Activity feed overview

Activity feeds are the record of updates made to any ticket, asset, or knowledge article in Smart IT. The activity feed displays the type of activity that was performed, the name of the user who made the update, and the time when the update is done. Every ticket and resource has its own activity feed. You can access activity feeds on the Universal Client (UC), Apple iOS, and Google Android devices. 

Activity feeds provide a quick view of all that has been done to tickets and resources. You can track how the ticket progressed, and also add your notes to it. 

The Activity tab displays the events or activities related to the ticket. There are two types of events:

• System generated
  • Ticket creation feed
  • Status updates made to the ticket
  • SLA alerts
  • Changes in ticket assignment
  • Priority updates
  • Approval/rejection/on hold updates
• User generated
  • A note added to the ticket
  • Email sent from the ticket
  • Status reason when the status of a ticket is changed

By default, all the feeds are displayed in the relative date and time display format such as 6 hours ago, 3 days ago, and so on. In BMC Helix ITSM, on the Centralized-configuration, the administrator can specify Absolute value for the property dateTimeStyleProperty to display the date and time in the absolute format such as Sep 15, 2016 6:00 PM.

Since the browser spell check is enabled for the activity notes by default, incorrect spellings are highlighted, which you can then easily rectify. To enter notes in a foreign language, in your browser, you must enable the dictionary for the foreign language. If you don’t enable the dictionary, the system considers the words in foreign language as incorrect spellings.

On the Smart IT Dashboard, you can access the Updates feed. The system provides details of events related to the tickets, including the resources that are assigned to you or followed by you. Activity feeds are specific to tickets and resources, whereas update feeds are specific to the user. You can search for Activity on the Dashboard by the contents of the tickets. By using the ActivityHotkeySearchesByPeopleAsset parameter in Centralized-configuration, you can run the search in the activity note on the people and asset records or only on the people records. 

Activity feed when name is updated

If you update the logged in user's name in the CTM:People form or in the My Profile option of Smart IT, the updated name is reflected in the following activity feeds:

• Status change
• Priority change
• Assignment change
• Adding a note

The Activity tab displays text, which is more than 2000 characters, as plain. The html link or @mention is also displayed as plain text. The @mention users can see the assigned ticket on their dashboard. When you reply to an email notification that has embedded URL, the URL is displayed on the Activity tab of the Smart IT because of the removal of MongoDB. After creating an asset, if you add or edit the asset owner, the user of the asset does not become the implicit follower of the asset. You cannot edit an existing activity note.

Activity feed when created from scratch

In a Release ticket, when you create an activity by using the Activity From Scratch option, Summary , Description , Priority and Location fields are displayed based on the information given in the Release ticket:

Activity feed when a ticket needs attention

You need to add an activity note while flagging or unflagging tickets manually. If you do it in the Ticket view, you need to add it in the Activity tab. If you add or remove flags from Ticket Console, you need to put the activity note in a pop-up which appears on your screen after selecting the flag. 

For Progressive Web App screens for work order and incidents, to flag or unflag a ticket manually, click the flag icon in the ticket header. You must mention the reason for flagging or unflagging a ticket in the activity note. 

If you click the flag icon from Ticket Console, the ticket opens and you must mention the reason for flagging or unflagging a ticket in the activity note.

Assignment updates in the Progressive Web App work order and incident screens

Assignment updates are displayed in the following format on the Activity tab for Progressive Web App work order and incident screens. The activity feed shows both assignee and support group details.

The activity timeline displays entries in the following formats after ticket reassignment:

• If the ticket is assigned to a different agent within the same assigned support group, the activity timeline entry displays that the ticket was assigned to that agent.
• If the ticket is assigned to a different support group but no agent, the activity timeline entry displays that the ticket was assigned to the support group.
• If the ticket is assigned to a different support group and a different agent, the activity timeline entry displays both the agent and support group.
• If the ticket is assigned to the same user but  the support group is changed, the activity timeline entry displays both the agent and support group.

Activity feed when the Progressive Views parameter is disabled

In Smart IT, an assignment update is shown in the activity timeline in the following format:

When the administrator disables the Enable-Progressive-Views parameter, assignment updates that were done in the Progressive Web App screens show as incorrect links as shown in the following graphic:

Once this parameter is disabled, any new assignment updates would be shown in the Smart IT format.

UI changes in the Activity feed after a upgrade

When you upgrade Smart IT from the earlier versions of 18.05 to 20.08, certain UI changes are visible on the Activity feed for the existing objects in AR System that are not migrated. The following table lists the differences in the Activity feed post upgrade: