Upgrading
The BMC Remedy for Smart IT online documentation contains only the high-level process information for installation and upgrade. The detailed procedures are available in the BMC My IT online documentation.
The BMC Remedy with Smart IT (Smart IT) installer supports direct upgrade to Smart IT 1.5 from the following versions:
Smart IT 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.3 SP1, 1.4
Note:
BMC Remedy ITSM 8.0 is the minimum supported version for Smart IT 1.5. The previous releases of Smart IT continue to be supported by BMC Remedy ITSM 7.6.04 SP2 and above.
If you plan to upgrade to BMC Remedy ITSM 9.1 SP1, install BMC Remedy AR System Patch 1 followed by BMC Remedy ITSM 9.1 SP1 before upgrading to Smart IT 1.5. The installation sequence ensures that existing ITSM functionalities are not affected and escalations are enabled when Smart IT 1.5 is installed. For more information about escalation status, see KCS forms and escalations.
If you are on ITSM 8.1.xx and later, upgrading to Smart IT 1.5 and BMC MyIT 3.2 restarts the AR plugin server process. The server restart causes a downtime of a few seconds. If you are on ITSM 8.0, you have the option to restart the AR System server later. This allows you to schedule a planned downtime.
BMC MyIT and BMC Remedy with Smart IT (Smart IT) use the same server and share the same installer. This topic describes the general upgrade process.
Best Practice
Stage 1: Plan the Smart IT and BMC MyIT deployment
Stage 2: Perform pre-upgrade procedures for Smart IT and BMC MyIT
Stage 3: Upgrade Smart IT and BMC MyIT
Stage 4: Review Smart IT and BMC MyIT configurations
Stage 5: Review Smart IT configurations (Links in this table will direct you to the Smart IT online documentation.)
Stage 6: Review BMC MyIT configurations
Stage 7: Review deployment of Smart IT and BMC MyIT to users
Also see the Related topics.
Stage 1: Plan the Smart IT and BMC MyIT deployment
| Step | Action | Additional information |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Review the: | |
| 2 |
Review Smart IT language information
| Review information for Smart IT supported languages (locales). |
| 3 | Review the known and corrected issues | Review the following release notes: |
| 4 | When viewing the latest version of a product on the Electronic Product Download (EPD) site, you see only the components (including licensed add-ons) that are covered under the licenses associated with your Support ID or EPD profile. This topic explains how to obtain the files that you need for installation from the BMC Electronic Product Distribution (EPD) site. | |
| 5 |
Review MyIT license entitlements
| Note: The license for Smart IT is included in the license for BMC Remedy ITSM Suite, BMC Remedy Service Desk, or BMC Remedy OnDemand. You do not need a separate license. |
| 6 | Review the
Smart IT and BMC My IT performance and tuning
guidelines in the BMC Remedy with Smart IT online documentation. | BMC has conducted an analysis of various performance test results and provided performance benchmarking methodology and environment. The recommendations from these tests are validated by the test results. |
Stage 2: Perform pre-upgrade procedures for Smart IT and BMC MyIT
| Step | Action | Additional information |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Follow the recommended upgrade sequence | If you plan to upgrade to BMC Remedy ITSM 9.1 SP1, install BMC Remedy AR System Patch 1 followed by BMC Remedy ITSM 9.1 SP1 before upgrading to Smart IT 1.5. The installation sequence ensures that existing ITSM functionalities are not affected and escalations are enabled when Smart IT 1.5 is installed. For more information about escalation status, see KCS forms and escalations. |
| 3 | Before you upgrade Smart IT or BMC MyIT, you must install the Smart IT MyIT User Experience patch. This patch enables BMC Remedy IT Service Management (BMC Remedy ITSM) to work with Smart IT and BMC MyIT. For Smart IT, this patch enables viewing incidents, requests, approvals, and so on in the timeline and activity feed. Without this patch, timelines, email notifications, and social features will not work in either Smart IT or BMC MyIT. The installation applies required BMC Remedy ITSM patches. | |
| 4 |
Upgrading Openfire chat to version 4.0.2
| Openfire chat 4.0.2 is compatible with Smart IT 1.5. |
| 5 | Upgrade to 64-bit Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 8 | Upgrade to JRE 8 on all the servers where you have Smart IT and MyIT installed. |
| 6 | Back up BMC AR Server database and Smart IT and BMC MyIT database | To recover from any unexpected upgrade failure and resume upgrade from the last executed stage, take a back up of BMC Remedy with Smart IT and BMC MyIT database and BMC Remedy AR Server database. |
Stage 3: Upgrade Smart IT and BMC MyIT
Note
If you are on BMC Remedy IT Service Management (ITSM) 8.1.xx and later, upgrading to Smart IT 1.5 and BMC MyIT 3.2 restarts the AR plugin server process. The server restart causes a downtime of a few seconds. If you are on BMC Remedy ITSM 8.0, you have the option to restart the AR System server later. This allows you to schedule a planned downtime.
