21.3 enhancements and patches
Downloading and installing the patch for on-premises customers
Learn how to download and install the patch in the following topics in the BMC Helix Business Workflows online documentation:
SaaS application patching
BMC applies patches during Maintenance windows.
21.3.patch 6
Avoid PDF generation failure by replacing invalid XML characters with empty strings
A new configuration parameter, PDF_GEN_FIND_REPLACE is added to the global configurations, which will find and replace the invalid XML (null) characters with empty strings when PDFs are generated. This ensures that PDFs that might contain invalid characters are generated successfully.
Learn more about configuring the PDF_GEN_FIND_REPLACE parameter in Replacing-invalid-XML-characters-with-empty-strings-in-PDF-documents.
21.3 enhancements
Customize views for lines of business
Customize views for different lines of business by adding and removing fields, changing field names, repositioning fields and panels, and changing the sequence of the UI items.
By creating customized views, case business analysts can ensure that information that is specific to a line of business is displayed to its users.
Learn more about customizing views in Customizing-views-for-lines-of-business.
The following image shows an example of changes that you can make in the Cases workspace view:
The following image shows a task with the one-click status update options:
Update task status with a single click
Change the status of tasks to Start Progress or Mark Complete with one-click status update options. You can perform these actions without navigating to the task edit mode. Case agents who have write access to the tasks can update them with a single click.
Learn more about updating tasks with a single click in Updating-tasks-and-tracking-progress.
Copy and reuse out-of-the-box content use cases for lines of business
As a case business analyst, copy content use cases to reuse them for different lines of business. Currently, a limited number of content use cases are available for copying and reusing. You can copy each content use case separately for a different line of business and company. Before you copy the use case, you can preview the artifacts that are copied. All related objects and configuration data are also copied with the content use case to the target line of business.
Learn more about the use cases available for copying, and the configuration data and related objects that are copied with the use case in Reusing-out-of-the-box-content-use-cases-for-lines-of-business.
The following image shows an out-of-the-box content use case:
Reporting in BMC Helix Business Workflows
View BMC Helix Business Workflows dashboards and reports in BMC Helix Dashboards
New users of BMC Helix Business Workflows can view dashboards and reports in BMC Helix Dashboards reporting solution. Users with appropriate permissions can view and manage reports in BMC Helix Dashboards.
Existing reporting users can access these reports in BMC Helix Business Workflows through Smart Reporting and BMC Helix Dashboards.
BMC Helix Dashboards is a SaaS service as a part of the BMC Helix Portal that offers unified reporting and gives you a consolidated view of data from applications across your environment. You can easily create, export, and share interactive dashboards with users within or outside your environment. For more information on the product offerings, see BMC Helix Dashboards online documentation.
Smart Reporting is available only for upgrade scenarios for existing customers
Smart Reporting version 21.3 is available only for upgrade scenarios for existing customers. This version is not available to new customers.
Learn more about reports and dashboards in Viewing-reports.
The following image shows the out-of-the-box Survey and CSAT Metrics for Line of Business dashboard:
View customer satisfaction metrics dashboards
View CSAT metrics dashboards to gain insight about the overall customer satisfaction and performance of each line of business, assigned group, and agents. These dashboards are based on the customer feedback received from surveys in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced for cases. You can view the average CSAT rating, case resolution time, requester wait time, survey response rate, and so on for each line of business and assigned group.
The following CSAT metrics dashboards are available out of the box in BMC Helix Dashboards:
- Survey and CSAT Metrics for Line of Business
- Survey and CSAT Metrics for Assigned Groups
Learn more about the CSAT metrics dashboards in 21-3.
View email details of a service request in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced
If a case created through an email has a correspondent service request in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced, the content of that email is displayed in the comment section of the service request.
The following image shows an example of the email sent to request a service displayed in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced:
The following image shows the user profile menu from where you can open the My availability option:
Manage agent availability
As a case agent, set your status to Unavailable if you are not available or are out of office. Setting your availability ensures that auto assignments and round robin assignments are assigned appropriately to available agents.
Automate task assignment for lines of business
As a case business analyst, configure automatic task assignments based on task templates, assignment mapping rules, and round-robin assignments.
With automatic task assignment, you can process tasks faster, reduce the turnaround time, and ensure that no task remains unassigned.
Learn more about automatic task assignment in Automatic-task-assignment.
The following image shows the task assignment configuration for Human Resource line of business:
The following image shows the ALLOW_BCC_RECIPIENTS parameter is set to true 
for the Human Resource line of business:
Add Bcc recipients in emails sent from cases
As a case business analyst, set the ALLOW_BCC_RECIPIENTS parameter to true for a line of business. By doing so, you enable users to add Bcc recipients in emails sent from cases, tasks, and in email replies sent from cases.
Learn more about the enabling Bcc recipients for emails in Communicating-case-updates and Enabling-Bcc-recipients-for-emails-sent-from-cases.
Mark an email as high importance
While composing an email, you can set it to high priority.
Learn more about sending an email as a high priority message in Communicating case updates.
The following image shows the High Priority option in the Compose Email screen:
The following image shows an example of the new notification template:
Enhanced notification templates
Email notification templates have a new look and feel. A new banner is added to include the line of business field.
After upgrading to 21.3, you must manually update any custom notifications that you had in your setup for the new look. Learn how to modify the custom templates in Creating-notification-events-and-templates.
Add or remove recipients while using social notifications
In notification templates for social events, use the Send Notification Using Event process element to add or remove recipients while sending the emails.
Using the Send Notification Using Event process element gives you the flexibility to change recipients runtime or even disable notifications if not required. Learn more about the process element in Creating-processes-to-trigger-notifications-for-cases.
The following image shows the properties of the Send Notification Using Event process element:
The following image shows the link that you can add in the notification templates:
Add a link to a service request from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced to notifications
Add a link to a service request from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced in case-related notifications. By doing so, you can refer to the service request in any emails that you send from cases.
Learn more about adding links to a service request in Creating-notification-events-and-templates.