Configuring Proactive Service Resolution for incidents in BMC Helix ITSM

Before you begin

Before configuring the solution, ensure that the following actions are performed:

To configure Proactive Service Resolution

Perform the following tasks to configure Proactive Service Resolution:

• To enable incident noise reduction
• Step 1: To set up a connection with the IT Service Management system
• Step 2: To define a trigger condition
• Step 3: To provide the event to incident field mapping
• Step 4: To provide the incident fields to Information Event mapping
• To merge new or updated field mappings

When the solution is enabled, it automatically creates artifacts such as the event policy, automation policies to create incidents, and an information event. 

The following graphic illustrates the steps involved in configuring Proactive Service Resolution.

To enable incident noise reduction

The incident noise reduction capability is available only if you are using ML-based situations in BMC Helix AIOps and BMC Helix ITSM for managing incidents in your organization. 

1. Click Solutions > Proactive Service Resolution and click Configure.

2. Use the Incident Noise Reduction toggle key to enable the capability.
   The Associate event to Incident policy is created in this step. 
   

   When you enable Proactive Service Resolution with the Incident Noise Reduction option, consolidated incidents for situations start getting created after 15 mins.
   

Step 1: To set up a connection with the IT Service Management system

1. Click Solutions > Proactive Service Resolution and click Configure.
2. Click Set Up and perform the following steps:
   By default, BMC Helix ITSM is selected.

   1. For BMC Helix ITSM, type the following details:

      Field	Description
      BMC Helix ITSM Endpoint URL	The REST API URL for BMC Helix ITSM. For example, https://helixtrial-restapi.onbmc.com. To obtain the REST API URL, contact your BMC Helix ITSM team.
      Username	Username to log on to the application.  Supports # ! $ & * ( ) _ - +, and . special characters.
      Password	Password that matches the username.

   2. (Optional) To connect to an on-premises deployment of BMC Helix ITSM, download and install the connector before performing the next steps. 
      For more information, see Configuring-BMC-Helix-ITSM-connector-for-Proactive-Service-Resolution. 
3. Click Save.

Step 2: To define a trigger condition

By default, the trigger condition is set to Severity = Critical, which indicates that BMC Helix Intelligent Automation creates an incident when the event severity is critical. 

Step 3: To provide the event to incident field mapping

By default, BMC Helix Intelligent Automation provides mapping of event fields to the incident fields. Based on these mappings, an incident gets created. You can choose to specify custom values for the default fields, add more fields, or apply transformation based on your requirements. For more information about the out-of-the-box field mappings, see Field-mappings-for-Proactive-Service-Resolution-for-incidents. 

The Create or Update Incident Ticket automation policy is created as part of this step. 

1. To view the default mappings, click Configure against the Configure mapping: Event → Incident field.

2. (Optional) Click Add Incident Field to add more fields to be updated while creating a trouble ticket.
   

   Important

   If you select Required and make a field mandatory, you cannot change it back to optional or delete the required field unless you delete the solution.

   The field names in the list appear based on the fields supported by BMC Helix ITSM. 
   

3. When you add a field, you must map it to a field in the incoming event, or add value based on the selected field.
   For example, if you add a field, StatusReason, you can add any reason in the event field. 

   Fields for associating CIs and service details for L2 and L3 incidents

   • By default, the ADDMIntegrationId field looks for the node_service_key_mapping in the event. If not found, the ComponentAliases field looks for the component aliases in BMC Helix ITSM, and if found, creates an incident with component alias information.
   • If no such information is available in the event, the solution uses the CILookupProperties field to retrieve the configuration items (CIs) from the Configuration Management Database (CMDB). The CI information is passed as a related entity to be associated with the incident. 
   • If any of these fields are unavailable in the event, or the CI Lookup criteria is not specified in the solution, an incident is created without associating any CIs or service details. 

4. (Optional) If your organization uses Reconciliation ID and Reconciliation Service ID in the event, in the CMDBLookupKey field, type ReconciliationIndentity and ReconciliationIndentity_NodeCI.

