21.3 patches

Review the fixes and updates in patches to BMC Helix ITSM 21.3 that might impact your users.

Important

New features, enhancements, and defect fixes were delivered in versions 21.3 and 21.3.01 for SaaS customers. Starting with 21.3.02 patch release, these updates are also available for on-premises customers. For more information, see Release-notes-and-notices.

Available patches

Patch version	SaaS	On premises	Defect fixes	Updates
21.3.11	✅️		Known-and-corrected-issues Defect fixes in Smart IT	Updates in 21.3.11
21.3.10	✅️	✅️	Known-and-corrected-issues Defect fixes in Smart IT	Updates in 21.3.10
21.3.09	✅️		Known-and-corrected-issues Defect fixes in Smart IT	Updates in 21.3.09Action Request System 21.3 patches
21.3.08	✅️		Known-and-corrected-issues Defect fixes in Smart IT	None
21.3.07	✅️		Known-and-corrected-issues Defect fixes in Smart IT	Updates in 21.3.07Action Request System 21.3 patches
21.3.06	✅️	✅️	Known-and-corrected-issues Defect fixes in Smart IT	Updates in 21.3.06Action Request System 21.3 patches
21.3.05	✅️	✅️	Known-and-corrected-issues Defect fixes in Smart IT	Action Request System 21.3 patches
21.3.04	✅️	✅️	Known-and-corrected-issues Defect fixes in Smart IT	Action Request System 21.3 patches
21.3.03	✅️		Defect fixes in BMC Helix ITSM Defect fixes in Smart IT	None
21.3.02	✅️	✅️	This patch contains defect fixes in Smart IT	Updates in 21.3.02Action Request System 21.3 patches
21.3.01	✅️		This patch contains defect fixes in Smart IT	Updates in 21.3.01Action Request System 21.3 patches

Updates in 21.3.11

(Controlled availability customers only) Facilitate application access to users having different email domains

Allow multiple users having different email domains and authentication mechanisms to access the same application URL by enabling BMC Helix Single Sign-On (SSO) based multiple service providers (MSP) in your environment.

MSP incorporates a robust authentication mechanism, ensuring an exclusive and secure access to the application.

After configuring the authorization patterns, when you enable MSP in your environment and access BMC Helix ITSM applications, the following screen asking for user authorization is displayed:

Enter your user name to complete the authorization and then you are redirected to the following application login screen asking for your application login credentials for authentication:

For information about enabling BMC Helix Single Sign-On based MSP in BMC Helix Innovation Suite application, see Facilitating application access to users having different email domains.

Updates in 21.3.10

Select a row-level security algorithm for fast data retrieval

Select from multiple, row level security (RLS) algorithms to enhance row level access control and improve server performance by retrieving the record data faster. For more information, see Improving data retrieval performance by selecting a row level security algorithm.

Support for Kubernetes 1.25 and OpenShift 4.12

BMC Helix Service Management deployment supports Kubernetes version 1.25 and OpenShift version 4.12.

The supported versions of Kubernetes and OpenShift are as follows:

Kubernetes versions - 1.23 – 1.25
Important
If you are using BMC Helix Service Management in Kubernetes version 1.25, make sure that you use the baseline pod security standard when you enable pod security standards in your namespace.
OpenShift versions - 4.10 – 4.12

For more information, see System requirements.

Support for Ingress controller 1.7.0 and Helm 3.11

BMC Helix Service Management deployment supports Ingress controller versions 1.6.4 and 1.7.0, and Helm version 3.11.

Supported Ingress and Helm versions with the orchestration platforms are as follows:

Orchestration platform	Ingress	Helm
Kubernetes 1.25	1.7.0	3.11
Kubernetes 1.24	1.7.0
Kubernetes 1.23	1.6.4
OpenShift 4.12	1.7.0
OpenShift 4.11	1.7.0
OpenShift 4.10	1.6.4

For more information, see System requirements.

Migration of container images to the Alpine operating system

All the BMC Helix Innovation Suite and applications container images that are hosted on the BMC Docker Trusted Registry (DTR) have been migrated from CentOS to the Alpine operating system.

