Phased rollout This documentation supports the 21.05 version of BMC Service Request Management. To view an earlier version, select the version from the Product version menu.

Adding questions to an SRD

Learn how to add questions to a service request definition (SRD). You can map the questions to variables or service request fields. If you are localizing SRDs, you must add, sort, and map questions only in the default locale for the SRD. For more information, see Localizing-SRDs-and-surveys.

Related topics

Creating-questions-to-use-with-SRDs

Mapping-variables-to-questions

To add questions to an SRD

  1. Search for the SRD, select it, and click View.
  2. After you enter a PDT in the Process Template field, click Questions & Mappings under the Process Template field.
  3. On the Questions tab, create questions to ask your users.
    1. Select New Question.
    2. In the Question Text field, enter the question you want to add. You can also add any value that a browser can read, such as hyperlinks. See Adding-hyperlinks-in-an-SRD.
      If you want to enter the greater than (>) or less than (<) sign in the Question Text field, use encoded text (&gt for >, and &lt for <); otherwise, browsers will interpret the greater than and less than signs as HTML markup, which is not supported. 
    3. Select a question format; for example, Text or Menu.
    4. In the Instructions field, enter instructions on responding to the question.
    5. Specify whether the question is Required, Hidden, or Read Only.
      Text, Date, Time, and Date/Time questions are read-only. Hidden questions are for internal data processing and are not visible to users or administrators. You cannot hide Date, Time, and Date/Time questions.

    6. Based on the question format, specify the question details.
       For example, a text question requires that you define the default response, the number of text rows, and the limit input length.
       You can also specify a regular expression to validate user response. If a user enters a response that does not match the pattern specified by the regular expression, the system displays a general error message.

      Important

      You must add a forward slash (/) at the beginning and at the end of regular expression strings.

      Use the Instructions field to show an example, such as (800)555-1212  or 1-800-555-1212 , to show the user how to match the pattern required by the regular expression. The system does not provide any prompts to help the user correct errors.

    7. To create your question, click Apply.
    8. (Optional) To dynamically define additional questions that appear in the context of the answer, click Add Condition.
  4. To specify the order in which the questions will appear in the Request Entry console after deploying the SRD, select the question and click the Up button to move it up or click the Down button to move it down.
  5. To remove a question from the list of available questions, select it from the navigation tree and click Delete.
  6. To map variables to questions, click the Variable Mapping tab.
     See Mapping-variables-to-questions.
  7. To map questions to fields on the Service Request form, click the SR Field Mapping tab.
     See Mapping-service-request-fields.

Adding branch conditions to questions

For questions that use a radio button, check box, or static menu format, you can add branch conditions to display additional sets of questions based on the user's response. This enables you to ask questions that are relevant to the user's request.

Best practice
You can have a mix of required and optional questions. You can add an unlimited number of levels of questions. However, we recommend that you create less than 5 levels of conditional questions within a branch.

For example, you have a Level 1 question with values of Network Printer and Local Printer. You want to pose additional questions to users who have problems with a locally connected printer. For example:

  • Is this an issue with a network printer or a local printer? (question 1)
    • Network Printer (condition 1 for question 1)
    • Locally Attached Printer (condition 2 for question 1)
  • Where are you located? (question related to condition 2)
    • San Jose (condition 2.1)
      • Floor? (question)
        • 1, 2 (options)
      • Connection Type? (question)
        • USB, Firewire (options)
      • Printer? (question)
        • Fujitsu, Canon (options)
    • San Francisco (condition 2.2)
      • Floor? (question)
        • 1, 2, 3 (options)
      • Printer? (question)
        • Xerox, Fujitsu, Canon (options)

Important

  • You cannot create branch conditions for the following question formats: text, date/time, range, query menus, or dynamic query menus.
  • Conditions always use the Displayed Value that you defined for each question response, rather than the Stored Value.
  • If the question uses check boxes, you can have a condition for single or multiple check box options. For multiple options, you must specify each combination as a separate condition.

To add branch conditions to questions

  1. On the Questions tab of the Question Management form, select the question.
  2. Click Add Condition.
  3. In the navigation tree, select New Condition to create the branch condition.
  4. Select the value from the condition table; for example, Network Printer.
  5. Click Apply.
    The condition is renamed in the navigation tree.
  6. Continue these steps until you have created your conditions for other values. For example, Locally Attached Printer.
  7. After you create your branch conditions, select the condition from the navigation tree, and click Add Question.
    This action creates a New Condition Question record under the condition record in the navigation tree.
  8. To move a question up or down within a condition branch, select the question and click the Up arrow or the Down arrow.

Examples of regular expressions

  • The following regular expression specifies a pattern for the phone number: (555) 555-1212:

    /^([\(]{1}[0-9]{3}[\)]{1}[ ]{1}[0-9]{3}[\-]{1}[0-9]{4})$/

  • The following regular expression specifies the pattern for email addresses in the format <name>@example.com

    /[\w\d_-]+@[\w\d_-]+\.[\w\d._-]+/

  • The following regular expression specifies the pattern for numeric input from 1 to 365, for the days of the year:

    /^(?:36[0-5]|3[0-5]\d|[12]\d{2}|[1-9]\d?)$/