22.1 enhancements and patches

Get real-time insights into service models from Asset console

As a configuration manager or an asset manager, you can better understand the relationships of a CI if you can access the service models created in BMC Helix Discovery. To view the CI's relationships and gain insights into service models in real-time, use the links available in the Related CIs window in Asset console, and on the Assets tab in Asset Progressive View screens.

For more information, see Exploring-asset-relationships.

Edit an outage directly from a ticket

The user can edit the information about outages directly from the ticket, such as a change request and an incident. This helps the user save time. For example, you create a change request to install an anti-virus on 20 machines and relate outages to the change request. After you create the change request, you realize that the scheduled start date and scheduled end date need to be changed. Because you can update the outage directly from the change request, you can make this change quickly without opening each asset and changing the outage information in the asset.

Consent for data collection

When you log on to BMC Helix ITSM: Smart IT for the first time, select whether you want to allow the product to collect information about your product usage. By default, data collection is enabled.

For information about how to change data collection settings, see Modifying-consent-for-data-collection.

BMC Helix ITSM archival policy auto-enabled

Setting BMC Helix archiving policies is an important configuration to maintain the high-performance for your BMC Helix ITSM. 

To eliminate the need for customers to manually configure an archival policy, BMC has introduced an auto-scheduler that automatically configures a 2-year BMC Helix archival policy by default for all SaaS customers. On-premises customers can enable the policy manually. According to this BMC Helix Data Archiving Policy, any BMC Helix ITSM data within a customer's main, production forms that are aged two years or older are moved to the archival forms. Other subscriptions outside of BMC Helix ITSM service, such as BMC Helix Digital Workplace, BMC Helix Business Workflows, BMC Helix Virtual Agent, BMC Helix Dashboards, and IT Operations Management products are not part of this 2-year archival auto-scheduler.

The following BMC Helix ITSM data is not archived: 

• BMC Requester console records
• Foundation data (for example, organizations and locations)
• Process setup data (for example, incident management templates)
• BMC Helix CMDB
• Knowledge Articles

You can edit the 2-year archiving interval set by the auto-scheduler within your AR System Archive Manager based on your organizational compliance requirements. For more information on how to set or configure archiving policies, see Managing-the-Archiving-process-policies.  

New Asset console with comprehensive filtering and configuration options

Asset console users can use the new Asset console based on BMC Helix Innovation Studio to manage assets efficiently. You can use the filters and preset filters available out of the box to locate specific items in the console. You can export the assets to a CSV file to view the assets offline. You can select the columns that you want to be visible in the console and you can also sort multiple columns at a time. As an administrator, you can configure the new Asset console to create and edit presets.

To learn how to enable the new Asset console, see Enabling-and-configuring-the-Asset-console. For more information about the Asset console based on BMC Helix Innovation Studio, see Tailoring-the-Asset-console-for-your-work .

Download clusters from Proactive problem management dashboard for offline analysis 

As a problem coordinator, you can select and download incidents from a cluster from the Proactive problem management dashboard. This feature helps you to work offline to analyze the incident details and determine the root cause of the incidents such that similar incidents in the future can be resolved easily.

For more details, see Managing clusters.

Leverage the out-of-the-box IT services

BMC provides an out-of-the-box IT content pack that offers services for common IT-related queries such as fix or repair an asset or a service, request guest WiFi access, or create a user account. It provides flexible and powerful ways to implement these services in your organization with much of your background work already completed. 

The content pack contains various components such as an IT portal to submit the services, foundation data, approval workflows, fulfillment workflows, and work order templates that are required for the end-to-end resolution of a service request.

The content pack provides the following benefits: 

• Ready-made services to quickly implement in your organization.
• Extend or modify the services to suit your business processes. 
• Easily rebrand and customize the IT portal for end users. 
• Faster ROI by reusing BMC provided questionnaires, advanced approval workflows, and fulfillment workflows.

To learn how to use the content pack, see Leveraging-the-out-of-the-box-IT-services. To learn how to set up the content pack, see Setting-up-the-IT-content-pack. 

