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Troubleshooting integration with Smart IT

This topic provides information about how to troubleshoot the most common issues related to the Remedy with SmartIT (Smart IT) integration with BMC Digital Workplace Catalog service requests.

BMC Digital Workplace, BMC Digital Workplace Catalog, Smart IT, and Remedy IT Service Management (Remedy ITSM) are integrated, and you might find that the following items are not transferred or visible between applications:

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Integrating-BMC-Digital-Workplace-Catalog-service-requests-with-Smart-IT



Issue symptoms

  • The request ID is not visible in Smart IT, but it is visible in BMC Digital Workplace.
  • If a comment is added to a request, the comment is not visible in Smart IT in its fulfillment record and vice versa.
  • If a comment is added to a request, the comment is not visible in Remedy ITSM in its fulfillment record and vice versa.

Issue scope

The issue can appear in any of the following user interfaces:

  • BMC Digital Workplace while working on the request
  • Smart IT while working on a fulfillment record (such as Remedy Incident Management, Remedy Change Management, Work Order Management) of the request
  • Remedy ITSM while working on a fulfillment record (such as Remedy Incident Management, Remedy Change Management, Work Order Management) of the request

Steps to reproduce the issue

  1. As an administrator, in Remedy ITSM, open the centralized configuration forms as described in Centralized configuration .

  2. From the Component Name menu, select com.bmc.itsm.sbe.
  3. Select  *.
    The * signifies the configuration parameters that are available in the global settings in the CCS.
    1.JPG

  4. In the Setting Value column, enter the required details:
    2.JPG

    The following table describes the available options:

    Option

    Description

    sbeDomain

    BMC Digital Workplace Catalog domain name.

    sbeTenantAdminPassword

    BMC Digital Workplace Catalog server password. This password becomes encrypted after applying it.

    sbeTenantAdminUser

    Administrator's user ID on the BMC Digital Workplace Catalog server. Do not mention the domain name.

    sbeUrl

    BMC Digital Workplace Catalog server URL (http or https). Add a URL, but do not include an ending slash (/). For https, the default port is 443.

  5. Click Apply.
  6. In Remedy ITSM, open the SBE:ConnectionConfig form to test the connection.
    3.JPG

  7. Click Test Connection . 
    The  Result field displays the test connection status. If the connection fails, the  Result Code field displays the failure reason. 

    If you get an error, you can check the  arjavaplugin.log file, which is the standard AR Java plugin log.

  8. In the Centralized configuration form, select com.bmc.arsys.smartit > *.

    For more information about the form, see Centralized configuration.

  9. Set the enableSbeIntegration parameter to true.

Smart IT uses BMC Remedy AR System vendor forms to integrate with BMC Digital Workplace Catalog. These forms are part of the Smart IT application. The vendor forms are implemented in Java and contain the REST client code to make calls to the BMC Digital Workplace Catalog server. These forms must be installed on the Remedy ITSM server for the integration to work. The names indicate which type of data they are related to:

image2020-6-19_22-43-6.png

The following issues can occur when a BMC Digital Workplace Catalog and ITSM patch updates the BMC Digital Workplace Catalog server:

  1. The workflow fails to execute the remote action script (remoteaction.bat or remoteaction.sh).
  2. Memory issues cause the remote action script execution to fail. The remote action script will start a Java VM instance that runs a Java executable and makes REST calls back to BMC Digital Workplace Catalog. The script usually fails because of too many remote action calls being made in a short time.   
  3. The REST calls fail due to incorrect configuration in the SB:RemoteApprovalConfiguration form. (See Task 2 in the following table for checks you can make.)
  4. The AR System queries or updates of the SB:ServiceRequestStub form fail due to incorrect configuration in the SB:LocalApprovalConfiguration form. (See Task 2 in the following table for checks you can make.)

Diagnosing and reporting an issue

After you identify the symptoms and scope of the issue, use this troubleshooting guide to help the customer diagnose and resolve the issue or to create a BMC Support case. 

Task

Action

Steps

Reference

1

Make sure that the BMC Digital Workplace Advanced ITSM Integration patch is installed on the primary AR System server (or the one that you have defined for this). Also, make sure you have the correct BMC Digital Workplace Catalog patch that belongs to your BMC Digital Workplace Catalog server version.


Verify whether you have a remoteaction folder on the Remedy ITSM server and that it has the required files.


AR System workflow attempts to send the data back to BMC Digital Workplace Catalog via the remoteaction.bat file, which is stored in the $AR_SYSTEM_HOME/remoteaction folder. This file and the contents of the remoteaction folder are implemented by the integration server patch.

2

Verify whether the SB:LocalApprovalConfiguration and SB:RemoteApprovalConfiguration Approval forms on Remedy ITSM and AR System servers are installed and configured with the correct ports, host names, credentials, and protocol.

  1. Log in to Remedy ITSM server using the mid tier.
  2. Search for the SB:LocalApprovalConfiguration and SB:RemoteApprovalConfiguration forms.

The External process full path field on the Local Approval form should point to the appropriate remoteaction.bat or remoteaction.sh file (dependent on the Remedy ITSM server's OS) described in Task 1 above, for example:
C:\Program Files\BMC Software\ARSystem\
remoteaction\remoteaction.bat

If you have multiple servers in the server group for the Remedy ITSM and BMC Digital Workplace Catalog environments, use the load balancer name in the SB:LocalApprovalConfiguration and SB:RemoteApprovalConfiguration forms.

If the configuration is incorrect, you will see a failure message:

Troubleshooting.JPG


3

In BMC Digital Workplace 19.11 and later, use the SB:TestRemoteAction form to check for issues 1, 3, and 4 above.


