22.1 enhancements and patches

View detailed time stamp for case activity update

As a case agent, you can view any case update added to the activity feed displayed on top on the case details page, the latest activity feed is displayed below the case with the time stamp in MMM-DD, YYYY format. Users having access permission to the case can view the case updates in the activity feed on the case details page. You can view the time stamp when you hover upon the case activity on the case details page. 

• If a case is created or updated in different time zones, the time stamp will be updated as per the current time zone. For example, in BMC Helix Business Workflows, if you create or update a case at 10 A.M. IST, the time stamp will display MMM-DD, YYYY 10:00 A.M., in India, and in Seoul, Korea, the timestamp will display MMM-DD, YYYY 1:30 A.M.

• If a case is created or updated with altered system settings, the time stamp selects the server time zone. For example, if you create or update a case at 10 A.M. IST, and later alter the time settings, the case activity time stamp will still display MMM-DD, YYYY 10 A.M.

The time stamp in MMM-DD, YYYY format will help the case business analyst, to track how long a case has been in update status without being resolved, ensuring to achieve the service level agreement.

Learn more about viewing case activities in Viewing-and-updating-case-details.

The following image shows a knowledge article with the anchor tag:

Improve ease of navigation in knowledge articles by adding links to internal sections

As a case agent, add anchor tags in knowledge articles to add cross-references to sections. You can add an anchor tag to a section heading and reference it in a different location in the knowledge article. The anchored links provide ease of navigation, helping you to find relevant information quickly. This in turn helps you resolve the cases faster. Learn more about creating knowledge articles in Creating-and-publishing-knowledge-articles.

To ensure that the anchor tags work appropriately, an administrator must whitelist the id and name attributes of the anchor tag. Learn more about whitelisting tags in Adding-HTML-tags-and-domains-to-the-allowlist. 

Workplace Service Management as a new line-of-business solution

End users can raise workplace-related service requests; for example, fixing a broken furniture, from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced through Workplace Service Management.

Workplace Service Management provides a wide range of out-of-the-box content for common employee services that can be customized and deployed. It provides a unified experience for services, knowledge, and automated workflow.

The following image shows the workplace-related service requests available through the Workplace Service Management Solution:

Use extended custom fields in reporting, consoles, and expression editors

As a case business analyst, save custom fields in extension record definitions to enable them to be reused in multiple ways. Use these extended custom fields in cases, tasks, reporting, consoles, approvals, notifications, and service level agreements.

Use them also in automated tasks, custom case workflows, REST APIs, and in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog.

Example: A custom field - expense type is added to an extension record definition. It is automatically added to cases created for the finance line of business. A case business analyst can use the expense type field for creating approval qualifications.

Learn more about extension fields in Dynamic-custom-and-extension-fields.

The following image shows the configuration page from where you can generate the extension record definitions:

Case management enhancements

• As a case business analyst, enable the status of cases and tasks to be reset to Assigned when the assigned group is changed.
  The status change reflects the need for the case agents from the assigned groups to start working on the newly assigned case or task.
• To facilitate communication, case agents can view the names of collaborators from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced in the cases in BMC Helix Business Workflows.

Approval enhancements

• A case business analyst can configure the approval for cases and tasks to be triggered when the status is set to New.
• If an alternate approver is assigned in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced for service requests, the alternate approver can also view the comments that are added while approving or rejecting the corresponding cases in BMC Helix Business Workflows.

Password protect generated PDFs to prevent unauthorized access

As a case business analyst, enable the generation of a system-generated password for PDFs to maintain the privacy of the document. A case agent who works on the case cannot open a password protected PDF. The password for the PDF is shared directly with the requester to safeguard the privacy of the document.

Learn more about the default password and how to change it in Enable-password-protection-for-generated-PDFs. 

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.

Employee document management

Employee Document Management is an out-of-the-box feature for filing, organizing, retaining, and maintaining employee documents while remaining compliant. It provides the ability to set document retention rules to support legal regulations.

With a built-in support for automated file deletion post retention period expiry, Employee Document Management helps maintain compliance and secure document access by defining access permissions.

Two new roles are introduced for Employee Document Management: Employee Document Config and Employee Document User. Users with the Employee Document Config user can define document categories, access policies, and retention policies. Users with the Employee Document User role can add or move documents to the employee file.

Learn more about document management in Getting-started-with-Employee-Document-Management.

The following image shows the Employee Document Management console that opens in a different tab:

The following image shows the HR Portal in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced:

HR Service Management for creating HR-related cases

HR Service Management offers end-to-end service requests for HR related queries. Requesters can raise HR related requests from the HR Portal in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced, such as employee education support, employee verification letter.

