24.2 enhancements and patches

Configure FTP servers while scheduling reports

Use the New FTP connection option to configure an FTP server while you are scheduling a report. You can configure multiple FTP servers and use one of them to store sensitive data. 

For details, see Scheduling-reports-for-automatic-distribution.

Apply functions to fields used as filters in the visual query builder

In addition to applying the functions to customize the values of fields added to the Fields area, you can also apply these functions to the fields added as filters when you create a SQL query in the visual query builder. For example, apply the Date function to change the date format used for displaying date values.

For details, see Creating-SQL-queries-by-using-the-visual-query-builder.

Enable or disable service management query types

Enable or disable the following service management query types for administrators or other users such as reporting editors and viewers: Form, SQL, or Visual query builder

The enabled query types are displayed during configuration of a SQL query in a dashboard panel.

For details, see Service-Management-query.

View the More values label to identify a dashboard filter with more than 1000 values

By default, the dashboard filter displays only the first 1000 values, but the More values label lets you know that there are more, unlisted values. Use the search box to search for a specific value from all the listed and unlisted values.

For details, see Filtering-data-and-personalizing-dashboards.

View the name of an updated customized view in Reporting Metadata Studio

You can view the name of a customized view that you have updated and published in Reporting Metadata Studio. After you save and publish any changes made to the view, the view name is populated automatically in the Save as window. You can use the same view name or specify a new name to create a copy of the view. 

For details, see Creating-customized-views.

(Controlled availability customers only)

Download Reporting Metadata Studio from the UI

Download Reporting Metadata Studio from the BMC Helix Dashboards UI to your computer to create customized views. Reporting Metadata Studio is based on Pentaho Metadata Editor.

For details, see Installing-Reporting-Metadata-Studio.

(Controlled availability customers only)

View calculated fields in a separate folder

Use the calculated fields of an out-of-the-box view from the Calculated Fields folder while creating a SQL query in the visual query builder. This separate folder saves you the time required to locate and use these fields in the query.

For details, see Creating-SQL-queries-by-using-the-visual-query-builder.

Configure a default date and time format

Use the Datetime Format option to configure a default date and time format to be used for all dashboards, panels, and reports at the tenant level. With this configuration, the same date and time format is preserved at the tenant level when a dashboard report is downloaded in the Microsoft Excel or CSV format. You can override this global setting at the user level.

For details, see To configure the default date and time format.

Configure the width of y-axis labels in the BMC Bar Chart visualization

Configure the Max Width of Y-Axis Labels option in the BMC Bar Chart visualization to specify the width of y-axis labels and prevent them from getting truncated on the UI.

For details, see Visualizing-data-as-charts.

(Controlled availability customers only)

Create customized views by using Reporting Metadata Studio

Use Reporting Metadata Studio to perform these tasks:

• Create a custom view.
• Create a copy of an existing out-of-the-box view and customize it.

Use these customized views to create SQL queries in the visual query builder to fetch data from BMC Helix ITSM.

For details, see Defining-customized-views-to-build-SQL-queries.

(Controlled availability customers only)

Apply functions to fields in the visual query builder

Apply the String, Date, and Time functions to fields to customize field values while creating a SQL query in the visual query builder. For example, apply the Date function to change the date format used for displaying date values.

For details, see Creating-SQL-queries-by-using-the-visual-query-builder.

(Controlled availability customers only)

Create and manage roles in BMC Helix Dashboards

Use role-based access control from BMC Helix Dashboards to provide customized and granular permissions to users and teams. As a tenant administrator, perform these tasks to manage roles and permissions:

• Assign out-of-the-box system roles such as Viewer, Editor, and Admin to users and teams.
• Create custom roles to provide granular permissions; for example, permission to create dashboard reports and also to schedule, edit, and delete them.

For details, see Managing role-based access control in BMC Helix Dashboards.

(Controlled availability customers only)

Learn about the improvements in the CMDB dashboards

This release includes the following improvements in the CMDB dashboards:

CMDB Overview dashboard

Displays the percentage distribution of the top 10 configuration items (CIs) across all classes and types.

For details, see CMDB-Overview-dashboard.

CMDB Data Quality dashboard

Displays the count of the following items in separate panels:

• Orphan CIs
• CIs that are soft-deleted with the Mark As Deleted attribute set to Yes
• Virtual machines that do not have a host

For details, see CMDB-Data-Quality-dashboard.

Configure the Axis and Thresholds settings in the BMC Time Series Forecast visualization plug-in

Configure the following settings in the BMC Time Series Forecast visualization plug-in:

• Axis settings to visualize how the x-axis and y-axis are rendered.
• Thresholds settings to visualize and analyze how the metric behaves relative to a specified threshold value. 

For details, see Visualizing-predictive-time-series-data.

Manage the capacity of storage systems with out-of-the-box dashboards

Use the Storage-All-in-One dashboards to visualize and manage the capacity of the storage systems. Analyze the capacity usage of storage pools, volumes, shares, and filters to identify capacity-specific risks and issues. 

For details, see Storage-All-in-One-dashboards.