Smart IT permissions

This topic includes the following information:

Overview

General access to Smart IT, its capabilities, and data is controlled by BMC Remedy ITSM application permissions. For example, a Smart IT user with BMC Change Management application permissions has access to the change graphs in the Smart IT Dashboard as well as other Smart IT change management related capabilities and data. Some permissions are required before a user can open the Smart IT UI, while other optional permissions can extend the capabilities of the user. Which permissions are mandatory and which permissions are optional depend on the job the person associated with the login ID needs to do. Permissions can also be combined, so that one person can perform multiple jobs if necessary.

If you are setting up Smart IT to work with an existing BMC Remedy ITSM installation, the People records might already have the necessary permissions to work with Smart IT. BMC recommends, however, that you use the information in this topic to ensure that any existing People records have the correct permissions to access the Smart IT capabilities and data, according to the person's role in the organization.

Smart IT roles

Smart IT has its own broadly defined concept of roles, which are described in the following table. These roles are referred to later in this topic when describing permissions and should not be confused with the BMC Remedy ITSM functional roles described elsewhere in the BMC Remedy ITSM documentation.

Notes

The terminology used in the Related jobs column of the following table might be different from that used by your organization. Use Related jobs only as a general guide to what the person does.
The activities listed in the Example activities column and the extent to which they can be performed in some cases depend on the exact permissions granted to the individual. For example, when updating knowledge articles, the extent to which knowledge article metadata can be updated by a Knowledge Author depends on the level of BMC Knowledge Management permissions the Knowledge Author has. Likewise, Change Agents cannot create change request tickets if they only have Infrastructure Change Viewer permissions; however, they can access the Create New link.

Smart IT role name	Related jobs	Example activities
ITSM Agent	Anyone who performs one or more of the following jobs in your organization: Service Desk Agent 1st and 2nd Line Support Agent Field Support Agent	ITSM Agents perform the following activities in Smart IT: (Universal client only) View Incident and Work Order graphs on the Dashboard. (Universal client only) View Service Request graphs on the Dashboard if BMC Service Request Management is installed. Access and update the following ticket types from the Ticket Console, Global search, or the Updates feed: incident work order service request task Create incident tickets and work order tickets from Smart Recorder and from the Create menu. Add tasks to an incident or work order. Create service request records from Smart Recorder (using a service request template). Create broadcasts from the Create New menu.
Change Agent	Anyone who performs one or more of the following jobs in your organization: Change Submitters Change Implementers Change Approvers	Change Agents perform the following activities in Smart IT: (Universal client only) View change management graphs on the Dashboard. Access and update change request tickets from the Ticket Console. Add tasks to a change request Create change request tickets and broadcasts from the Create New menu.
Knowledge Author	Anyone who performs the following activities in your organization: Creates knowledge articles (from scratch, existing content, or while resolving incident requests). Searches for knowledge articles Edits knowledge articles. Performs administration activities on knowledge articles (for example, updating the status of an article, flagging the article, and so on). Note ITSM Agents often also have Knowledge Author permissions.	Knowledge Authors perform the following activities in Smart IT: Create knowledge articles from the Create New menu. Access and update knowledge articles (their content and metadata) from the Knowledge Console, Global search, and Updates feed. Access Knowledge, Asset, and People data from Global search. Create new broadcast messages
ITSM Admin	Anyone who configures Smart IT or performs other application related administrative functions.	ITSM Admins manage the following aspects of Smart IT from the Configuration menu: Screen Configuration Knowledge Template Styles

Basic requirements to access Smart IT

The basic requirements for accessing Smart IT depend on what the person needs to do.

Smart IT access

Everyone who uses Smart IT as a user (that is, not as an administrator), must have permissions from the ITSM Agent role, the Change Agent role, or the Knowledge Author role, as described in the preceding table. Make sure you review the Permissions descriptions to ensure you assign all of the required permissions for a particular Smart IT role.

Note

Someone with only ITSM Admin permission cannot access the Smart IT UI.

Additionally, people accessing the Smart IT UI must have access restrictions defined in their People record. Smart IT uses access restrictions to determine what company information it displays on the dashboard.

For example, basic access requirements for a Smart IT user might look like this:

Access restrictions defined + ITSM Agent role permissions
Access restrictions defined + Change Agent role permissions
Access restrictions defined + Knowledge Author role permissions

Administrator access

Anyone who performs Smart IT configuration or administration activities must have permissions from either the ITSM Agent role or the Change Agent role.

Additionally, an administrator also needs ITSM Admin permissions.

For example, basic Smart IT access requirements for an Administrator might look like this:

ITSM Agent role + ITSM Admin role permissions
Change Agent role + ITSM Admin role permissions

Smart IT user and Admin access

Anyone who needs to access Smart IT as a user and who also needs to work as an administrator must have: access restrictions defined, a role permission, and ITSM Admin permissions.