| Step | Action | Additional information |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Resolve issues indicated by the installer, if any | Ensure that all the following pre-install checks run by the installer are successful before proceeding with the installation:
Installation does not proceed if the pre-install check detects inconsistencies in the required components. |
| 2 |
Upgrade MongoDB
| The bundled MongoDB version can only be used for a fresh installation. In an upgrade scenario, the MongoDB is not upgraded automatically by the installer. In an upgrade scenario, you must manually upgrade the MongoDB.
|
3 | Do not use Xming to install the Smart IT and BMC MyIT server, because it might not perform reliably during installation. Instead, use VNC, MobaXterm, or any other client. | |
| 4 |
Verify the Smart IT and BMC MyIT server installation
| Verify whether the upgrade is successful. |
Stage 4: Review Smart IT and BMC MyIT configurations
| Step | Action | Additional information |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | After installing or upgrading Smart IT or BMC MyIT, location maps will not appear. In order to display location maps, follow the procedure to obtain and enable a supported maps license. | |
| 2 |
Configuring SSL for web and mobile clients
| To provide communication security among applications, configure SSL for the Apache Tomcat server. If you enabled SSL as part of the installation , SSL is already configured. |
| 3 |
Modifying Smart IT or Smart IT Social server ports
| Post-upgrade, you might need to change the ports if you did not specify an open port during installation, or if these ports are in use. These ports are used to connect the web and mobile Smart IT clients to the Smart IT server. |
| 4 |
Integrating Smart IT with LDAP for broadcasting
| This topic describes how to configure the integration of LDAP for broadcasting with Smart IT and BMC MyIT. You can integrate Smart IT and BMC MyIT with LDAP so that you can distribute broadcasts to your LDAP distribution groups. If configured, these groups are also used when setting up services on the BMC MyIT Administration console. |
| 5 | Error rendering macro 'link-window' [com.ctc.wstx.exc.WstxLazyException] Duplicate attribute 'bmc'. at [row,col {unknown-source}]: [4,166] | This topic describes how to configure the integration of BMC Remedy Single Sign-On with Smart IT and BMC MyIT . BMC Remedy Single Sign-On authentication applies to both the universal client and to mobile applications. When a user logs on to a mobile device, the user is prompted to enter the hostname and port. If the server has SSO enabled, the mobile client opens a browser to the SSO login page. The SSO server sets the SSO cookies after authentication on to the device browser. When the user relaunches the application, if the cookies are not expired, the mobile client displays the application. If the cookies are expired, the user is shown the login page again for authentication. |
| 6 |
Post-upgrade rebranding of BMC MyIT Universal Client
| Right after upgrade you may notice that the main navigation in BMC MyIT Universal Client is not fully rebranded. This topic describes how to rebrand MyIT after upgrade. |
Stage 5: Review Smart IT configurations
Note
Links in this table will direct you to the Smart IT online documentation.
