Configuring cognitive service for custom applications by using IBM Watson activated by BMC

BMC Helix Cognitive Automation is a licensed service that uses the IBM Watson machine learning capability. An administrator can configure BMC Helix Cognitive Automation administration credentials.

After BMC has activated the necessary IBM Watson services, BMC also configures BMC Helix Innovation Studio to communicate with IBM Watson. 

If you have opted for one of the following plans, a single instance of IBM Watson services is provided for production, QA, and tailoring environments of BMC Helix Innovation Studio:

• IBM Watson Assistant Plus plan
• IBM Watson Assistant Premium plan
• IBM Watson Discovery Advanced plan
• IBM Watson Discovery Premium plan
  
  

Cognitive service credentials and region settings

After you subscribe to the BMC Helix Cognitive Automation, BMC sends you an invite to join IBM Cloud as part of your onboarding process. You must set your user name and password for IBM Cloud by using this invite. You require these credentials when you configure the BMC Helix Cognitive Automation in BMC Helix Innovation Studio.

BMC SaaS Operations sets the region for all services to match the BMC Helix Innovation Studio data center. You can override this default region for each IBM Watson service.

The following table lists the regions supported by BMC and their mapping with IBM Watson services locations:

To learn more about the regions supported by IBM Watson services, see  Service and infrastructure availability  in IBM documentation. 

Before you begin

• Ensure that you subscribe to the appropriate service to configure the services for your application.
• The IBM Cloud platform API key is used by BMC Helix Innovation Studio and it is recommended that you lock the API key so that it is not deleted. To know how to lock the platform API key, see Locking a platform API key  in the IBM Watson documentation.
  
  
• If you want to override the default region setting for IBM Watson services provisioned to you, note the region of the services from IBM Cloud > Resource List > Services > Location, as shown in the following example:
  
  
  

Process to configure BMC Helix Cognitive Automation

The following image shows the steps to configure BMC Helix Cognitive Automation:

To invite users to work in IBM Watson services

As an administrator, you can invite users with administrator or non-administrator permissions to work in IBM Watson Assistant, IBM Watson Discovery, and IBM Watson Tone Analyzer services. 

Perform this procedure only if the following condition is true:

• You do not have the Premium plan of IBM Watson Assistant or IBM Watson Discovery.
  If you have the Premium plan, contact BMC Support to invite users from your organization. For more information, see  IBM Watson Assistant pricing  or  IBM Watson Discovery pricing .

1. Log in to IBM Cloud. 
2. Perform the tasks described in  Resource group access  in the IBM documentation and fill out the following BMC-specific values: 
   
   1. In the Services tab, from the Resource group list, select one of the following groups:
      
      • tenantname-dev—To invite users in the developer environment. 
      • tenantname-prod—To invite users in the production environment.
      • tenantname-qa—To invite users in the QA environment.
   2. From the Assign access to a resource group list, select one of the following options:
      • Administrator—For users with administrator permissions.
      • Viewer—For users with non-administrator permissions.
   3. From the Services list, select Watson Assistant or Discovery. 
      You can select only one service at a time.
   4. From the Regions list, select the appropriate region of IBM Watson Assistant or IBM Watson Discovery instance. 
      You can get the region from IBM Cloud > Resource list > Services > Location.
   5. In Assign Platform Access Roles, select one of the following check boxes:
      • Administrator and Manager—For users with administrator permissions.
      • Viewer and Writer—For users with non-administrator permissions.

Learn more about  IAM roles  in the IBM documentation. 

The following image is an example of filling out BMC-specific values when inviting users:

To configure the region for an IBM Watson service

To override the default region setting provided by an administrator, you can change the region for your tenancy. 

1. Log in to BMC Helix Innovation Studio and navigate to the Administration tab.
2. Select Cognitive and chatbot > Cognitive service.
3. From the Configure list, select Cognitive service regions.
4. In the Cognitive service regions section, select the appropriate region for the service that you noted earlier.
5. Save the settings. 
   If you want to use the default setting for a service, do not select any value for that service.  
   