Additional products available for on-premises installation

The following products are available in BMC Helix Service Management, and you can install them in your on-premises environment:

BMC Helix Portfolio Management (HPM)
BMC Helix Customer Service Management (CSM)
Drift Management

For more information, see Performing the BMC Helix IT Service Management installation.

What else changed in this release

The following table lists the changes in the product behavior in this patch:

Update	Product behavior in versions earlier than 21.3.10	Product behavior in version 21.3.10
Changes to the structure the bmc repository that contains the BMC Helix Service Management container images	The bmc/lp00x repository contained the BMC Helix Service Management container images. For example, containers.bmc.com/bmc/lp00x:ARS-213006HF-202211181051-21306-HF7	Each component has a separate repository such as ars, midtier, cmdb, and virtualchat. These repositories contain the images for the respective component, the AR System images are located in the ars repository, and the Mid Tier images are located in the midtier repository. For example, containers.bmc.com/bmc/ars:21310HF-202306221501 and containers.bmc.com/bmc/midtier:21310-RTM
Changes to Git repository parameter in the HELIX_ONPREM_DEPLOYMENT pipeline	While building the HELIX_ONPREM_DEPLOYMENT pipeline, to specify the Git repositories location, you had to provide values for parameters such as DEVOPS_REPO, CUSTOMER_CONFIGS, PLAYBOOKS_REPO, HELM_REPO, and SMARTAPPS_HELM_REPO.	While building the HELIX_ONPREM_DEPLOYMENT pipeline, you only have to specify the location of the directory that contains all the Git repositories in the GIT_REPO_DIR parameter.
Parameters removed from the HELIX_ONPREM_DEPLOYMENT pipeline	While building the HELIX_ONPREM_DEPLOYMENT pipeline, you had to provide values for the following parameters: FTS_ELASTICSEARCH_USERNAME HELIX_PLATFORM_CLUSTER HELIX_PLATFORM_KUBECONFIG_CREDENTIAL ITSM_USER ITSM_Password	These parameters are now managed through the HELIX_ONPREM_DEPLOYMENT pipeline code and are removed from the pipeline input to avoid parameter duplication.
Parameters added to the HELIX_ONPREM_DEPLOYMENT pipeline	NA	While building the HELIX_ONPREM_DEPLOYMENT pipeline, you have to specify the values for following parameters: CACERTS_SSL_TRUSTSTORE_PASSWORD HELIX_SMARTAPPS_CSM HELIX_SMARTAPPS_FAS HELIX_DRIFTMANAGEMENTPLUGIN SIDECAR_FLUENT_DETAIL_LOG HELIX_FULL_STACK_UPGRADE HELIX_RESTART DB_JDBC_URL LOGS_ELASTICSEARCH_TLS LOGS_ELASTICSEARCH_PASSWORD ENABLE_PLATFORM_INT_NORMALIZATION MIDTIERCACHEBUILDER_TRIGGER_PRELOAD MIDTIERCACHEBUILDER_SCHEDULE BWF_DEPLOY_SAMPLE_CONTENT_PACK AR_DATETIME AR_TIMEZONE For more information about these parameters, see Performing the BMC Helix IT Service Management installation.

Updates in 21.3.09

Discontinued parameters in Centralized configuration

Update	Product behavior in versions earlier than 21.3.09	Product behavior in version 21.3.09
Configuration parameters removed from Centralized configuration: whatFixURL whatFixEnabled whatFixMode arsystem.pwa_enable_self_help arsystem.pwa_self_help_url smartItCsp_script-src_900 smartItCsp_connect-src_900	These configuration parameters were used for enabling and loading the in-application self help in Smart IT.	These configuration parameters have been removed from Centralized configuration as the self-help menu is no longer available in Smart IT.

Updates in 21.3.07

BMC Helix ITSM Insights enhancements

Exclude fields from proactive problem management jobs

As a tenant administrator, you can hide certain fields containing sensitive information from users that are creating and running jobs in the proactive problem management workspace. By doing so, you enhance user privacy by restricting access to user data in compliance with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other regulations.
For more information, see Configuring additional stop words, number of jobs, and default number of clusters.