   Using Reconciliation ID and Reconciliation Node CI for L1, L2, L3 incidents

   If the event contains Reconciliation ID and Reconciliation Service ID, and you have specified ReconciliationIndentity in the mapping, an L3 incident gets created. If only ReconciliationIndentity_NodeCI is specified in the mapping, an L2 incident is created. If the event doesn't contain any reconciliation IDs, an L2 incident is created without any CI information.

   However, if an event contains incorrect Reconciliation Service ID, no incident is created. In case of an incorrect Node Reconciliation ID, an incident is created without any CI information. 

    

5. In the ADDMIntegrationId field, click +Add Condition and add the following condition:
   1. In the Condition field, enter $.event.status=CLOSED.

   2. In the Map with field, do not specify any value. 
      
      
      

      Important

      If using  20.02, the ADDMIntegrationId field is not supported. To be able to create Level 1 and Level 2, BMC recommends that you delete the field. However, L3 incidents are not created because the ADDMIntegrationId field is not supported. 

6. (Optional) To add a condition to a field, click +Add Condition, add the incident field, and map it to the event field. 

   Important

   If using custom values, you can specify multiple values in the conditions.
   

7. (Optional) Against any field, click Transform fields and select the transformation type:
   • Source value to target value: This enables you to map the event source fields to the target incident fields. 
   • String: This enables you to concatenate or extract a part of a string.

8. (Optional) To add multiple functions to process the strings for a field, navigate to a field and specify the conditions based on your requirement:
   For example, in the following MP4, you can add another function to process the value available in the Summary field in the event:
   

    

   Important

   • The following functions help transform the string data:
     • concat
     • substr: Specify values for Start and Length of the string to process
     • substrAfter: Specify the character and everything after the character gets processed
     • substrBefore: Specify the character and everything before the character gets processed
     • substrByByte: Specify the end index. For example, if you specify 99, all characters from 0-99 are processed.
     • toLowerCase: Transforms the entire string to lower case
     • toUpperCase: Transforms the entire string to upper case
   • When you add more than one function to transform data, conditions are applied in the order in which they are displayed.
   • You can use more than one function while mapping any field, for event-to-incident mapping or for incident-to-information event mapping.
9. (Optional) To add a date and time function, add a new field, click Configure Text, and perform the following steps:
   1. Click Add.
   2. Select the transformation type as Date & Time.
   3. To transform the date, select the getDate function.
      The time zone format is generated based on your system settings. 
   4. Select an output format: 
      • ISO
      • yyyy-dd-MM hh:mm:ss
      • ddMMyyyy
      • MMddyyyy
   5. To transform time, select the getTime function and select the output format as hhmm.
   6. Save changes. 
10. Click Save.
    A Policy published successfully message is displayed.  

Step 4: To provide the incident fields to Information Event mapping

By default, BMC Helix Intelligent Automation maps incident fields to event fields. Based on these mappings, an information event is created in BMC Helix Operations Management. Every time the incident is updated, the information event is updated too. For more information about the out-of-the-box field mappings, see Field-mappings-for-Proactive-Service-Resolution-for-incidents. 

As part of this step, the Create an Information Event automation policy is created.

1. To view the default mapping, click Configure against the Configure mapping: Incident → Information Event field.
   

1. If required, make changes, and click Save.
2. Click Enable. 
   The Proactive Service Resolution enabled successfully message is displayed. If you skip any of the steps, the status on the Solutions page shows the pending step. To make any changes to the field mappings after the solution is enabled, disable the solution first and then continue with the updates. 

Artifacts created after configuring Proactive Service Resolution

Consult the following table to learn more about the artifacts created after configuring the solution: 

To view Proactive Service Resolution

1. On the Solutions page, click View.
   You can view the connection details, such as the IT service management system's name, endpoint URL, and the user name used for the connection. You can also view the trigger condition and the configured mappings.  
2. Click Go back to return to the Solutions page. 

