DevOps integration

The development teams and IT operations teams of most organizations use different tools to manage and track their efforts. Using different tools can present a challenge to implementing DevOps practices across an organization. BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management aims at addressing the challenge of integrating the tools used by the IT operations teams with those used by development teams.

BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management provides the DevOps integration feature for the following vendor applications:

• Atlassian JIRA Software
• CA Agile Central
• Microsoft Azure DevOps

BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management helps integrate Remedy IT Service Management (ITSM) or BMC Helix IT Service Management (ITSM) with Agile Development tools such as Atlassian JIRA Software or CA Agile Central in the following manner:

• When a developer creates an issue in a tracking system such as Jira, BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management creates a corresponding change, incident, problem, or work order in Remedy ITSM based on the condition specified when configuring the feature. These records can be viewed by Smart IT agents in the Smart IT console. The issue ID is added to the Smart IT ticket and can be clicked to directly open the tracking system issue. 
• Similarly, when a change coordinator creates a change request in Remedy ITSM, BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management creates a corresponding user story in the Agile Development tool. The development team can view details of the change request in the tracking tool.
• BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management facilitates integration of Remedy ITSM with multiple instances of Jira. BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management supports full functionality for all the instances of Jira in your organization. See Use cases for more information about using multiple instances of Jira.

Configuring BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management for DevOps integration enables the following functionalities:

Using BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management without Smart IT

You can integrate BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management with tracking tools without using Smart IT. In addition to Smart IT console, you can use BMC Remedy Mid Tier to view change requests and incidents. When working without Smart IT, you cannot view the vendor ticket details. However, you can view the work logs to verify that tickets are being brokered.

When working without Smart IT, BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management supports all available features except the following:

• Ability to associate multiple issues (for example, Jira issues) with a single Remedy ITSM change request.
  
• Sending an activity note from Remedy ITSM to the tracking system.

DevOps integration for multiple Jira instances

When you integrate Remedy ITSM with multiple Jira instances, consider the following guidelines:

• There is no limit on the number of Jira instances that a BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management tenant can support.
• You must specify a unique name for each Jira instance for easy identification.
• You have the flexibility to define different field mappings and trigger conditions for each Jira instance.
• You can only combine Remedy ITSM tickets from a single Jira instance.

DevOps Integration with BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management

BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management uses connectors, flows, and processes to create vendor tickets. When you integrate Remedy ITSM with Azure DevOps, it additionally uses Webhooks to initiate the flows to create the incident or Azure DevOps work item.

Remedy ITSM to Vendor Ticket Management system

Vendor Ticket Management system to Remedy ITSM

Remedy ITSM to Azure DevOps

Azure DevOps to Remedy ITSM

Connector: A connector is an integration (connection point) with a BMC or a third-party application. As an administrator, you configure connectors in BMC Helix Integration Service.

Flow: A flow is a connection between two connectors that enable you to accomplish a certain task. A triggering event in the source application causes an action to take place in the target application. As an administrator, you configure flows in BMC Helix Integration Service.

Process: A process uses rules and actions to implement the business logic for a given business use case. As an administrator, you configure processes in BMC Helix Platform.

The out-of-the-box configuration requires minimal changes for most scenarios. As an administrator, you can customize the configuration based on your organization's requirements.

How Remedy ITSM tickets are created automatically

The following image illustrates how BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management uses connectors, flows, and processes to automatically create a change request, incident, problem, or work order in Remedy ITSM:

How Remedy ITSM incidents and change requests are created automatically for Azure DevOps work items

The following image illustrates how BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management uses connectors and flows to automatically create an incident and a change request in Remedy ITSM:

How multiple issues are associated with a change request

Service desk users can associate and view multiple issues in a single Remedy ITSM change request by copying a Remedy ITSM request ID to the corresponding Jira issue as a label. When you integrate with multiple instances of Jira, you can associate change requests only with issues from a single instance.

The following image illustrates how BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management uses connectors, flows, rules, and processes when multiple issues are associated with an existing Remedy ITSM change request:

How Jira issues are created automatically

When a service desk agent creates an incident, change request, problem, or work order record in Remedy ITSM, BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management automatically creates a Jira user story or bug. 

Based on the following values in a ticket, either a Jira user story or bug is created:

The following image illustrates how BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management uses connectors, flows, and processes to create a bug or a user story:

How Azure DevOps work items are created automatically

The following image illustrates how BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management uses connectors, flows, and processes to create an Azure DevOps work item from a Remedy ITSM incident:

How activity notes and status are updated in BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management

• When a service desk agent adds a comment to the Remedy ITSM change request or incident (in Smart IT) and clicks Share with Jira/CA Agile Central, the comment is added to the Jira/CA Agile Central issue.

• When a developer adds a comment to a Jira issue or user story, the comment is added to the corresponding Remedy ITSM change request, incident, problem, or work order ticket if the Viewable to all users option is selected in Jira.

• Any updates to fields in the vendor ticket are reflected in the corresponding Remedy ITSM incident fields. 

  This behavior applies to the fields that are mapped when specifying technology provider and field mapping during vendor data configuration.

• Status changes to a vendor ticket are reflected as an activity note on the Remedy ITSM incident or change request.

• Any attachments added to the comment, either in Jira or Remedy ITSM, are shared between the two applications.

• Activity notes display the vendor ticket numbers and the author of the note.
  You can use the following formats for adding activity notes: 

  From a vendor to Remedy ITSM	Note added from <vendor> ticket <vendor ticket id as URL> by <vendor user first last names> Attachment(s) added: <fileName> Attachment(s) failed: <fileName>
  From Remedy ITSM to vendor	Remedy user <remedy user first last name>, added a work note: <work note text>

Where to go from here

To configure DevOps integration, see Configuring BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management.