Automating case activity updates

As a case business analyst, you can automate the tasks of updating case activities such as adding activity notes and creating events. To automate these tasks, use the Add Social Post, and Add Ticket Post By Rec Def elements. The Create Social Event element is used by BMC Helix Business Workflows to create an event in cases, tasks, and knowledge articles, add a failed task event, or add a PIN validation message, and uses a JSON format to add notes.

Add Public Activity properties

An Add Public Activity element adds an note or generated PDF to the case activity which is public and can be seen in the comments section of a service request in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced. The following table describes the input parameters for Add Public Activity:

Parameter	Description
Record Instance	Specify the case record instance for which a PDF document will be generated and posted to social activity.
Comment text	Comment that will be added to the social activity with the generated PDF.
Attachment	You can send an attachment when sending an email notification. Click Click to build and expression. In the Edit Expression dialog box, select the variable from the list that you want to add as an attachment. Important: Value for this field must be an attachment object.
Attachment list	You can send a list of attachments when sending an email notification. Click Click to build and expression. In the Edit Expression dialog box, select the variable from the list that you want to add as an attachment. Important: Value for this field must be a list of attachments. For information about how to create a list of the attachments, see Creating lists from processes.

Note

We recommend that you use this element to post notes to social activities that you want to make public.

Add Social Post properties

A Add Social Post element add an activity note in a case. The following table describes the input parameters for Add Social Post:

Property	Description
Current Record Instance	Record instance of the current record to which comment is to be added, such as complete case record.
Is Public	Values are true or false. Shows whether a comment is public or private. When the value is true, the comment is public.
Post Type	Type of comment, such as note, warning, comment from a user, or note from the system.
Comment	Text of the comment to be added
Associated Guid	Optional. If adding comment to a task, map the Case ID to this field.

The following image shows the properties of the Add Social Post element:

Add Ticket Post By Rec Def properties

A Add Ticket Post by Rec Def element add an activity note in a case. The following table describes the Add Ticket Post by Rec Def properties:

Property	Description
Record Definition Name	Name of the record definition. For example: "com.bmc.dsm.case-lib:Case". The record definition must be defined in the Social Registration Entry.
Guid	Case ID to which a comment is to be added.
Comment Text	Text of the comment to be added. For example, "Sample comment text".
Feed Type	Type of feed, such as system or user.
Is Public	Values are true or false. Shows whether a comment is public or private. When the value is true, the comment is public.
Groups Write	List of Assigned groups that have the Write permission for the case.
Roles Write	List of roles that have the Write permission for the case.
Users Write	List of users that have the Write permission for the case.
Groups Read	List of Assigned groups that have the Read permission for the case.
Roles Read	List of roles that have the Read permission for the case.
Users Read	List of users that have the Read permission for the case.

The following image shows the properties of the Add Ticket Post by Rec Def element.

Best practice

When you use the Add Ticket Post by Ref Def element, you must also use the Get Write Security Label and Get Read Security Label elements in the process to ensure that the comment that is added to the record is visible to the appropriate users with the Read and Write permissions. If you do not use these elements, users do not have the permission to view the comment. We therefore recommend that you use the Add Social Post element instead of the Add Ticket Post by Rec Def element to add social comments to records.

Create Social Event properties

A Create Social Event element add an activity note in a case. The following table describes the Create Social Event properties:

Property	Description
Current Record Instance	Name of the record definition to which an activity note will be added.
Is Public	Values are true or false. Shows whether a comment is public or private. When the value is true, the comment is public.
Post Type	Type of post, such as PIN validation, automated task failure message.
Comment	Text of the comment that matches with the post type.
Groups Write	List of Assigned groups that have the Write permission for the case.
Roles Write	List of roles that have the Write permission for the case.
Users Write	List of users that have the Write permission for the case.
Groups Read	List of Assigned groups that have the Read permission for the case.
Roles Read	List of roles that have the Read permission for the case.
Users Read	List of users that have the Read permission for the case.

Best practice

We recommend that you use the Add Social Post element in processes to post messages and not the Create Social Event element. The Create Social Event element is used in internal process in BMC Helix Business Workflows and uses the JSON format to post messages.

Example: Automating case activity updates

Hannah is a case business analyst in Calbro Services. She creates a task flow in a case template for generating an address proof letter. The following image shows the task flow details in which the Add Social Post element is used:

In the task, Hannah has adds a validation to check if all required fields are filled for the letter. If a field is missing, a predefined message is posted in the social activity. In this example, Hannah changes the label of the Add Social Post element to Add Failure message in Social. After the message is posted, Hannah adds a time gap, after which the status of the task changes to Failed. When no missing fields are found, the task completes by sending the address proof letter to the requester.