20.15.03 enhancements

This release includes the following enhancements to the Instance Editor, which is accessed from the Remedyforce CMDB tab:

• Location, Model Name, Model Manufacturer, Supported By, Asset Birthdate, Asset Age, and Asset Status are new attributes that are available on the Attributes > General tab in the Instance Editor.
• The  Asset Birthdate, Asset Age, and Asset Status attributes are available only for instances of the CI and Asset, Asset, and Rule Based Asset classes.
• From the All tab in the left pane of the Remedyforce CMDB tab, based on the type of instance (CI, CI/Asset, or Asset) that users access, only the Asset Status attribute, only the CI Status attribute, or both attributes are dynamically displayed in the Instance Editor.
• Moving the mouse over the icon next to the Location, Model Name, Supported By, and Primary Client attributes displays details about the selected value. Users can also navigate to a form that displays additional details.

For more information, see Creating and updating assets and Creating and updating configuration items.

If you are upgrading to BMC Remedyforce 20.15.03 (Summer 15), you must configure the order of new attributes in the Instance Editor and update the default values of a few existing attributes. For more information, see Enabling new features in 20.15.03.

Depending on the IT asset and CI management configuration, classes and their corresponding CIs and assets are displayed on the Remedyforce CMDB tab. For more information, see Overview of the Remedyforce CMDB tab. Based on the object permission of the class and the Remedyforce CMDB user permission assigned to you by the system administrator, you can now edit multiple assets and CIs of a class from the Remedyforce CMDB tab.

The following table lists the required permissions for editing multiple CIs and assets of a class:

You can edit the editable fields in the General and Specifications tabs of the Instance Editor. For Rule Based Asset classes, fields of the superclass based on which the rules criteria have been set are not editable.

For more information, see Editing multiple configuration items and assets.

In this release, the CI Explorer has been renamed to CMDB Explorer. Depending on the IT asset and CI management configuration, the CMDB Explorer now displays the following:

• When both CI and IT asset management are enabled, it displays related CIs and assets and the available CI to CI, CI to asset, asset to asset, and asset to CI relationships. You can filter. In the Filter by list on the toolbar, All is selected by default. From the Filter by list, you can select CI to display only CIs and their corresponding relationships, and Asset to display only assets and their corresponding relationships.
• When only CI management is enabled, it displays only related CIs, and CI to CI relationships.
• When only asset management is enabled, it displays only related assets; and asset to asset relationships.

For more information, see Working with the CMDB Explorer.

The existing keyword-based search in the CMDB list view has been enhanced with advanced search filters. Users can now either perform a keyword-based search or apply specific filter criteria to instances in the CMDB list view.

Advanced search filters enable users to perform a more precise search that can be based on multiple criteria. For example, users can search for all printers in a specific location with the In Repair status. Users can apply dynamic search filters or save frequently used filters. The ability to save search filters makes it quick and easy to retrieve specific CIs and assets.

For more information, see Overview of the Remedyforce CMDB tab.

A new Configure CMDB 2.0 tile is now available on the Remedyforce Administration tab. From this tile, system administrators can access all forms and pages related to configuring BMC Remedyforce CMDB 2.0.

The new Locations, Models, Normalization Exceptions, Normalization Rules, and Track Attribute History subtiles are available only for BMC Remedyforce CMDB 2.0.

The CMDB General Settings subtile contains options to enable or disable asset management or CI management, enable models, and schedule the normalization process.

The following changes have also been implemented in this release:

• The existing List View Customization and Classes subtiles have been moved from Remedyforce Administration > Application Settings to the Configure CMDB 2.0 tile.
• If you have upgraded to BMC Remedyforce version 20.15.03 and are still using CMDB 1.0, the new tile name is Configure CMDB 1.0. This tile includes only the List View Customization, CMDB Custom Attributes, General CMDB Settings, and CMDB 2.0 Upgrade subtiles. The General CMDB Settings subtile also includes only the check box.
  The CMDB Custom Attributes and CMDB 2.0 Upgrade subtiles have been moved from Remedyforce Administration > Application Settings to the Configure CMDB 1.0 tile.

For more information, see Configuring BMC Remedyforce CMDB 2.0.