| Step | Action | Additional information |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Integrating BMC Remedy ITSM with the Social Server for Smart IT
| The information shown on timelines and feeds is uploaded from BMC Remedy IT Service Management (BMC Remedy ITSM) and processed by the Social Server. To import the existing BMC Remedy ITSM data into the Social Server, use the BMC Remedy with Smart IT onboarding utility. |
| 2 |
Disabling collision management and impact analysis in Smart IT
| If your organization does not use collision management or impact analysis functionality for Change Management, you can choose to disable these features. |
| 3 |
Smart IT Permissions
| To give users access to Smart IT, assign them the required user permissions. |
| 4 |
Review the login ID requirements for service requests in Smart IT
| Note: This is specific to Smart IT. If your environment uses BMC Service Request Management, ensure that the People records for non-support staff include a login ID. Service requests cannot be submitted for a customer who has a People record with no login ID. Service requests cannot be submitted, because the Smart Recorder uses the login ID to show available service request templates for that person. |
| 5 |
Adding custom fields to your views using Smart IT
| You might have custom fields defined for BMC Remedy IT Service Management, that you would like to display in the Smart IT user interface. You might also want to display out-of-the-box BMC Remedy ITSM fields that are not shown by default in Smart IT. When you add custom fields, they appear in the area that you specify in Screen Configuration. For example, you can add a custom field to the Assignment area of the Incident View. The custom field then appears in incident ticket details, with the assignment information. If you add custom fields to the Person Profile, those fields also appear in the customer information displayed in the Smart Recorder. |
| 6 |
Enabling full text search
| Full text search (FTS) is an optional feature that you can install with the BMC Remedy AR System server. To use FTS with Smart IT, you must install BMC Remedy Knowledge Management, even if you do not plan to create knowledge articles. To use the complete FTS capability, you must configure and enable the feature. |
| 7 |
Enabling SSL for Openfire chat server
| Complete the procedure to enable a secure sockets layer (SSL) for the Openfire chat server that runs with BMC Remedy with Smart IT (Smart IT). |
| 8 |
Integrating Smart IT with phone systems
| If your help desk phone system integrates with other web tools, you can configure it to start Smart Recorder directly from the phone system UI. |
| 9 |
Configuring notifications for Smart IT
| Configure your notifications. You can choose to use BMC Remedy ITSM notifications, for example if you have customized notifications. You can enable localized Smart IT notifications for mobile clients. |
| 10 |
Configuring automatic following in Smart+IT
| Configure whether users automatically receive updates for new knowledge articles, incidents, work orders, tasks, service requests, change requests, and broadcasts that they create. By default, users only receive updates for new knowledge articles that they create. |
| 11 |
Configuring security options for Smart IT
| Configure security options. Limit the types of files that users can attach to Smart IT records. Update the content security policy to allow users to attach images from external sources to knowledge articles. If you have Openfire chat installed, edit the openfire/conf/cross-domain-policy.xml file to only allow access to data from a specific domain (or domains). |
| 12 |
Disabling application modules in Smart IT
| If your organization does not use BMC Service Request Management, BMC Work Order Management, BMC Change Management, or BMC Problem Management in Smart IT, you can choose to disable these application modules. |
| 13 |
Configuring Smart Recorder to search by last name or first name
| By default, Smart Recorder locates customer profiles by assuming a "first name, last name" order when you enter the person's name. You can configure Smart IT so that the Smart Recorder searches by the customer's last name as well as the first name. |
| 14 |
Configuring Smart Recorder to exclude customer and contact names from ticket title and description
| While creating a ticket using Smart Recorder, the customer name and contact names are automatically included in the title and description of the ticket. You can choose to exclude the customer name and contact names from the title and description by changing the default value of a configuration setting. |
| 15 |
Configuring the reconciliation method for assets in Smart IT
| When you install Smart IT 1.5, a new Sandbox Job Calls setting is added to the AST:AppSettings form. This setting controls how reconciliation calls (requests) are processed for assets. |
Stage 6: Review BMC MyIT configurations