   
   

After you change the region for an IBM Watson service, ensure that you also update the cognitive automation service credentials for the correct region.

To add the IBM Cloud administrator API key

To ensure that you can create unlimited cognitive training data sets for auto-categorization and auto-assignment, as permitted by IBM Watson, you must enter the IBM Cloud administrator credentials.

1. Log in to BMC Helix Innovation Studio and navigate to the Administration tab.
2. Select Cognitive and chatbot > Cognitive service.
3. From the Configure list, select Cognitive administration credentials.
4. In the Cognitive administration credentials section, enter the platform API key that you generated earlier.
   
   
   
   
5. Save the credentials.

To configure IBM Watson Assistant for auto-categorization

You must configure the instance of IBM Watson Assistant that you are using for auto-categorization, email analysis, and change risk scoring capabilities.

1. Log in to BMC Helix Innovation Studio and navigate to the Administration tab.
2. Select Cognitive and chatbot > Cognitive service.
3. From the Configure list, select Cognitive service connections.

4. Expand the  IBM Watson™ Assistant for natural language classification section.

5. On the API Key tab, enter the API key of the IBM Watson Assistant instance, as shown in the following image:
   
   
   
6. To test the connection, click Test.
   If the connection fails, verify the region and the API key.
7. Save the settings.

To provide skill-level permissions in IBM Watson Assistant service for chatbot

If you have subscribed to the IBM Watson Plus or Premium plans, BMC provisions an IBM Watson Assistant service with the Reader permission (or role) for the skills. Users with the Reader permission can view the skills, but cannot edit them. 

After you have invited users to whom you want to provide skill-level permissions, as an administrator, you can provide the Writer permission to your users by performing the following steps: 

1. Log in to IBM Watson Assistant. 
2. In the page header, click the user icon.
3. Note the current service instance name, and from the list, select Manage Users.
4. In the pane, click Users.
   Users that you invited to collaborate with you on any service instance, are listed in the pane.
5. To see the level of access a user has, click the user's email address and then click the Access policies tab.
   A list of instances that the user has access to is displayed.
6. Click Assign access. 
7. On the Assign access to username, 

   1. Click Add.

   2. In the Access summary pane, click Assign. 
      To know more about the skill level permissions and how to assign them to users, see  Managing access to resources  in IBM documentation.

The following image is an example of assigning the Writer permission for a skill:

To import Skills between developer, production, and QA environments 

If you have subscribed to the IBM Watson Plus or Premium plans, three skills are provided—Chatbot, ChatOps, and ChatITOps and the same Skill is used in all the three instances—development, QA, and production. After upgrading to the IBM Watson Plus or Premium plans, if you want to export a Skill from one environment to the other, you must add the target environment type suffix to the Skill name in the following format:

• To import a Skill from QA or Developer instance to Production instance—Skillname - prod
• To import a Skill from Developer or Production instance to QA instance—Skillname - qa
• To import a Skill from Production or QA instance to Developer instance—Skillname - dev

1. Log in to IBM Watson Assistant instance from which you want to export a Skill.
2. Navigate to the Skill that you want to export.
3.  Click the menu icon and click Export, as shown in the following image:
   
   
   
   A JSON file is downloaded. 
4. Open the JSON file in any JSON editor such as Notepad ++. 
5.  In the name tag, rename the Skill name in the following format:
   
   • Production instance—Skillname - prod
   • QA instance—Skillname - qa
   • Developer instance—Skillname - dev
6. Save the JSON file.
7. In the same IBM Watson Assistant instance, click the menu icon and click Import. 
   The Skill is imported with the new name. 

Where to go from here

Training and testing the cognitive service for a custom application

Related topics

Configuring cognitive service for custom applications by using your own IBM Watson services

Adding cognitive capabilities to a custom application