In this release, the following five out-of-the-box views are available to system administrators to manage the list view columns displayed in the Remedyforce CMDB tab:

• Base Element (CI) – Enables configuring the configuration item (CI) attributes of the Base Element field set as Remedyforce CMDB list view columns.
• Base Element (Asset) – Enables configuring the asset attributes of the Base Element field set as Remedyforce CMDB list view columns.
• Base Element (All) – Enables configuring the CI and asset attributes of the Base Element field set as Remedyforce CMDB list view columns.
• Business Service – Enables configuring the attributes of the Business Service, Logical Entity, and Base Element field sets of the Base Element object as Remedyforce CMDB list view columns.
• Physical Location – Enables configuring the attributes of the Physical Location, Logical Entity, and Base Element field sets of the Base Element object as Remedyforce CMDB list view columns.

System administrators can now also create custom views for a class. For more information, see Customizing fields shown in the CMDB list view.

You can now link both CIs and assets to a record (such as incidents, service requests, tasks, problems, change requests, and releases) on the Remedyforce Console tab. The records which are linked to CIs and assets are displayed on the Details tab of the corresponding CIs and assets in the Instance Editor (Remedyforce CMDB tab).

For more information, see Linking configuration items and assets to a record.

With the new Track Attribute History tab, system administrators can now track an unlimited number of standard and custom fields in the Base Element object. This tab also contains a filter which enables system administrators to select a class to see which fields are applicable for the selected class. Changes to selected attributes are tracked for all CMDB classes that contain these attributes. In addition, the tracking history is retained until the data is manually deleted.

Tracking changes to specific attributes of an asset or CI enables users to know not only what changes were made but also who made the changes and when.

To access the Track Attribute History tab, navigate to Remedyforce Administration > Configure CMDB 2.0 > Track Attribute History.

For more information, see Tracking attribute history.

The new Location form enables system administrators to manage locations more effectively. The location records are stored as instances of the Physical Location CI class and can be linked to other CIs and assets. The list view displays all locations, irrespective of whether they are created from the Location form or the Instance Editor. From the Location form, system administrators can also easily create and manage relationships between a location and an asset or CI instance.

Also, if the Physical Location CI class is hidden or CI management is disabled, system administrators can use the Location form to create and manage location records for asset management.

To access the Location form, navigate to Remedyforce Administration > Configure CMDB 2.0 > Locations. For more information, see Managing locations.

The new Location attribute on the General tab in the Instance Editor enables users to easily search and assign a location to a CI or asset. Prior to BMC Remedyforce 20.15.03 (Summer 15), to assign a location to a CI, users had to navigate to the Relationships tab and perform multiple steps to create a relationship between the CI and the appropriate instance of the Physical Location CI class.

System administrators can now create and manage models to standardize key attribute values, such as model name and manufacturer name, in CIs and assets. When users select a model for a CI or asset, the model name and other attributes that are specified in the selected model are also applied to the CI or asset.

Models enable system administrators to achieve data consistency and help users to reduce the time required to create CIs and assets. Consistency in data makes it easier to locate key information, analyze data, and generate relevant reports.

To access the Model form, navigate to Remedyforce Administration > Configure CMDB 2.0 > Models.

For more information, see Managing models.

If you are upgrading to BMC Remedyforce 20.15.03 (Summer 15), you must manually enable models in your organization. For more information, see Enabling models.

System administrators can now use the normalization process to ensure standardization of values in BMC Remedyforce CMDB 2.0 and the model repository. The normalization process is especially useful to drive consistency in data that is imported on an ongoing basis from external sources, such as spreadsheets and discovery tools. System administrators can create and apply rules to normalize data, along with managing exceptions to normalization rules.

To access the Normalization Rules and Normalization Exceptions forms, navigate to Remedyforce Administration > Configure CMDB 2.0.

To schedule and run the normalization process, navigate to Remedyforce Administration > Configure CMDB 2.0 > General CMDB Settings.

For more information, see Normalizing data.