| Step | Action | Additional information |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The BMC MyIT server supports both user and administrator logons. Both types of logons are authenticated using BMC Remedy Action Request AR System (BMC Remedy AR System). To assign BMC MyIT administration permissions to BMC Remedy AR System users, you add the users to the MyIT Admin group in BMC Remedy AR System. The system creates this group automatically during installation. | |
| 2 | Administrators can grant or restrict access to the areas of the BMC MyIT Administration Console for other administrator. | |
| 3 |
Setting the default service request definitions for BMC MyIT
| If you use BMC Service Request Management to process requests and incidents submitted by BMC MyIT users, you must create a series of service request definitions (SRDs) specifically for use with BMC MyIT. You configure SRDs in the BMC Service Request Management Console. |
| 4 |
| |
| 5 | BMC MyIT enables you to customize the names of items that appear on your users' desktop browsers and mobile devices. For example, you can update the name of the service desk to My Company Service Desk. | |
| 6 | Within BMC MyIT, you can enable and disable features that you might not want to use immediately in your deployment. For example, if you are not set up to support location services, you can disable that functionality. You can also configure the settings for features such as the Contact IT button and Virtual Chat cross-launch. | |
| 7 | You can change the settings that BMC MyIT uses to connect to the following applications:
| |
| 8 |
Configuring multitenancy
| The multitenancy feature of BMC Remedy IT Service Management (BMC Remedy ITSM) provides the ability to segregate data by operating company and customer company. |
| 9 |
Configuring email notifications
| To allow BMC MyIT users to accept email notifications for services, you must configure your company's mail server information and verify that users have valid email accounts with the specified server. Users can then select email notifications for specific services. |
| 10 |
Configuring the BMC AppZone integration
| You can configure the integration with BMC AppZone so that users can use it to request software and hardware. |
| 11 |
Integrating with BMC TrueSight Operations Management
| If you enable the integration of BMC TrueSight Operations Management , services monitored by BMC TrueSight Operations Management are listed in BMC MyIT and the availability status is updated by BMC TrueSight Operations Management. |
| 12 |
Setting up VM requests through BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management
| Using the BMC MyIT with BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management integration, BMC MyIT users can view and request available VM offerings as part of the Unified Catalog. Create sections and then add BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management offerings to the section. |
| 13 |
Setting up service requests through BMC Service Request Management
| To create a service catalog, BMC MyIT pulls in services, apps, VMs, and other resources available to employees from different sources, including BMC Service Request Management. |
| 14 |
Integrating BMC MyIT with BMC HR Case Management
| Self-serve users use BMC MyIT to open HR cases and to search HR knowledge articles. BMC HR Case Management can be installed on either the same server with BMC Remedy IT Service Management (BMC Remedy ITSM) or on a separate server. Note: The BMC HR Case Management server requires BMC Remedy Action Request System 9.1. |
| 15 |
Configuring BMC MyIT Service Broker as a provider
| BMC MyIT Service Broker enables you to collaborate with others within your organization or external third parties, to on board, manage, deliver, and analyze the use of IT and business services from multiple sources. |
Stage 7: Deploy of Smart IT and BMC MyIT to users
| Step | Action | Additional information |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Deploying Smart IT to your users
| IT users access Smart IT and BMC MyIT through Apple iOS and Google Android mobile clients, as well as through the universal client. The universal client provides access through a web browser. |
| 2 |
Comments
Hi
My first attempt to upgrade from SmartIT 1.4 to 1.5 failed (Windows)!
Even though upgrade went without any errors and installer called the installation "Successful", i have noticed the entire ../social folder is missing (thus preventing MyITSocialService to start) and also i have no .../ux folder (so no SmartIT Universal Client web site), only ux.old folder is there.
Any comments or ideas?
Meanwhile, i will restore my VM from snaphot and try again. I will try it without touching ITSM (AR) side, hopefully it will go over the changes that the first attempt did on the AR side.
Marko
Hi Marko,
I am checking with the SME. Will get back to you with an answer.
Regards,
Amit
Hi Marko,
We will need installation logs to troubleshoot the issue. In the past, one reason for the missing folders was insufficient disk space. However, we request you to contact Support to expedite resolution.
Regards,
Amit
Hi
no, disk space is not a problem. I have opened a support case with support, thanks
marko
All the links in Stage 3 refers to MyIT v.3.1, not 3.2.
Fixed. Thanks!