  1. Open the SB:TestRemoteAction form.
  2. Click Test Configuration, which runs the test from the SB:TestRemoteAction form.

If the checks are successful, you will see a success message:

image2020-6-19_23-14-40.png

When problems 3 and 4 are present, you should receive a message that indicates a problem with the configuration.

When problem 1 is present, you may only see a pop-up that describes the issue. Most of the time, this is caused by defects in the script or by missing or incorrect environment variables. If the pop-up does not provide enough information, try enabling the filter logging on the ITSM server and check if more information is provided when the workflow tries to execute the remote action script.  

4

See the remoteaction.log file to track the status transmission back to BMC Digital Workplace Catalog. The file is enabled from the logback_remoteaction file.

Find the remoteaction.log file on the Remedy ITSM server, and view its output.

$AR_SYSTEM_HOME/log/remoteapproval.log

The following log snippet shows a working scenario of entries in the remoteaction.log file. (A nonworking scenario shows failed RPC Calls on the AR System server port.)

[2020-02-14 15:38:11,983] [11868@xxx-3310] INFO c.b.m.i.SendActivityLogsCommand [SendActivityLogsCommand.java:56] Creating Activity Log... 
[2020-02-14 15:38:12,291] [11868@xxxx-3310] INFO c.b.m.i.RemoteCommand [RemoteCommand.java:254] Authenticating User hannah_admin@xxxxx.com ... 
[2020-02-14 15:38:14,106] [11868@xxxxx-3310] INFO c.b.m.i.SendActivityLogsCommand [SendActivityLogsCommand.java:80] API End point to create Activity: /api/myit-sb/services/requests/11161/activities 
[2020-02-14 15:38:14,530] [11868@xxxxx-3310] INFO c.b.m.i.SendActivityLogsCommand [SendActivityLogsCommand.java:95] Activity Log created with response :  InboundJaxrsResponse{context=ClientResponse{method=POST, uri=http://xxxx-3310xxxxx:8008/api/myit-sb/services/requests/11161/activities, status=200, reason=OK}} 
[2020-02-14 15:38:14,531] [11868@xxxx-3310] INFO c.b.m.i.RemoteCommand [RemoteCommand.java:156] Updating local entry txn status: 000000000001014 
[2020-02-14 15:38:14,585] [11868@xxxx-3310] INFO c.b.m.i.RemoteCommand [RemoteCommand.java:172] Done with txn update

5

Check the BMC Digital Workplace application logs.

  1. Replicate the issue.
  2. Check the trace or debug log for errors. The files are located in BMCDigitalWorkplaceInstallationDirectory/DWP/DWP/logs.

BMCDigitalWorkplaceInstallationDirectory/DWP/DWP/logs

6




 Check the Smart IT application logs.

  1. Replicate the issue.
  2. Check the trace or debug log for errors. The files are located in SmartITInstallationDirectory /SmartIT/logs.

SmartITInstallationDirectory/SmartIT/logs

Examples

Test 1 - Comments made on BMC Digital Workplace

Can they be seen in Remedy ITSM (incidents, changes, and so on), Remedy Service Request Management (Request and Work Order), and SmartIT?

  • If yes, proceed to Test 2.
  • If the comments cannot be seen on any of the applications, check the BMC Digital Workplace Catalog log for clues.

Comments added in BMC Digital Workplace are sent to BMC Digital Workplace Catalog via REST API. BMC Digital Workplace Catalog then sends the comment to the BMC Digital Workplace Catalog Remedy connector, which adds the comment directly to the appropriate Remedy ITSM application work log form.

Note

The BMC Digital Workplace Advanced ITSM Integration patch is not used in this example because the patch functionality is used only to send updates from the Remedy ITSM server to the BMC Digital Workplace Catalog server, not in the opposite direction. However, the following examples depend on the BMC Digital Workplace and Remedy ITSM patch.

Test 2 - Comments made on SmartIT

Can they be seen in BMC Digital Workplace, BMC Service Request Management, and Remedy ITSM?

  • If yes, proceed to Test 3.

  • If the comments cannot be seen on BMC Digital Workplace, but can be seen on Remedy ITSM and BMC Service Request Management and you are running Smart IT 19.08, it might be related to defect SW00562843. For more information, see the BMC Support knowledge article at https://communities.bmc.com/docs/DOC-124063.

  • If the comments cannot be seen on Remedy ITSM and BMC Service Request Management, make sure Smart IT providers are enabled and have the correct values in the Midtier URL field.

Test 3 - Comments made on ITSM and BMC Service Request Management

Can they be seen in BMC Digital Workplace and Smart IT?

  • If the comments can be seen on BMC Digital Workplace and Smart IT, check Test 1 and Test 2.
  • If the comments cannot be seen on BMC Digital Workplace, make sure the BMC Digital Workplace patches were installed on the AR System server.
  • If the comments cannot be seen on Smart IT, check the Smart IT providers, and make sure they are pointing to the correct mid tier server.

 Limitations

  • Social feeds on the dashboard and the user profile are not displayed for BMC Digital Workplace requests; however, this information is available on the user's timeline.
  • Status change updates for fulfillment take time to appear in Smart IT.
  • The following features are not supported: Follow/Unfollow, Request Again, Cancel, and Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
  • Agents cannot search BMC Digital Workplace requests in Smart IT for IDs ranging from 1 to 99 because the Smart IT universal client limits global search with less than three characters. 
  • In the Activity tab of the ticket view, filter by the activity type is not available for BMC Digital Workplace requests.

 

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