Broadcasting messages

You can send messages to your entire organization, selected groups within the organization, and to external customers by using the broadcast feature. You can use send messages about work in progress, outages, knowledge article updates, and so on. You can also use this feature to view messages that were broadcast to you from other groups in your organization.

Broadcasts are filtered, based on the following criteria:

• Global and company-specific broadcasts are displayed to logged-in users.
• Only Global broadcasts are displayed to guest users.

You can send broadcasts to a company or location (site) to which you have access. For example, you can send a broadcast to users at a certain campus location and building that is supported by your group, to notify them of maintenance work. The broadcasts are active during the start and end time that you specify.

https://youtu.be/CY5CkaakfLg

Before you begin

To create a broadcast, you must have the Broadcast Submitter functional role.

To create a broadcast message

1. On the application console, click View broadcast or New broadcast.
2. In the View broadcast dialog box, click Create.
3. Enter information in the required fields.
   Required fields appear in bold on the Broadcast Details tab.

   • The Company field is mandatory. To specify a specific part of the company, fill in the other location fields. For example, you can specify the site, organization, or department.
     Out of the box, you can only define broadcast messages for the Global company.

   • Broadcast Start Date and Broadcast End Date — To start the broadcast now, click in the Broadcast Start Date field. Click Browse to select a start and end date from the calendar. You can also specify times of the day by using the Time option available at the bottom of the calendar.

   • Broadcast Originated From — This field is automatically filled in according to the source from where you are creating the broadcast. If you create a broadcast from an investigation, the value is set to Problem Investigation.
   • Broadcast Originated From ID — When you define a broadcast from within a record, this field is automatically filled in. If you define a broadcast from the main console, the field is unavailable.
   • View Access — To make the broadcast visible only to members of your organization, select Internal. To make the broadcast visible from the Requester console, select Public.

   • Send to Twitter? — To post the broadcast message by using a configured Twitter account, select Yes. For additional information about receiving broadcast messages through Twitter, see Receiving BMC Helix ITSM broadcasts in RSS Feeds and on Twitter.

     Important

     This option is available only when you select Global in the Company field and set the View Access value to Public.

   • Notify — Select Yes to send broadcast notification automatically to an individual or group.
     If you select Yes, the Email option and the Notify Support area appears.
     • Select Manual Email to manually send an email about the broadcast. On the Email System form, enter Internet Email, and then click Send Email Now.
     • Use the Notify Support area to indicate which group to notify of the broadcast. You must complete all three fields--Support Company, Support Organization, and Support Group. The notification is sent according to the Broadcast Start Date field.
   • Priority — Select a priority level for the broadcast.
4. To add an attachment to the broadcast, right-click inside the table and select Add from the menu.
   Only one attachment is allowed for each broadcast.
5. To add members of another group to be able to modify the message, click Authoring Groups > Manage Authoring Groups and select the group to provide authoring rights, and then click Add.
6. Click Save.

To view broadcast messages

If you belong to an authorized authoring group, you can modify the message and define a new broadcast message while you view broadcasts. Also, when you view the message from the current record, you can relate the broadcast message to the current record.

1. On the application console, click New broadcast, which notifies you when there are new, unread broadcast messages.
2. Select the message to view from the Broadcast table, and then click View.
3. To view another message, close the View Broadcasts dialog box, select the broadcast message to view, and then click View.

Controlling the timing of broadcast pop-up messages

From the BMC Asset Management, BMC Change Management, BMC Service Desk: Incident Management, and BMC Service Desk Problem Management consoles, you can control the timing of broadcast pop-up messages. Broadcast pop-up messages alert you to the presence of broadcast messages.

The options are:

• Never — Broadcast messages do not automatically pop up on the screen. You must click View Broadcast to view them.
• On Console Open — New broadcasts messages are displayed on the screen when you open a console for the first time. After you view the broadcast from any console, the pop-up message does not appear unless there is a new broadcast message.
• On Console Refresh — New broadcast messages display only when you refresh the console by clicking the Refresh button available in the top right corner of the console.

The On Console Open and On Console Refresh options display the broadcast pop-up alert only in certain scenarios.

Scenario	On Console Open option	On Console Refresh option
You log in to a new session and open any console for the first time. New broadcast messages are available since the last time you logged in.
While you are logged in to a current session, new broadcast messages become available. You then open any console for the first time.
While you are logged in to a current session, new broadcast messages become available. You reopen a console in the current session, and click the Refresh button on that console.
You log in to a new session and open any console for the first time. There are no new broadcast messages since the last time you logged in.
While you are logged in to a current session, new broadcasts become available. You reopen a console in the current session, but you do not click the Refresh button on that console.
In a current session, you have already viewed the new broadcasts from one console. You then open another console for the first time, or reopen a console in the current session, and then click the Refresh button.

To set the timing of pop-up messages

1. From the application console, select Functions > Application Preferences.
2. In the Request Preferences form, click the Broadcast tab.
3. In the Broadcast Auto Popup field, specify one of the following default settings:
   • Never
   • On Console Open
   • On New Broadcast

4. Click Save.
   For the changes to take effect, you must close the application and log in again.