Approve or reject a change request with fewer clicks

Direct approvers can approve or reject a change request directly from the change request form without opening any other window. If you are not a direct approver, you can approve or reject a change request with fewer clicks. For more information, see Reviewing-and-approving-change-requests.

Ability to set locale and time zone preference in AR System User Preference

Instead of using the local system settings, you can configure the preferred browser language and time zone by using the AR System User Preference form. If your organization works in diverge geographical locations with multiple languages and time zones, you can set one specific language and time zone for the whole organization by using this configuration. 

To know more about the feature, see Supported-languages-and-locales and Configuring-the-time-zone-and-date-and-time .

Automatically create a BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog request from a BMC Helix ITSM fulfillment ticket

This capability is available with BMC Helix ITSM and BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog.

When you raise a BMC Helix ITSM ticket for an incident request, work order, or change request, a corresponding service request can be automatically created and submitted in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog. This automation reduces the time you spend manually creating a BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog service request for each ticket, and also reduces the load for Service Desk Agents in switching between applications.

For more information about this feature, refer to Configuring automatic creation of Digital Workplace Catalog service requests from fulfillment ticket.

Search and relate problem investigations to incidents in fewer steps

As a problem coordinator, you can search for problem investigations across BMC Helix ITSM in the Proactive problem management dashboard and relate them to incidents in a cluster. This feature reduces the additional steps of navigating to BMC Helix ITSM, and relating problem investigations to incidents.

For more details, see Managing clusters.

Filter incidents within a cluster on the Real-time incident correlation dashboard

As a Service Desk Manager, you can apply multiple filter criteria to view the required incidents within a cluster on the Real-time incident correlation dashboard. You can view the count of incidents in clusters that match the filter criteria. And you can also drill down a cluster to view the list of incidents that match the filter criteria. 

For more information, see Incident correlation.

Improvements to the Smart IT mobile browser interface

The Smart IT user interface was not originally designed as a responsive UI, and had certain limitations based on the accessing device. In this release, improvements have been made to the Smart IT interface so that certain features are responsive even on mobile devices.

You can access Smart IT through your mobile web browser without any additional configuration. Changes which have been applied to screens through configuration or customization will also be visible in the mobile browser. To learn more about the changes in the Smart IT interface when accessing through your mobile web browser, see Differences between Smart IT UC and mobile clients.

Identify quickly the source application that creates a ticket

By using the ticket screen in the Progressive Web app, the IT Agent can quickly identify if the ticket was created by the BMC Digital Workplace catalog request or in BMC Helix ITSM. You can navigate from the ticket screen to Smart IT to view the details of the service request. For more information, see Overview-of-information-displayed-on-a-ticket-in-Smart-IT.

BMC Helix ITSM extends Canadian language support

BMC Helix ITSM solution now supports Canadian French as a part of the standard SaaS setup. Learn more about, see Supported-languages-and-locales.

Automatic response to emails with relevant knowledge articles

When end users send an email to Service Desk, BMC Helix ITSM sends an auto reply that contains up to three relevant BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround knowledge article links. By using these knowledge articles, users can troubleshoot and resolve the issue via self-service.

For more information, see Automatically-responding-to-inbound-emails-with-knowledge-articles.

Sort incident clusters by trend

As a Service Desk Manager or Major Incident Manager, sort clusters by trend to view clusters that have an upsurge in number of incidents in a specified number of hours. 

For more information, see Incident-correlation.

Detect probable major incidents

As a Service Desk Manager or Major Incident Manager, view clusters that are likely to have a major incident in the Real-time incident correlation dashboard. Such clusters are indicated with Possible major incident label in the Real-time incident correlation dashboard.

Your team can then create a major incident candidate from this cluster and conduct further analysis as part of the Major Incident Management process.

For more information, see Detecting-major-incidents.

Search for a cluster on the Real-time incident correlation dashboard

Enter text to search for a cluster in the Real-time incident correlation dashboard. The application displays the clusters whose names match or partially match the search text. 

For more information, see Incident-correlation.

Rebrand the CMDB Portal

Customize the look of the CMDB Portal by changing the colors and logo to match with your company's brand colors. For more information, see Rebranding-the-CMDB-Portal.