Working with profiles in Smart IT: People and CIs

Profiles show you basic information about people and configuration items (CIs) and provide links to other records that are related to the profile subject. For example, if you open a customer's People profile, you will see their contact information, which department they work for, and links to any open tickets, assigned assets, and so on. Every person and asset in your organization has a profile.

Because profile records are linked to other records, you can easily see and understand the connections among people, CIs, and the help desk. From any profile record, you can drill down into other profiles or linked records to discover more specific information about those items and to explore their relationships. For example, if you are looking at a People profile and need to get more information about the laptop assigned to the person, you can open the laptop profile to discover information identifying the laptop, ownership information, a list of applicable contracts, activities related to the laptop, and more. You can also find records linked to the laptop, such as incidents, change requests, and work orders. From any of those records, you can drill down to discover more information related to your line of inquiry.

This topic explains how you can work with profiles in Smart IT, and provides the following information:

People profiles
CI profiles
Keeping profiles up-to-date
How administrators configure this feature

People profiles

People profiles provide information about the people in your organization. Profiles are slightly different for customers and service desk agents.

Customer profiles
Service desk agent profiles

You can also update profile information directly from a profile.

Customer profiles

Customer profiles provide a complete business-context view of the customer by displaying essential information about the person at a glance. This information helps service desk agents more quickly align their service delivery with the customer's needs.

The following information is included in a customer profile:

The person's name and their role in the organization
The person's location and contact information. If a supported map license is installed, a map view of the person's physical location is included.
The customer's timeline view
The assets assigned to the customer
Any open tickets currently associated with the customer
The customer's support group

Service rating and escalations

The customer profile also shows the following service indicators, from which you can judge the sensitivity of the customer:

Service indicator

Description

Service Rating

Shows the average rating for questions the customer answered on service request surveys over the last year. Since the questions can be answered on a scale of 1 to 10 (lowest to highest), the value is divided in half for display on a 5 star scale. For example, an average rating of 8 on survey responses displays as 4 stars in Smart IT.

Calculation:

(average survey response rating)/2

select ratings(*) from the SRM:Survey form
where
Login_ID = “$LoginID”
AND '7' >= 1
AND Last_Surveyed_Date >= $Last 365 days

Notes: The system uses the login ID to match the survey answers with the customer profile that is displayed. The value in field ID 7 (the Status field) must be greater than 1 to include results for submitted surveys. Unanswered questions are not considered when the average is calculated.

Escalations in Last Month

Shows how well the service desk has met the service level agreements (SLAs) that apply to the customer in the last 30 days. To avoid duplication, incidents and work orders associated with escalated service requests are not counted.

Calculation:

number of escalated service requests + number of escalated incidents (not associated with service requests) + number of escalated work orders (not associated with service requests)

number of escalated service requests =

select(*) from the SRM:Request form
where
(Requested_For_Login_ID =$loginId OR Requested_For_Person_ID = $loginId)
AND (SLM_Status = 2 OR SLM_Status = 3 )
AND Submit_Date > $Last 30 days

number of escalated incidents (not associated with service requests) =

select(*) from the HPD:Help Desk form
where
(Customer_Login_ID =$loginId OR Person_ID = $loginId)
AND (SLM_Status = 3 OR SLM_Status = 4 )
AND Submit_Date > $Last 30 days
AND SRID = $NULL$

number of escalated work orders (not associated with service requests) =

select(*) from the WOI:WorkOrder form
where
(Requestor_ID =$loginId OR Customer_Person_ID = $loginId)
AND (SLM_Status = 3 OR SLM_Status = 4 )
AND Submit_Date > $Last 30 days
AND SRID = $NULL$

Note: The SLM_Status values include results where one or more service targets were breached:

Service requests:

2 = Service target breached

3 = All service targets breached

Incidents and work orders:

3 = Service target breached

4 = All service targets breached

Service desk agent profiles

Service desk agent profiles include much of the same essential information as that of customers, and more. The following information is included in a service desk agent profile:

Open tickets assigned to the agent
The support groups the agent belongs to
Knowledge articles the agent has authored

The system also lets service desk agents know when they have successfully completed an assignment.

CI profiles

CI profiles provide detailed information that is organized in the same way, regardless of the type of CI. However, just as the details of People profiles are slightly different for service desk agents and customers, the details of CI profiles are slightly different, depending on the type of CI being described.

Crowdsourced asset CIs

Starting in BMC Smart IT 1.2, CI profiles can include information about BMC Remedy IT Service Management (BMC Remedy ITSM) assets and BMC MyIT assets. BMC MyIT assets (or crowdsourced assets) appear in Related Items in incidents and work orders, and in related Configuration Items in change requests in Smart IT. The relationships occur when users submit service requests from BMC MyIT that are associated with user-created assets defined in BMC MyIT. Fulfillment tickets automatically generated from the service request then display the BMC MyIT asset as a related item or CI. Crowdsourced assets cannot be removed as related items (or related CIs) from tickets in Smart IT. For more information, see "Overview of information displayed on a ticket in Smart IT" in Related topics.

BMC MyIT can be configured so that customers can update the status of user-created assets. Smart IT displays the asset status that the customer is reporting in BMC MyIT, along with the location of the asset, on the same floor plan that customers see in BMC MyIT. Additional information about crowdsourced assets shown in Smart IT includes the BMC MyIT asset description, type, and location on a floor map.

