Assigning catalog roles to user accounts

As a service catalog administrator, you can assign to a user any catalog user role, such as administrator, internal supplier, internal supplier administrator, asset manager, or agent and give them the ability to perform a set of actions and tasks based on the role.
By default, all catalog user accounts are entitled to view and request services.

The user roles are specific to BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog. A user assigned to an administrative role does not need to be an administrator of other BMC systems.

Tip

By default, company-specific permissions are not supported for catalog administrators. Create a new set of administrators with access to specific services to implement company-specific access.

Required license

DWP Advanced icon.png BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced

Promote an end user to a service agent

Francie Stafford is starting her new role as a service agent. In this role, Francie needs to be able to answer user questions about requests. Francie's account already exists as an user in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog. Hannah assigns Francie the role of Agent. With this role, when Francie logs in to BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog, she has access only to the Service Requests report.

Change administrative role to reduce responsibilities

Ian Plyment is a current catalog administrator who wants to give up all administrative capabilities except for managing virtual marketplaces. Silvio, the newly promoted catalog administrator, changes Ian's role from Administrator to the role of Asset Manager. Ian can continue to maintain entitlement groups, but cannot change service details, workflows, or manage users.

Promote an end user to an internal supplier

Silvio Ragozzi is an end user. Hannah is the catalog administrator. Hannah asks for Silvio's help to manage the organization's service catalog. Silvio's account already exists in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog so that he can request services. For Silvio to be able to manage the service catalog, Hannah adds Silvio to an existing subcatalog, or she creates a new subcatalog, and assigns him a role of the Internal Supplier.

Enable an internal supplier to administer a subcatalog

Silvio Ragozzi becomes a subject matter expert in configuring services, workflows, and questionnaires. He effectively maintains his own services and helps other internal suppliers. Hannah decides that Silvio can now review services submitted by other internal suppliers and decide whether to publish services.

For his assigned subcatalog, Hannah removes the Internal Supplier role from Silvio's user account and adds the Internal Supplier Administrator role.

Hannah later decides to expand Silvio's role so that he can help the organization to manage service templates, categories, and users. She changes Silvio's role from Internal Supplier Administrator and promotes him to a catalog administrator.

Internal supplier and internal supplier administrator are subcatalog roles.

How bulk assignment of catalog roles work

You can assign the following roles to multiple users:

Catalog administrator
Agent
Asset manager

Consider the following points when assigning catalog roles in bulk:

You can select the users individually or based on user attributes such as support group or region. These attributes are defined in BMC Helix ITSM, as shown in the following images:

Attributes defined in the CTM:People form

The following attributes are defined in the CTM:People form:

Attributes defined in the CTM:Support group form

The following attributes are defined in the CTM:Support group form:

The role added by using attributes taked effect immediately is the user is logging in for the first time since the attribute was selectd. If the role changed while the user was already logged in, the new role takes effect after a cache refresh of 30 minutes.
The role added by selecting the individual users by using their login name takes effect immediately without the user logging in to the catalog.
When a role is removed, the change takes effects after a cache refresh of 30 minutes.
If you are upgrading or migrating from an older version, existing users and their roles are displayed in the Users section. There is no change made to these roles.

Important

For the new agent role to take effect, agents must log in to BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog before logging in to SmartIT.

BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalogis the primary UI for managing the catalog roles. Although catalog roles can be assigned from the CTM: People form, such assignments are not displayed in the Catalog console.

Updates made to the user roles from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog supersede the modifications made to these roles from the CTM:People form.

Best practices for bulk assignment of catalog roles

If you have a large number of users, use the BMC Helix ITSM attributes to assign the roles in bulk to avoid performance implications.
If you must assign a role for an immediate update, use the User section to assign individual users, such as Catalog administrator.
If a user has both the Asset manager and Agent roles, the Asset manager role takes precedence. These roles serve distinct purposes and come with different permissions, capabilities, goals, and associated tasks. To learn more about each role, see the User roles section in Product overview.

Important

The Asset manager and Agent roles are not hierarchical. Having the Asset manager role does not grant the permissions or capabilities of the Agent role.

To assign Asset Manager, Administrator, or Agent role to multiple users

As a Catalog administrator, log in to the Catalog console.
Select People > User Roles.
Click Assign Role next to the role that you want to assign to the user.
To assign a role to multiple users, on the Role options pane, click Add next to Attributes.
On the People Attributes pane, select the attributes based on which you want to assign the selected role to the users.

The following image is an example of assigning the Agent role to all users belonging to the Customer Service group of the Information Technology organization.
Click Add.
Depending on the role assignment, the appropriate licenses are assigned to the users.
Click Confirm to accept the licensing updates.
Close the Role options pane.
To add individual users, on the Role options pane, click Add next to Users.
1. From the User Directory panel, select the checkboxes next to the user names of the individuals to whom you want to assign the role, as shown in the following image:
2. Click Add.
Close the Role options pane.

To remove an Asset Manager, Administrator, or Agent role for end users

Remove a user from the list of administrators or agents, but not from the application database.

As a Catalog administrator, log in to the Catalog console.
Select People > User Roles.
Click Assign Role next to the role that you want to remove for end users.
On the Role options pane, the role assignment is displayed.
If you want to remove the users selected based on an attribute, remove the attribute as shown in the following image:
If you want to remove individual users, click the <number> active in the Users section.
Select the checkbox next to the user you want to remove from the role.
Click Remove, as shown in the following image:

Where to go from here

Assigning subcatalog roles to user accounts