Managing service actions

As a catalog administrator or internal service supplier, you manage service actions from the Service Actions page, which you can access by selecting Services > Service Actions in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog. Here, you can add, edit, and delete service actions.  

By default, all newly created service actions are inactive and are displayed on the Inactive tab. You can activate service actions to make them available for end users, and deactivate them as needed.

If you have more than one environment with BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog, you can share service actions among them by exporting and importing service actions to and from local files.  

Comparison of service actions and services

Service actions are similar to services because they have the following resembling components:

Components of service actions

A service action uses the same UI template as a service. You complete the required details for a service action in the same way as you do when you create or edit a service.

Process of adding service actions

As a catalog administrator, perform the following steps to add and enable a service action:

1. Create a service action.
2. Associate the service action with one or more of the following items available on the My Stuff page:
   
   • Published services—To make the service action available from the Actions list of completed services requests (See To associate a service action with services below.)
   • Service categories—To make it available for all completed services that belong to the selected category (See To associate a service action with services below.)
   • Asset classes—To make it available for all asset classes or specific asset classes retrieved from a connected system and entitled to the end user (See To associate a service action with assets below.)
3. Activate the service action so that the action becomes available for selection in the Actions list of service requests and assets to which it is mapped.

The following screenshot shows a completed service request and a list of actions associated with it:    

To create a service action

1. BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog, go to Services > Service Actions.
2. Click Create Action.
3. In the Action Name field, enter a descriptive action name, such as Replace hardware.
4. Click Confirm.
   The Actions Options pane is displayed.
   
5. In the appropriate section of the Action Options pane, complete the required details for the service action components.
6. (Optional) You can publish service actions and their translations for end users in different locales. For more information, see Localizing-catalog-items.
7. Save the changes.

To make a service action available to end users, you must associate it with services or assets, and then activate it.

To associate a service action with services

1. Open a service action that you want to map to services.

2. In the Action Options panel, click Edit next to Asset Mapping.

   The following example shows the Service Requests section:

   

3. (Optional) Map categories of services to a selected service action:
   1. In the Service Requests section, click Add next to Categories.
   2. From the Service Catalog, select one or more service categories, and click Save.
4. (Optional) Map services to a selected service action:
   1. In the Service Requests section, click Add next to Services.
   2. From the Service Catalog, select one or more services, and click Add.

To associate a service action with assets

You can associate service actions only with those asset classes that are retrieved from connections configured in the Application Settings > Asset Management. For details about how to configure asset connections, see Configuring-services-and-assets-to-be-available-on-the-My-Stuff-page.

The following example shows the Asset connections sections of a service action:

Perform one or more of the following procedures to associate service actions with assets:

• To map an asset class to a selected service action
• To map a subset of assets in an asset class to a selected service action
• To map all asset classes from the configured connections to a selected service action

To map an asset class to a selected service action

1. Open a service action that you want to map to assets.
2. In the Action Options panel, click Edit next to Asset Mapping.
3. In the Asset Connections panel, click Add next to a selected connection.
4. Select one or more asset classes, and click Add.
   The added asset classes are displayed below the selected connection in the Asset Connections panel.
   
   To delete the added class, click the x button.

To map a subset of assets in an asset class to a selected service action

To restrict the number of assets that will be associated with a service action, you can create a query that will search for assets that match the query condition.

1. Open a service action that you want to map to assets.
2. In the Action Options panel, click Edit next to Asset Mapping.
3. Map an asset class to a selected service action:
   1. In the Asset Connections panel, click Add.
   2. Select one or more asset classes, and click Add.
      
4. Click Add next to the selected asset class, and create a condition for the selected asset class:
   1. In the Condition name field, enter a descriptive condition name.

   2. In the Expression field, select a field, and build a condition as follows:

      • On the left side of the expression, select an expression variable.

        Tip

        The list with expression variables is automatically generated from the available out-of-the-box attributes provided by CMDB. Only string type attributes are displayed. Integer and date type attributes are not shown in the list.

      • Select an operator (IS, IS NOT, CONTAINS, DOES NOT CONTAIN, STARTS WITH, ENDS WITH)
      • On the right side of the expression, type a free text value.

      

   3. Click Save.
      The added query is displayed below the asset class in the Asset Connections panel:
      

To map all asset classes from the configured connections to a selected service action

1. Open a service action that you want to map to assets.
2. In the Action Options panel, click Edit next to Asset Mapping.
3. In the Asset connections section, select All beside a connection from which you want to pull out all asset classes.

To activate and deactivate a service action

To make the service action available to end users, after you create a service action and map it to services and assets, you must activate it. You might also need to deactivate service actions to make them temporarily unavailable for selection by end users, such as when a service action is undergoing some changes.

To activate or deactivate a service action, perform one of the following steps:

• From the Action Options pane, change the Active toggle to activate or deactivate a service.
  
• Open the Service Actions page and select a service action on the Active or Inactive tab. Click Actions and select one of the following options:

• 
  
  • Activate—Makes an inactive service action available to end users. This option is available on the Inactive tab.
  • Deactivate —Makes an active service action unavailable to end users. This option is available on the Active tab.

To edit a service action

You might need to edit the details of a service action or its name, or add translations.

1. From the Service Actions page, select a service action that you want to modify, and select Actions > Open.
   The Actions Options pane is displayed.
2. Make the necessary changes to the service action, and click Save.

To delete a service action

You can delete active and inactive service actions at any time.

From the service actions list, select one or more service actions, and click Actions > Delete.

If a service action is associated with a service, service category, or asset class, a message appears to notify you of potential risks.

To export and import a service action

To export a service action to a local zip file, select a service and click Actions > Export.

To import a saved service action, select Actions > Import, and upload the service action zip file. 

Required licensing

SaaS subscribers who use BMC Helix ITSM or BMC-Helix-Virtual-Agent-Basic-service are entitled to this feature.