A crowdsourced asset might also be related to a BMC Remedy ITSM asset, which is stored in BMC Atrium Confirmation Management Database (BMC Atrium CMDB). In this case, the CI profile includes information from both the BMC Atrium CMDB CI record and the BMC MyIT asset. Also in this case, the asset description comes from BMC Atrium CMDB. For crowdsourced assets that are not related to an item in BMC Atrium CMDB, only the BMC MyIT asset information appears.

For more information about BMC MyIT assets, see "Finding places and assets" in Related topics.

Information displayed in CI profiles

Section	Information provided
Overview	This section displays the name of the CI, any ID and serial numbers associated with the CI, and the name of the associated company. Additional information from BMC MyIT is displayed for crowdsourced assets, such as the crowdsourced asset status. See also the Crowdsourced information section in this table. You can perform the following actions: Share the page Follow the CI Add or edit the associated image
Details	This section provides more details about the CI, including a description, the installation or availability date, the number of customers affected, and so on.
Activity	This list contains activities related to the asset, including includes tickets created for the asset, updates to asset information, and updates to asset ownership. Crowdsourced assets include a link to BMC MyIT, where you can access the full activity thread. Activity notes that you add in Smart IT for crowdsourced assets do not flow to the corresponding asset in BMC MyIT. Also, for crowdsourced assets not associated with an item in BMC Atrium CMDB, the Activity feed is read-only. For additional information, see the Crowdsourced information section in this table. The most recent activities are at the top of the list, and a filter is available to help you manage the information in the list. (For crowdsourced assets not associated with an item in BMC Atrium CMDB, this filter is unavailable.)
Owner	This section provides editable information about the asset owner, the asset location, and the site.
Crowdsourced information	This section appears only for user-created assets CIs in BMC MyIT. Basic information about an asset is shown, such as the asset owner, status, and location on a floor map. You can access complete information about the user-created asset from a link to BMC MyIT. For more information about user-created assets in BMC MyIT, see "Finding places and assets" in Related topics.
Related Items, Outages, Contracts tabs	These areas display information about the following items: Active tickets Other records related to this CI (for example, other assets, work orders, and incidents) Any outages that affect this asset (Where applicable) Software warranty contracts Notes Where applicable, clicking an item listed on a tab opens a detailed record about that item. For example, if you click an outage preview in the Outages tab, you see a detailed view of the outage. Most tabs also have a link from which you can add a related item to the tab. For example, on the Related Items tab, if you click Related Item, you can add other records to the profile.
People tab	This tab tracks the relationship between a CI and specific people, organizations, departments, and support groups. You can also add a person, company, organization, department, or support group relationship to the CI profile directly from the People tab.

Keeping profiles up to date

You can keep the following areas of a profile up to date directly from the UI:

Profile owner
Profile image
People tab relationships (in CI profiles)
Outage (for a CI)

Updating the profile owner

Open the profile record:
- To open your own profile, click or tap your name at the top of the UI, and from the menu that appears, select My Profile.
- To open a customer's profile, click the customer's name in the ticket, and from the menu that appears, select View Profile.
- To open a CI profile, click the profile name in either the ticket or on the Asset tab of another profile.
Locate the Owner section of the profile record, and click or tap the Pencil icon.
The area opens in Edit mode.
Update the required fields, and then click or tap Save.

Adding or changing the profile image

To add or change the profile image, click or tap the Pencil icon at the top left of the profile record beside the name of the person or CI, and then navigate to the location of the image file.

Note

For crowdsourced assets that are not associated with an item in the BMC Atrium CMDB, you must edit the image in BMC MyIT.

Adding relationships to the People tab

You can add a relationship to a person, organization, department, or support group directly from the People tab of a CI profile.

Click + Person.

From the panel that slides into view, make a selection from the People Type menu. You can add only one people type at a time:

If you select Person...	a. In the Search field, type a person's name and press or tap Enter. b. Select the person from the search results list.
If you select Company...	Select from the list of available companies.
If you select Organization, Department, or Support Group...	a. Ensure that the information in the Company field is correct. b. From the list, select the organization, department, or support group.

From the Role menu at the bottom of the panel, select a role.
This selection is for informational purposes and does not affect workflow.
Click Add People.

Specifying an outage for a CI

From the CI profile:

From the CI profile, open the Outages tab.
Specify the unavailability (outage) type, status, and description.
Specify the outage start and end dates.
Save.

From a change request:

From Related Items for the change request, create a related outage.
A list of CIs related to the change request is shown. You can filter the list as needed.
Select CIs to which you want to apply the outage.
Specify the outage type, status, description, start date, and end date.
Save.

Note

When you create an outage for a CI, either a default support group for the CI or an assignment rule must be setup to automatically assign the support group, otherwise, an error is displayed. In BMC Remedy ITSM, you can enter the support group manually.

From the change request, you can remove the relationship to the outage.

To delete an outage, you must do so from the CI profile.

How administrators configure this feature

For Smart IT profiles to work as designed, administrators must ensure that People and CI records are created and maintained accurately in the supporting BMC Remedy ITSM application.