To store asset-related data in BMC Remedyforce CMDB, the following changes have been implemented in the Common Data Model:

• New asset classes: The following classes have been added to store asset-specific data about mobile devices:
  • BMC_Mobile
  • BMC_Phone
  • BMC_Tablet
• New Rule Based Asset classes: The following Rule Based Asset classes have been added and defined on the BMC_ComputerSystem class. A Rule Based Asset class enables a CI instance to be also classified as an asset that inherits the attributes of the CI class that it is based on.
  • BMC_Desktop
  • BMC_Hub
  • BMC_Laptop
  • BMC_Router
  • BMC_Server
  • BMC_Switch
• Updated classes: The class type of the following classes has been changed from CI to CI and Asset:
  • BMC_Mainframe
  • BMC_Printer
  • BMC_Monitor
  • BMC_BusinessService
  These classes, which now store instances that are both CIs and assets, are available even if system administrators enable only IT asset management or only CI management.

For more information about the new and updated classes, see BMC Remedyforce CMDB Common Data Model.

• The new Asset Status attribute enables users to specify the appropriate status of an asset. This attribute, which can be used to track the lifecycle and availability of assets, is available on the Attributes > General tab of the Instance Editor.
• The Received, Transferred, and Disposed values in the CI Status field have been deprecated. Instead, the Received and Retired - Disposed values are now available in the new Asset Status attribute.
• The Android, iOS, and Windows values have been added to the existing OS Type attribute. These values enable users to select the appropriate operating system for an instance of the BMC_Phone or BMC_Tablet asset class.
• The new Mobile field set includes the new Carrier, IMEI, MEID, ICCID, and BYOD attributes for storing asset-related data about mobile devices.
• The new Asset Common Attributes field set includes fields that are available to all asset classes. The fields in this field set are displayed after all existing attributes on the Attributes > General tab in the Instance Editor.
• The following new attributes are available out of the box in the Asset Common Attributes field set:
  
  • Asset Birthdate: Indicates the date when an asset’s age starts being tracked. This date can be entered or automatically calculated based on the rules defined by the system  administrator.
  • Asset Age: Indicates the age of an asset by calculating the difference between the current date and the asset birthdate.

For more information about the new and updated classes, see BMC Remedyforce CMDB Common Data Model.

In this release, system administrators can manage the following types of classes, based on the CI and IT asset management configurations:

• CI classes – (CI management must be enabled) A CI class stores data about CIs. For example, BMC_ComputerSystem stores data about computer systems.
• Asset classes – (IT asset management must be enabled) An asset class stores data about assets. For example, BMC_Phone stores data about mobile phones.
• Rule Based Asset classes – (IT asset management must be enabled) A Rule Based Asset class stores data about assets. A Rule Based Asset class is defined on CI class by applying criteria; it inherits attributes of the CI class based on which it has been created. For example, BMC_Desktop stores information about desktop assets. This class is an out-of-the-box, Rule Based Asset class mapped to the CI class BMC_ComputerSystem where the Primary Capability field contains Desktop. This means that any CIs created with these values are automatically categorized as an Asset with an Asset Class of Desktop. Conversely, this also means that any records assigned to the Asset Class of Desktop are also automatically assigned as CIs with a CI class of BMC_ComputerSystem CI and a Primary Capability of Desktop.
• CI and Asset classes – (Both CI and IT asset management must be enabled) A CI and Asset class stores data about CIs and assets. For example, BMC_Mainframe stores information about mainframe computer systems.

To store data about the most common CIs and assets, BMC Remedyforce CMDB now contains a set of out-of-the-box classes for each class type. Depending on the data that you want to store, you can customize the attributes of the out-of-the-box classes, and add new custom classes. For more information, see Managing CMDB classes.

On the Remedyforce CMDB tab, staff members can view classes and add, edit, or delete CIs and assets of a class based on the assigned permissions to the object of the class. With the introduction of the Remedyforce CMDB permissions, system administrators can now further restrict what the staff members can view and manage on the Remedyforce CMDB tab. The available Remedyforce CMDB user permissionsare as follows:

• Update and Delete
• Update
• Read-Only
• None or Hidden

However, the Remedyforce CMDB permissions are not applied at the level of a specific class; rather these permissions are applied at the CI and asset management level. For example, if staff members have been assigned Read, Create, and Edit object permissions for a CI class, and you want to enable the staff members to only view CIs on the Remedyforce CMDB tab, you can assign the staff member Read-Only Remedyforce CMDB permissions for CI management.