For example, basic Smart IT access requirements for someone working as both a Smart IT user and as an administrator might look like this:

Access restrictions defined + ITSM Agent role permissions + ITSM Admin role permissions
Access restrictions defined + Change Agent role permissions + ITSM Admin role permissions

Multiple roles

People who fulfill multiple roles within an organization need multiple permissions. For example, Ian Plyment is a second level service desk agent who needs to look at incident tickets and to create change requests when required. This means that Ian needs both ITSM Agent role and the Change Agent role permissions. Ian also needs to publish knowledge articles and so he also has Knowledge Author role permissions.

Ian's access and permissions look like this:

Access restrictions defined + ITSM Agent role permissions + Change Agent role permissions + Knowledge Author role permissions

Note

In Smart IT, people without Viewer permissions (for example, Problem Viewer permissions) are still able to see the high-level summary views of records that are not yet fully supported by Smart IT (known error and problem investigation) . For example, in Smart IT, if you don't have Problem Viewer permissions, you are still able to see the Problem Summary view of the problem investigation ticket. This is because the Problem Summary view in Smart IT shows almost the same amount of information that you would see in a row of any Relationship table in the Standard BMC Remedy ITSM applications.

Permissions descriptions

This section outlines the permissions needed to access Smart IT, organised according to the Smart IT roles described earlier in this topic. In some cases, there are several permissions that you can choose from. Select the permission that best matches the person's function in the organisation. For example, if a manager needs one of the Change Agent permissions, you might give that person Infrastructure Change Master permissions, rather than Infrastructure Change User permissions.

ITSM Admin permissions

An ITSM Admin must have AR System Administrator permissions to enable field configuration and perform general system level administrative tasks, such as configuration, setting up user accounts, and so on.

In addition, if an ITSM Admin provides administration for support groups, that person needs Struct Admin permissions.

ITSM Agent permissions

The following table lists the permissions that ITSM Agents must have:

Note

An ITSM Agent needs one permission from each row in the following table.
A user ID can have more than one permission from each row in the table.

Category	Permission	Additional information
BMC Service Desk: Incident Management	At least one of the following permissions is required: Incident User Incident Master	None
BMC Asset Management	At least one of the following permissions is required: Asset User Asset Viewer	None
Task Management System	At least one of the following permissions is required: Task User Task Manager	None
(Only if installed) BMC Service Request Management	At least two of the following permission are required (one from each type): Work Order permission type: Work Order User Work Order Master Additional permission type: Service Request User SRM Administrator Business Manager Examples Work Order User + Service Request User Work Order Master + SRM Administrator	When BMC Service Request Management is installed on your system, the ITSM Agent login ID must have at least two BMC Service Request Management permissions. You must grant these permissions when BMC Service Request Management is installed, even if the person to whom you are granting the permissions does not use the BMC Service Request Management application.

The specific permission that you assign from each BMC Remedy ITSM application depends on the specific role the person fulfills in your organization. For example, depending on the ITSM Agent's exact role in the organization, you might need to assign the following permissions:

Incident User
Asset Viewer
Task Manager
Work Order Master (only if BMC Remedy Service Request Management is also installed)
SRM Administrator (only if BMC Remedy Service Request Management is also installed)

Change Agent permissions

Change Agents must have at least one of the following permissions. The specific permissions that you assign depends on the specific role the person fulfills in your organization:

Infrastructure Change User
Infrastructure Change Master
Infrastructure Change Viewer
Infrastructure Change Submit

Note

Access to Change Management functionality in Smart IT depends upon the level of permissions. For example, Infrastructure Change Viewers cannot create change request tickets in Smart IT, but they can access the Create New link.

In addition to needing one of the BMC Change Management permissions listed above, a Change Agent must have Asset Viewer permissions (from the BMC Asset Management permissions). If the person for whom you are setting up the user ID is also a ITSM Agent, that person might already have this permission. If this is the case, you do not need to assign the permission again.

The specific permissions that you assign depends on the specific role the person fulfills in your organization.

Knowledge Author permissions

Knowledge Authors must have at least one of the following BMC Knowledge Management permission:

Knowledge Admin
Knowledge User
Knowledge Submitter

In addition to one of the BMC Knowledge Management permissions, a Knowledge Author must be a member of a support group and have one of the following BMC Asset Management permissions:

Asset Viewer
Asset User
Asset Admin

Notes

If the person for whom you are setting up the user ID is also a ITSM Agent, they might already have some Asset permissions. If the person has already has these permissions, you do not need to assign the permissions again.
With the Asset permissions, Knowledge Authors can update their own profile. If you add Foundation – Contact People permissions, which are not mandatory, the Knowledge Author is able to update profiles for other people (support and nonsupport).
For Knowledge Authors to configure knowledge templates, they need ITSM Admin permissions.

The specific permissions that you assign depends on the specific role the person fulfills in your organization.

Updating or changing permissions

If you need to update the permissions for existing support staff, see the information under "Updating permissions for support staff" in the Adding support staff topic of the BMC Remedy ITSM suite online documentation.