Working with broadcasts in Smart IT

BMC Helix ITSM: Smart IT offers the ability to send notifications or emails to the entire company or site. These notifications or emails are delivered to the mobile device of the targeted end users and can communicate emergency or general information, and contain web links that provide more information.

You can send broadcasts to a company or location (site) to which you have access. For example, you can send a broadcast to users at a certain campus location and building that is supported by your group, to notify them of certain maintenance work.

You must have the Broadcast Submitter functional role to send a broadcast in Smart IT. You cannot modify a broadcast that is created in Smart IT. There are some restrictions on where the broadcast messages are received. For more information, see Where are broadcasts received?

The push notification (mobile devices) does not appear as broadcast, but it appears at the top of the Updates feed of the Smart IT Dashboard .

For broadcasts created by using the Progressive Web App screens, the notifications and emails are not sent, but they are displayed on the Dashboard. To send notification s or emails, you must add fields in the CFG:Broadcast form. For more information, see To send notifications or emails for broadcasts created by using Progressive Web App screens .

To create a broadcast

1. Log on to Smart IT from the universal client.
2. Select Create New > Broadcast.

3. On the Create broadcast screen, enter the appropriate information, such as the target audience (company or location), headline, message text, and the broadcast start and end dates.
   The broadcast headline can be up to 255 characters long for Smart IT and up to 100 characters long when created via the Progressive Web Apps. The broadcast message can be up to 255 characters (for Smart IT and Progressive Web Apps) and can include an attachment. You can specify the type of broadcast, for example, whether the broadcast contains general information, or information about a scheduled or unscheduled outage (unavailability). The broadcast will be active between the start and end time that you specify.

4. Save the broadcast.

To customize settings in Developer Studio for broadcasts created by using Progressive Web App screens

You can customize settings in Developer Studio to send notifications or emails for broadcasts that you create by using Progressive Web App screens.

1. Log in toDeveloper Studio.
2. Create an overlay of the CFG:Broadcast form with the SV_Create view.
3. Create a panel and add the following fields sequentially in the panel.
   For more information, see Developing Progressive Web Applications.
   
   • Notify
   • Support Company
   • Support Organization
   • Support Group
4. Under Display Properties, set the Field Access property of the Notify field to Read/Write.
5. Click Save.

The above fields are now available for selection when you create a broadcast by using the Progressive Web App screens.

Where are broadcasts received?

In BMC Helix ITSM, you can access broadcast in the following consoles and view them even with minimum permissions:

• Incident Management Console
• Asset Management Console
• Problem Management Console
• Change Management Console
• Knowledge Management Console
• Work Order Management Console
• Service Request Entry Console

Except the Service Request Entry Console, the rest of the consoles listed above display both the public and internal broadcasts in detail. The Service Request Entry Console displays only public broadcast messages, and you can only preview them.

Smart IT users, with functional role of a Broadcast Submitter, can view internal and public broadcasts that are sent and received through Smart IT.

Smart IT Agents can view active broadcast messages from the defined start time to the defined end time through the Updates feed on the Smart IT dashboard. They can filter the broadcasts from the Activity feed to view only active broadcast messages. Future broadcasts cannot be viewed until the Start Time.

The following are some important considerations about broadcasts inBMC Helix ITSM and Smart IT:

The following table is based on a scenario, and will help you understand broadcasts better. Here, a fictitious company, Calbro Services has Smart IT, BMC Helix Digital Workplace, and BMC Helix ITSM users. Calbro Services has offices located in Santa Clara and Vancouver. The table shows where broadcasts are received, based on where the broadcast is sent from.