If you are upgrading from an earlier version, or performing a new installation of BMC Remedyforce, the following default Remedyforce CMDB permissions are assigned to the corresponding user profiles:

• System administrators and Remedyforce administrators are assigned with the Update and Delete permission for both CI Management View and Asset Management View.
• Staff members are assigned with the Update and Delete permission for CI Management View and Hidden for Asset Management View.

System administrators can assign Remedyforce CMDB permissions from the Client form and from the Salesforce.com User page. For more information, see Managing Remedyforce CMDB user permissions.

The new BMC Remedyforce Asset Management Dashboard is now available on the Dashboards tab. This dashboard enables system administrators and users to view key metrics related to asset management.

The following out-of-the-box reports are available in this release:

• Asset Count By Class – Status
• Asset Count By Status – Class Name
• Asset Data Quality
• Asset Warranty Expiration - 30 days
• Hardware Asset Age By Class
• Highest Number of Incidents
• Highest Priority Incidents By Model
• Normalization Exception Trending

For more information, see Viewing the asset management dashboard and reports.

If BMC automatically upgrades BMC Remedyforce in your organization, you must configure the appropriate user as the Running User of the BMC Remedyforce Asset Management Dashboard. For more information, see Configuring the Running User of dashboards in BMC Remedyforce.

System administrators can create custom article type, such as Troubleshooting, to categorize knowledge articles. For more information, see Configuring custom article types.

System administrators can configure fields shown on the Knowledge Article details page in Self Service for an out-of-the-box article type. For more information, see Configuring the Knowledge Article page fields for an out-of-the-box article type.

System administrators can configure fields that are shown as columns in the Global Search window for the Knowledge Articles tab. For more information, see Configuring columns in the Global Search window for knowledge articles.

The visible area of the fields of type Text Area (Rich) on the New Knowledge Article or Knowledge Article detail pages has been increased to show more information without scrolling.

To save a record faster and with less clicks, the following message is removed from the Remedyforce Console and Remedyforce CMDB tabs:
Record has been saved successfully.

The same message is shown for 5 seconds on the UI, but user does not need to perform any action. Also, during the 5 seconds when the message is shown, if a user saves the record again, the clock to show the message on the screen is reset.

If staff members create an email message by using an email template, the content of the email message (including content from email with actual field values) is saved in the Action History section. To enable saving content from email template and actual field values, system administrators must add the BMCServiceDesk_Additional_email_information__c field to the email template. For more information, see Customizing an email template.

If staff members access a record from a CMDB Explorer, manifest (Incident Manifest, Problem Manifest, Release Manifest, and Change Manifest), Change Schedule, Incident Matching, or Service Request Matching window, the record is displayed as another tab in the Remedyforce Console.

In the change schedule, system administrators can configure information shown in the tooltips for change requests, releases, and tasks. For more information, see Adding fields to the change request, release, or task tooltips displayed in a change schedule.

In Self Service email conversation, messages are shown are in a more readable format that also support rich text format.

System administrators can entitle queues to users based on accounts, profiles, and roles. To assign queues, navigate to the Remedyforce Administration > Manage Users > Manage Queue Availability page. For more information, see Managing queues availability and assignment.

You can share out-of-the-box QuickViews with users of a profile. For more information, see Sharing an out-of-the-box QuickView.

You can show additional information about a service request in Self Service after submitting the service request, such as progress or resolution. To show more information about the service request in Self Service, add the fields that you want to show in Self Service to a field set of the Incident object. Select the field set on the Remedyforce Administration > Configure Self Service > Service Requests page. For more information, see Configuring service request settings for Self Service.

Searching is enhanced. The search results are displayed on separate tabs for Actions (SRDs) and Resources (How-Tos and knowledge articles).

All results are combined under the All tab.

The Quantity field can now be displayed while creating or viewing requests in BMC MyIT.

To display the Quantity field, system administrators must select the Quantity check box on the Display Options tab of the SRD in BMC Remedyforce (Remedyforce Administration > Configure Application > Request Definitions).

The Filter By list in the Requests timeline and Approvals timeline in BMC MyIT displays only the following status values that are supported by BMC Remedyforce:

• Requests timeline: In Progress, Pending, Rejected, Closed, Approved, Recalled
• Approvals timeline: Pending, Rejected, Approved, Recalled