When a requester creates a service request by using one of the use case, a corresponding case is created in BMC Helix Business Workflows. The end-to-end use case contains all artifacts, such as case template, task templates, notification and email templates, and other record definitions that are required for the case in BMC Helix Business Workflows.

An administrator can change the branding of the HR Portal by modifying the template that is provided out of the box. An administrator can also add and modify use cases as required from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog

Learn more about the HR Portal in HR Service Management.

Create custom content use cases for lines of business

As a case business analyst, you can create end-to-end content use cases to use for your lines of business. The customized use cases that you create provide preconfigured sets of sample data that you can reuse for different lines of business. Each use case contains case templates, task templates, configuration data, and related objects that can be used to create cases and end-to-end workflows.

You can also copy the newly created or existing use cases to different lines of business. To use a content use case on a different setup, an administrator can export the use case by downloading it and importing it into a target setup.

Learn more about content use cases in Creating-and-reusing-out-of-the-box-content-use-cases-for-lines-of-business.

The following image shows the wizard in which you can create a new content use case:

This release provides the ability to use BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround as the knowledge source for BMC Helix Business Workflows.

Enhance knowledge management by integrating with BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround

Boost your knowledge management experience by integrating BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround with BMC Helix Business Workflows.

This integration provides the following benefits:

• AI powered cognitive and natural language processing search capabilities that display the most relevant knowledge articles.
• Extended language support and over 100 languages in auto-translation that reduces translation costs.
• Quick and efficient migration of articles from BMC Helix Business Workflows to BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround.
• Support for Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS) process.
• Extensive set of BI reports for enhanced knowledge insights and knowledge quality improvement.

Learn more about BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround and how to integrate BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround with BMC Helix Business Workflows in Leveraging-knowledge-from-BMC-Helix-Knowledge-Management-by-ComAround.

The following image shows the date and time for a case approval:

Time stamp displayed for approvals and rejections

For a status change from Pending to Approved or Rejected for cases, tasks, and knowledge articles, the date and time is displayed since the record is awaiting approval. You can hover over the time to view the actual time passed. Date and time is also displayed to show when the case, task, or knowledge article is approved or rejected.

With the detailed time stamp, it is easier to understand the time elapsed since the record is awaiting approval, and also when it was approved or rejected. 

Add comments when approving or rejecting a case, task, or knowledge article

An approver can add a comment or note when approving or rejecting a case, task, or a knowledge article. Adding a justification or reason when approving or rejecting an approval helps the requester understand why the request was approved or rejected. The approver's comment is displayed on the Approver List tab and in the activity feed. If there are multiple approvers, the comment from each approver is displayed.

Learn more about adding comments when approving or rejecting cases in Approving-or-rejecting-cases, for tasks in Approving-and-rejecting-tasks, and knowledge articles in Approving-or-rejecting-knowledge-articles.

The following image shows the Rejection note pop-up window, where the approver can add the reason for rejecting the case:

The following image shows the Email Template Manager role selected for a case agent in Mid Tier:

Email Template Manager and Notes Template Manager roles to manage email and notes templates

An administrator can assign the new Email Template Manager and Notes Template Manager roles a case agent or case manager to create and manage email templates and notes templates respectively. Both roles are not assigned by default and must be manually assigned to the users that will be creating and managing email and notes templates. An administrator can assign these roles from Mid Tier.

With the new roles, case agents and case managers are empowered to create email templates that can be reused later for sending emails and notes templates to send notes to requesters.

Learn more about assigning roles in Setting-up-roles-and-permissions.

Control access to email templates

An email template manager or a case business analyst can restrict access to email templates to a limited audience, such as required support groups and case agents. By restricting access, you prevent other users from accessing sensitive information in the email templates.

Learn more about adding and removing user access to email templates in Controlling-user-access-to-email-templates.

The following image shows the list of support groups and agents who have access to an email template:

The following image shows the Save as draft option in the Compose Email screen:

Save email as a draft

While composing an email from a case or task, you can save the email as a draft and finish it later. Only users who have created the email drafts can view them.  

Learn more about saving an email as a draft in Communicating-case-updates and Updating-tasks-and-tracking-progress.

Save emails as templates

As a case agent or case manager with the Email Template Manager role, you can save an email that you are composing as a template. You can reuse the email as a template for future use.

The following image shows the Save as template option in the Compose Email page:

The following image shows the Add people icon and the Related People window with the list of related people:

Send email to people related to a case

As a case agent, when you compose or reply to an email from a case, you can use the people list to select the recipients to whom you want to send the email. The people list also provides the list of people associated with that case. Learn more about sending email to people related to a case in Communicating-case-updates.

Support for dynamic data in email custom process

When a case is created through email, the dynamic data can be added to the case. As a case business analyst, you can create dynamic data in JSON format in the email custom process. The key value pair from the JSON is added as dynamic fields in the case.

Learn more about mapping the dynamic data in the email custom process in Setting-up-email-IDs-for-automatic-case-creation.

The following image shows the Dynamic Data output variable in the email custom process:

The following image shows the search configuration settings for cases and tasks:

Search within dynamic data, attachments, and social activities in cases and tasks from Global search

An administrator can enable search in dynamic data fields, attachments, and social activities for cases and attachments and social activities for tasks. The administrator can enable the search for each of the options separately, thus having the flexibility to search specific records.

When a user searches for a term in the Global search, the results are listed in the following order: case summary, description, dynamic data, attachments, and then social activities.

Enhanced support for list type data

As a case business analyst, you can select Named list in the List type of question in dynamic data fields. You can also set the List type field to be dynamic instead of static. Earlier the list options had to be manually uploaded to the ListFieldDisplayDataDefinition table. With the enhanced support for list type of data, users can maintain consistency between dynamic data fields, avoid data duplication, and also avoid manual updates to list options.

The following image shows the Named list option:

Support for displaying rich text format content from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced

Comments, questions and answers, and dynamic data from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced  is displayed in rich text format that is supported in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced. With the RTF support, users can view inline images and RTF content from BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced, enhancing the user experience.

Create internal cases

As a case agent, you can create internal cases, if you want to disable all case-related communications to requesters. While creating cases, you can mark cases that are not requested by a requester or are not created through a service request as internal cases. The requester notifications and public notes are disabled for internal cases.

Learn more about creating internal cases in Creating-cases-from-the-Create-Case-page and Creating-cases-from-Quick-Case.

The following image shows the Internal Case option enabled when a case is being created from the Quick Case page:

The following image shows the Send Resolution Note to Requester option is enabled in the Update Status screen: 

Send resolution note to requester when a case is resolved

As a case agent, you can send a resolution note to the requester when you resolve a case. The resolution note is displayed to the requester as a public comment in the case activity feed and in the comment section of the service request in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced.

Learn more about sending a resolution note to requester in Changing-case-statuses.

Ability to reopen resolved cases in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced

A requester can reopen a resolved case from the corresponding service request in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced by clicking Reopen in the service request. Earlier, the requester had to send an email or add a comment in the service request to reopen a case. With 22.1 release, case agents and requesters can reopen only resolved cases, and not canceled or closed cases.

A case business analyst can define the time within which a resolved case can be reopened for a line of business.

Learn more about reopening cases in Reopening-cases.

The following image shows the Reopen option for a resolved case in BMC Helix Business Workflows and the corresponding service request in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced:

The following image shows the improvements made to the Case console:

Console UI improvements

The case and task console has been improved in the following ways to enhance the user experience:

• No border for columns
• Badge for case or task priority

Enable automatic creation of service request for a case created in BMC Helix Business Workflows using a connector

As a case business analyst, you can configure BMC Helix Business Workflows  to automatically create a service request in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced for a case that is created in BMC Helix Business Workflows  by using the Business Workflows connector.

Earlier, when a case is created in BMC Helix Business Workflows by using the Business Workflows connector, a service request was not created. With the 22.1 release, you can explicitly set the Create Service Request flag to true if you want a service request to be created when a case is created in BMC Helix Business Workflows by using the Business Workflows connector . If Create Service Request flag is not defined or if it is set to false, then no service request is created.

Learn more about configuring BMC Helix Business Workflows to create service requests for cases created by using the Business Workflows connector in Integrating-BMC-Helix-Business-Workflows-with-other-applications.

The following image shows the Create Service Request field is set to true for create a new case action in BMC Helix Integration Studio:

The following image shows the CREATE_SERVICE_REQUEST parameter is set to true in BMC Helix Business Workflows:

The following image shows an example of the Add Public Activity element used in an automated sample task:

Support for adding generated PDFs in social interactions

To add the generated PDFs in the social activity feed of a case, you must add the Add Public Activity element to any process that requires a PDF document output. The case activity feed is displayed in the service request that is created in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced, ensuring that the requester can access the generated PDFs from the comments of the service request. Learn more about how to add the Add Public Activity element to a process in To add generated PDFs to social activities.