This documentation supports the 25.1 version of BMC Helix Change Management.To view an earlier version, select the version from the Product version menu.

Configuring assignment routing

The Change Management application uses assignment routing to select a support group, while the Assignment Engine is used after the support group selection to select a support agent from that group. If they are not configured, you must manually select a support group and the support agent for assignment.

Important

This configuration is optional.

Related topics

Rebranding BMC Helix ITSM on the Universal Client

To access the Assignment Routing form (CFG:Assignment), log in as an administrator or a user with the Config Group Mapping Admin permission. Using this form, you can create, update, and delete the assignment routing records. You can also manage assignment routing records for the various assignment events that come out-of-the-box with BMC Helix ITSM.

The form has two sections. The top section, the Group Assignment section, is used to select the assignment event and the named support group that will be used to fill in the Assigned Group for that event. The lower section, that is, the Routing Order section, is used to configure the routing or mapping data that will be used by the system when attempting to select the assigned group. The Available Systems section is used to select the application that this assignment routing record applies to.

Assignment routing form or the Configure Assignment form.jpg

The Change Management application is not shipped with the assignment routing data, because this data is specific to your implementation and use cases. The assignment routing data is used by the application to determine which support group needs to be assigned for a given assignment event. The application performs a best-match algorithm to determine the assigned group. The more detailed the routing or mapping data, the more specific the use case for selecting the assigned group will be. 

Important

If you leave a field in the Routing Order section as blank or add a null value, that field value matches the value for the corresponding field on the change request.

The following key field descriptions are from the Assignment Routing form:

Field

Description

Event

Used to identify the out-of-the-box assignment events. Out of the many out-of-the-box assignment events available for selection, the following options are specific to the Change Management application:

  • Infrastructure Change Coordinator—Used to automatically assign the Infrastructure Change Coordinator Support Group field for the change request.
  • Infrastructure Change Manager—Used to automatically assign the Infrastructure Change Manager Support Group field for the change request.

Assignment fields

  • Support Company—Used to identify the support company that is used by the system to set the corresponding Assigned Support Company field for the change request.
  • Support Organization—Used to identify the support organization that is used by the system to set the corresponding Assigned Support Organization field for the change request.
  • Assigned Group—Used to identify the support group that is used by the system to set the corresponding Assigned Support Group field for the change request.

For the Change Management application, these fields are mapped to the corresponding Change Coordinator Group or the Change Manger Group based on which assignment event has been selected in the Event field.  

Status

Represents the status for the Assignment routing record.

Set the status to Enabled, for the assignment routing workflow to use the assignment routing record. To temporarily disable the record, set the status to Offline.

Sort Order

Used by the best-match algorithm to supersede the Routing Order information when looking for a best match against the Assignment routing data and the change request. The Sort Order field is sorted first before the Routing Order fields. For almost all the use cases, you can leave this field blank, which allows the best match algorithm to simply use the Routing Order information when looking for a best-match. You can use this field if the routing does not work for your use cases.

Routing Order

The system uses the routing order information to find the best matching routing information against the corresponding data on the change record. This order is where the best-match algorithm goes through the routing data and matches against the corresponding data on the change record. The Order 1 – Organization fields are sorted first, the Order 2 – Location fields are sorted second, the Order 3 – Operational Categorization fields are sorted third, and the Order 4 – Product Categorization fields are sorted fourth or last.

  • Order 1 – Organization fields
    • Contact Company—This field maps to the Customer Company that represents the Requested For’s Company. This routing field is required.
    • Organization—This field maps to the Customer Organization that represents the Requested For’s Organization.
    • Department—This field maps to the Customer Department that represents the Requested For’s Department.
  • Order 2 – Location fields

      • Company—This field maps to the Change Location Company. This routing field is required.
      • Region—This field maps to the Change Location Region.
      • Site Group—This field maps to the Change Location Site Group.
      • Site—This field maps to the Change Location Site.
  • Order 3 – Operational Categorization
    These fields map to the corresponding change request Operational Category Tier fields respectively.
  • Order 4 – Product Categorization
    These fields map to the corresponding change request Product Category Tier and Product Name fields respectively.

Available Systems

These selection fields are used to identify the applications to which the Assignment Event applies. These are typically used for the generic event of -General-, because this event applies to more than one of the non-functional role based assignments like Incident and Problem Assignee.

The support group fields display all the available support groups that are configured on the Support Group form with the corresponding entries in the Support Group Assignment Configuration form. So, it is important that you first select the Contact Company and Location Company fields available in the Routing Order section before selecting the support group. This makes sure that you select valid support groups that have been configured for the given companies selected in these fields. For more information about Support Group Assignment Configuration, see Managing access to tickets and resources through support groups.

In addition, the list of groups from the menu selection are not limited by the assignment event that you have selected. So, make sure that the support group that is selected here has the corresponding support people associated with it with the needed functional roles. For example, for the Change Management application, these would be users with either the Infrastructure Change Coordinator or the Infrastructure Change Manager functional roles according to the selected event. For the Change Management events, select the Change Management application when creating your Assignment routing records. For more information about assignment routing,Configuring assignments. 

Example of Assignment Routing

The admin performs the assignment routing in Mid Tier. In the following example, we will create multiple assignment routings for the Change Manager Groups that vary based on organizations, locations, operational, and product category combinations. By default, when you open the Assignment Routing form and perform a search for a specific event, the data that is returned on the screen is displayed in the sort sequence that will be used by the best-match algorithm workflow.

Using the following query, we will find the seven assignment routing records that were created for the Infrastructure Change Manager Assignment Event example. The columns in the results list below are highlighted and numbered to match the areas on the forms.

Assignment routing form query.jpg

The most specific use case is sorted first and the least specific is sorted last.

Best practice
We recommend that you always have a default assignment routing record with the least specific data filled in (that is, just with the Contact Company and Location Company data). This way, the system will always find a Support Group to assign the change request to, if no other assignment routing records are found.

Example of how assignment routing works in the change module in BMC Helix ITSM

When creating or editing an existing change request, if you do not set the assigned Support Group for either the Change Coordinator or the Change Manager groups, the system automatically finds the best matching assignment routing record. If a record is found, the system sets the corresponding support group to the Assigned Group defined in the Assignment Routing record.

For example, to demonstrate how the assignment routing works, enter the following values in the change request record:

  1. Select a Requested For with the Organizational data of:
    1. Company—Calbro Services
    2. Organization—Human Resources
    3. Department—Benefits
  2. Select a Change Location with the Location data of:
    1. Company—Calbro Services
    2. Region—Americas
    3. Site Group—United States
    4. Site—Boston Support Center
  3. Select Operational Category as Change > Server > Storage.
  4. Select Product Category as Hardware > Processing Unit > Server > XS System.

Assignment routing form example.jpg

When the record is submitted, the system uses the data from the request to find the best matching assignment routing record for both, the change coordinator, and the change manager support groups. For the change manager support group, this record is the first in the list of the change manager assignment routing records as seen above (which is the HR Special Support group).

The following figure displays the change record with the auto assignment selection for the change manager support group filled in.

Change record with auto selection.jpg


 

Tip: For faster searching, add an asterisk to the end of your partial query. Example: cert*