To enable or disable Proactive Service Resolution

If there is a downtime for any of the integrated products, you can disable the solution temporarily. This ensures that the artifacts and the customizations are not deleted when you enable the solution again. You must also disable the solution before you make any changes to the field mappings. 

1. Click Solutions > Proactive Service Resolution.

2. Use the toggle key to disable the solution.
   The message Proactive Service Resolution disabled successfully Is displayed. Use the toggle key to enable the solution as required. 
   After the solution is enabled again, if there are any events for which you need to create an incident, you can manually create them by using the Create Incident option in BMC Helix Operations Management or BMC Helix AIOps. For more information, see Performing event operations.

To modify Proactive Service Resolution

To modify the solution, you first disable it. 

1. Click Solutions > Proactive Service Resolution and use the toggle key to disable the solution.
2. Click Modify.
   You can only view the connection details, such as the selected ITSM system, endpoint URL, and the user name (only for cloud deployment) used for connecting with the system.   
3. (Optional; only for BMC Helix ITSM cloud) To update the tenant URL in the webhooks created in BMC Helix ITSM, perform the following steps:
   1. In the Setup a connection with ITSM section, click Modify. 
      The connection details to BMC Helix ITSM are displayed. 

   2. Click Recreate Webhook. 
      A success message is displayed.
      

      Important

      When you configure the solution, webhooks are created in . Webhooks are an HTTP callback mechanism to receive real-time event notifications from . Earlier, the callback URL in the webhook contained ingress URLs. If your BMC Helix tenant URL is updated due to any reason or if you are migrating the tenant, the URL does not get updated manually in the webhooks. In such cases, the callback mechanism supported by the webhooks might fail, and even if incidents are created successfully, information events are not sent to BMC Helix Intelligent Automation.

      When a webhook is created again with an updated tenant-based URL, for a brief time, the callback mechanism might not send notifications. This option is not required if you are configuring the solution for the first time.

       

   3. Click Save. 
4. Click Enable.

To merge new or updated field mappings

If new out-of-the-box field mappings are provided or if the existing mapped values are updated, you can merge them with the existing mappings. The out-of-the-box policies get updated, and the solution creates incidents automatically based on the updated configurations.  

1. Click Solutions > Proactive Service Resolution and use the toggle key to disable the solution.
2. Click Modify and then click Modify against the Configure mapping: Event Incident or Configure mapping: Incident Information Event section.
3. For updated fields, click View Difference to view the updated values.
   For example, in the following image, the updated value for the Short Description field is displayed. 
   
   
   
4. Click Merge Changes and select the new or updated fields that you want to merge.
   
5. Click Merge.
   Changes are merged successfully and the updated field mappings are displayed. 
6. Click Save and then enable the solution. 

To delete Proactive Service Resolution

To delete the solution, you must perform the following steps:

1. Disable the solution in BMC Helix Intelligent Automation:
   1. Click Solutions > Proactive Service Resolution and use the toggle key disable the solution.
   2. Click Delete.
      On the warning message that appears, click Yes.
2. (For on-premises BMC Helix ITSM connector only) Delete the webhooks created in BMC Remedy AR System:
   1. Log on to BMC Remedy AR System as an AR administrator and go to the AR System Webhook form:  
      https://<midtier>/arsys/forms/onbmc-s/AR+System+Webhook
   2. Search for the webhook by using the following criteria and then delete the webhook:
      1. Form Name : HPD:IncidentOutboundEvent
      2. Tenant ID  : <tenantid>
      3. Callback URL: https://<ingress_hostname>/intelligent-automation/restplugin/api/v1/tmf/callback?helix_itsm=true

When you delete the solution, the Create or Update Incident Ticket and Create an Information Event automation policies, the BMC Helix ITSM connector, and any custom mappings get deleted. If you configure the solution again, you have to provide the custom values for field mappings again. 

Where to go from here

You can view the status of the policies run by BMC Helix Intelligent Automation for creating incidents. For more information, see Viewing-automation-policy-runs-history.