Loading Foundation data by using Data Management

Foundation data consists of common data elements, such as people, organization, locations, categorizations, and geography, that can be used by multiple applications in an organization to satisfy different requirements. The Foundation data is also used to drive business processes and rules.

As an administrator, you can use a common shared Foundation data structure of people, organization, location, categorization, and geography for all applications built in BMC Helix ITSM.

The following image shows a process overview of loading the Foundation data:

Data updates supported

The following image and table lists the fields that you can update by using the Onboarding Wizard:

Fields that can be updated	Loading data into staging form step
Type	Step 1, Company
Organization	Step 2, Organization
Country, State/Province, City, Zip/Postal Code, Street, Description, Region, Site Group	Step 3, Location
Is this a vendor group?, Is this a frontline group?, Group Email, Description	Step 4, Support Groups
License Type	Step 5, People Template
Last Name, First Name, Organization, Department, Site, Email Address, License Type	Step 6, People
Operational Catalog	Step 7, Operational Catalog
Product Catalog	Step 8, Product Catalog
Description	Step 9, Assignment

Modes of operation

The Onboarding wizard supports two modes of operation for onboarding your data that are described in the following table:

Mode	Description
Guide me to onboard complete data for a single company	Guides you through the process of adding Foundation data. This mode is also known as the guided mode. We recommend you to use this option to provide the initial load of Foundation data in newly installed environments. However, you can use guided mode any time. The purpose of guided mode is to make sure that you perform the following tasks: Identify at least one company as an operating company The operating company is one of the key base components of the service management applications and represents an internal organization or business unit for which your IT organization provides support and services. You cannot create core foundational data elements unless you have identified an operating company. Enter data in a specific order as prescribed by the onboarding wizard. Enter the data for all the required fields.
Allow me to onboard partial data for one or more companies	This mode is also known as the unguided mode. We recommend you to use this option to load additional Foundation data to production and test environments, after the initial load of Foundation data. For example, after your initial load of the Foundation data, you might need to add several new support groups. To do this, you can open the Onboarding wizard and go directly to the Support Groups step to add just those records. You do not need to enter records for any of the other data types. You do not need to follow the structured sequence of steps that is enforced in the guided mode.

Mode

Description

Guide me to onboard complete data for a single company

Guides you through the process of adding Foundation data. This mode is also known as the guided mode.

We recommend you to use this option to provide the initial load of Foundation data in newly installed environments. However, you can use guided mode any time.

The purpose of guided mode is to make sure that you perform the following tasks:

Identify at least one company as an operating company
The operating company is one of the key base components of the service management applications and represents an internal organization or business unit for which your IT organization provides support and services. You cannot create core foundational data elements unless you have identified an operating company.
Enter data in a specific order as prescribed by the onboarding wizard.
Enter the data for all the required fields.

Allow me to onboard partial data for one or more companies

This mode is also known as the unguided mode.

We recommend you to use this option to load additional Foundation data to production and test environments, after the initial load of Foundation data.

For example, after your initial load of the Foundation data, you might need to add several new support groups. To do this, you can open the Onboarding wizard and go directly to the Support Groups step to add just those records. You do not need to enter records for any of the other data types. You do not need to follow the structured sequence of steps that is enforced in the guided mode.

If you close the Onboarding Wizard before you promote the data, the wizard retains the mode that you had selected

Data load methods

Load data into the staging forms by using one of the methods described in the following table:

Load method	Notes
Manual entry	Use the manual method if you have a relatively small number of records to load. When using the manual method, type information directly into fields in the Onboarding wizard. The fields in the Onboarding wizard correspond with the fields on the data form. For example, when creating data for the Organization form, you are prompted to provide the Organization and Department for each record you add.
Spreadsheets	Use the spreadsheets that are provided with the Onboarding Wizard if you have a large number of records to load. These spreadsheets are simplified versions of the standard data-load spreadsheets provided with Advanced Data Management. The spreadsheets contain an Instructions tab and, in most cases, a single data tab with columns that correspond to the required, conditional, and most commonly used fields. The People spreadsheet contains multiple data tabs that allow you to make associations with support groups and functional roles. For a general overview of the spreadsheets, see Content-in-dataload-spreadsheets.
Model data	Model data is a pre-defined set of typical data. Use this model data to seed your new installation with data types that you might not currently have. By using model data to seed your system greatly reduces the amount of time needed for your organization to realize value from the new system. For example, if you load the model data for Product Catalog, the Product Type field is loaded with a set of common product types, such as Hardware System Component, Network Port, Service, and so on. To use the model data, select the Import From Spreadsheet method for loading the data and then select Use provided model data from the list of available spreadsheets. Model data is available for the following data forms: Company Support Group People Template (Dependent on Support Group) Operational Catalog Product Catalog Assignment (dependent on Support Group and Product Catalog)
LDAP import	This method is available only for importing non-support People data. Use the method to load non-support People data directly from your company's active directory.

Where to go from here

Loading-Foundation-data-by-using-model-data

Loading-Foundation-data-by-using-spreadsheets

Loading-Foundation-data-manually