Updates in 21.3.06

Rebrand PWA screens in Smart IT

Rebrand embedded and custom Progressive Web Application (PWA) screens in Smart IT according to your company standards and requirements by using custom cascading style sheet (CSS) files and images.

To learn more, see Rebranding Progressive Web Application screens.

Updates in 21.3.02

Fixed the Apache Log4Shell security vulnerability in BMC Helix ITSM: Smart Reporting

The zero-day exploit for a vulnerability code named Log4Shell (CVE-2021-44228) was fixed in BMC Helix ITSM: Smart Reporting 21.3.02. A detailed description of the vulnerability can be found on the Apache Log4j Security Vulnerabilities page.

ITSM interops.png

Support for BMC Helix ITSM Insights and BMC Helix Dashboards deployment

BMC Helix IT Service Management supports deployment of BMC Helix ITSM Insights and BMC Helix Dashboards products in your on-premises environment. The BMC Helix IT Service Management deployment pipeline provides an option to select BMC Helix ITSM Insights and BMC Helix Dashboards deployment and you can optionally deploy the products along with other ITSM applications. The option is available for fresh installation and upgrade of BMC Helix IT Service Management.

For more information, see Performing the installation in BMC Helix Service Management Deployment documentation.

Availability of BMC Service Request Management

For new SaaS customers, starting with version 21.3.02 of BMC Helix ITSM, BMC Service Request Management is no longer available in new or fresh deployments of BMC Helix ITSM. We will continue to maintain the current BMC Service Request Management capabilities and to deliver minor updates to the solution, as needed for the existing customer base and those who migrate from OnPrem to SaaS, but no major design changes or major innovations are planned for BMC Service Request Management.

We recommend that SaaS customers use BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog to create and manage service request catalog items for your end users. Work Order management continues to be delivered with BMC Helix ITSM.

Review the availability of BMC Service Request Management in the following table:

Deployment type	Availability of BMC Service Request Management ¹
Deployment type	New or fresh deployment	Upgrade	Migration to SaaS
SaaS	❌️	✅️	-
On-premises	✅️	✅️	✅️

1 - By default, only the Request Entry, Work Order Console, New Work Order, and Search Work Order links are enabled after upgrading. If you enabled more links before the update, you must re-enable them after the upgrade.

(SaaS only) Enhance knowledge article management by integrating BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround

Boost your knowledge management experience by integrating BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround with Smart IT.

BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround provides the following benefits:

Extended language support and over 100 languages in auto-translation that reduces translation costs.
Preloaded knowledge articles that contain screenshots and videos.

Articles from BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management synchronized with BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround.

AI powered cognitive and natural language processing search capabilities that display the most relevant knowledge article to end users.
Ability to expose knowledge articles in a public portal to external users and to BMC Helix Digital Workplace and BMC Helix Virtual Agent users.
Support for KCS process and rich set of knowledge metrics and reports.
Ability to embed multimedia content into knowledge articles.

For more information, see Integrating-BMC-Helix-Knowledge-Management-by-ComAround-with-Smart-IT.

Change in the landing page for Smart IT

In Smart IT version 21.3 and later, when you log into Smart IT, the landing page is Ticket Console. In versions earlier to 21.3, the landing page was Dashboard.

In Smart IT version 21.3 and later, Ticket Console does not show the ticket statistics by default. To view ticket statistics, click Show Ticket Statistics.

Updates in 21.3.01

Launch Microsoft Teams chat from a major incident

You can launch Microsoft Teams (MS Teams) chat from the major incident screen. When launched, all the associated team members are invited to the chat. For more information, see Managing-and-tracking-major-incidents.

Map outgoing mailboxes to companies

Use the NTE:Config-EmailMailbox form to map companies with mailboxes. All email notifications to a specific company are sent through the mapped mailbox. To know more, see Configuring-default-notification-preferences.

(On premises only) Downloading and installing the patch

Download from EPD	See Downloading the installation files in BMC Helix Service Management Deployment online documentation .
Patch installation	See Upgrading BMC Helix IT Service Management to 21.3.06 in BMC Helix Service Management Deployment online documentation.

SaaS application patching

BMC applies patches during Maintenance windows.