically create service requests for BMC Helix Business Workflows cases

Automatically create a service request for a BMC Helix Business Workflows case by adding the Create Request field while defining  the field mappings for a BMC Helix Business Workflows connector flow. 

20.08.12

Updates to mandatory field to define Jira connector triggers

To enable users to query issues from a large number of projects, the Project field is no longer mandatory when defining a trigger for the Jira connector. Users can define a trigger without a project in the query condition.

20.08.05

Updated throttling and filters options for connector configuration

• The throttling configurations defined for a connector are applied to actions directly executed from BMC Helix Integration Studio to enable throttling limits to the flows executed from BMC Helix Integration Service. Previously, the throttling configurations were applicable only for actions directly executed from BMC Helix Innovation Studio. 
• Users can define a filter to generate a custom schema by using the JIRA Issue ID field added to the JIRA connector configuration page options. 

20.08.04

Updated data string transformation for the Date/Time format

The data string transformation for the Date/Time format has been changed to YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.SSS+0000 from the previously used (YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.SSSZ) format. This change ensures that the values for Date/Time are processed correctly for both on-premises and cloud versions of JIRA Service Desk. 

Support for Regex for advanced string transformations

String transformations now provide support for Regular Expression (regex) for advanced search and manipulation of text strings. Regex enables users to easily replace multiple lines of programming codes.

20.08.03

Support for additional mapping fields

When creating a flow by using specific connectors, the following fields are available in the Mapping Field list:

• Custom fields of type Single Group Picker are available when you use the JIRA connector as a source or target
• Assignee field is available when you use the BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Broker connector as a source or target

20.08.02

Updated Tenant Administrator access for connector accounts

Tenant Administrators can access the accounts configured for connectors by other Tenant Administrators to create tenant level flows.

Provide self-signed certificates for Jira Service Desk authentication

Add certificate information to the Jira Service Desk connector configuration. This certificate is used by BMC Helix Integration Service to connect to the Jira Service Desk account when the instance does not have a valid security certificate.

20.08.00

Easily develop new connectors by using the enhanced BMC Helix Connector Designer

The new connector designer provides an intuitive user interface to help you design your connectors with ease. Some key highlights of the new BMC Helix Connector Designer include: 

• Enhanced user interface to define connector configurations, including queries and look ups
• Test connector configuration from within the BMC Helix Connector Designer
• Revised connector code file structure for better management of customizations on update of connector configurations
• Easily update connectors developed in earlier versions of the BMC Helix Connector Designer to update in the new BMC Helix Connector Designer
• Deploy and test connectors on developer site before deploying them to production
• BMC Remedy Single Sign On for secure login to BMC Helix Connector Designer
• Remote debugging of connector by using your own developer tools

For more information about the changes in the BMC Helix Connector Designer, see Finding the connector designer configuration options in the new version of BMC Helix Connector Designer.

For more information about creating a new custom connector by using the new BMC Helix Connector Designer, see Developing connectors.

View the audit history of changes made to a flow and connector configurations

Change history for flows

Change history for connectors

As a Tenant Administrator, view the history of changes made to a flow to troubleshoot flow issues, and audit and control changes made to a flow. The audit history of the changes made to a flow, and connector configurations related to the connectors in the flow can help trace changes. This would help troubleshooting any flow or connector issues, that occur after the flow or any connector configurations are updated.

 For more information about the Viewing audit history of flows for tracking changes.

Applying the patch

If you are a BMC Helix Platform customer and want to apply the patch, you must request for an upgrade. For more information, see  BMC Helix Upgrade policy  in the BMC Helix Subscriber Information documentation.

1. There was no patch with version number 20.08.14 ↩
2. There are no patches with version numbers 20.08.06, 20.08.07, 20.08.08, 20.08.10, and 20.08.11 ↩   ↩