BMC Helix ITSM

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Overview

BMC Helix ITSM (formerly BMC Remedy) is an enterprise ITSM tool that deals with the planning, provisioning and management of IT services.

 

Connector Setup Details

This section describes the basic steps needed to prepare your BMC Helix ITSM instance for use with Viz.

Minimal User Permissions & Viz User

We recommend that you create a new user within your external tool, to be used only for Viz. This is the user information you will enter when setting up your tool connection within Planview Viz. By creating a new user, you will ensure that the correct permissions are granted.

In general, your Viz user account should have sufficient permissions to read artifacts in your tool. 

Your user should have a secure password or token. Please be aware that Viz will not allow you to save a tool connection utilizing a weak password/token, such as 'tasktop.'

See instructions on how to create a new user in BMC Helix ITSM. 

List of minimal user permissions:

  • User must have sufficient permissions to read artifacts in Helix ITSM (and therefore read access to the corresponding forms associated with those artifact types).

For REST connections to Helix ITSM versions below 18.08, users must additionally have read access to the following forms: 

  • AR System Metadata: field
  • AR System Metadata: field_char
  • AR System Metadata: arschema

Note: If the user has admin permissions or has been granted Unrestricted Access, no additional steps are needed to enable permissions for these forms. 

Connecting to the BMC Helix ITSM Repository

Standard Authentication

Required Fields:

  • Location/Connection URL
    • Example Format: 
      • https://<localhost>:<port>/api (REST API)
        • By default, port is 8008.
        • Port can be found in this file: 
          • BMC 9.0 - 9.1.03: C:\Program Files\BMC Software\ARSystem\jetty\etc\jetty-selector.xml
          • BMC 9.1.04+: C:\Program Files\BMC Software\ARSystem\jetty\etc\jetty-http.xml
  • Username 
  • Password

Optional Fields:

  • Use REST API: This field has been deprecated and will produce errors if checked on the UI. 
  • Substitute Artifact Location
    • Only for REST API or Smart IT.
    • See details below.
  • AR System Server: This field has been deprecated as SOAP API is no longer supported. 

BMC Remedy Tool Connection Screen

Substitute Artifact Location 

Due to a Helix ITSM limitation, Viz does not have sufficient information to build the correct artifact location field for REST without the Substitute Artifact Location field filled out on the Helix ITSM tool connection screen. This field essentially "overrides" the default artifact location field, so that Viz can create a valid URL for REST.

There are two "placeholders" that must be used to correctly format the input for this field:

  • _identifier_ for the regular Helix ITSM UI

  • _smart_it_identifier_ for the Smart IT UI

These placeholders signify where in the URL the identifying information about an artifact goes.

Substitute Artifact Location format:

  • For REST API: http://<host and port of Mid Tier Location>/arsys/forms/<AR system location>/_identifier_
  • For Smart IT on REST: <Smart IT Location>/_smart_it_identifier_ . 
    • The <Smart IT Location> might look like the following:
      • http://<host and port>/ux/smart-it
      • http://<host and port>/smartit

 

 

Supported Artifacts

Supported Work Items

Supported Work Item Type

Applicable Repository Version

Unique URL?

Limitations

Problem

Any supported repository version:

Yes

  

Incident

Any supported repository version:

Yes

  

Change

Any supported repository version:

Yes

  

Task (must live under a supported artifact type)

Supported versions using the REST API:

Yes

  • Creation of Tasks through the standard Task API (without the use of templates) is supported, but creation of Tasks through Task templates or Task Group templates is not supported due to 3rd party API limitations. Considering this restriction, the following provides a summary of the functionality supported by Viz:

    • 2-way updates

    • 1-way creation from Helix ITSM to an external system, and additionally:

      • 2-way creation, provided that there is no requirement to create in Helix ITSM using templates

  • Task hierarchies cannot be supported because Tasks can be created as children of artifact types that are not currently supported. Note that Task Groups are a separate container/artifact type and are not currently supported. Viz can however reference parent artifacts through a String field on the Task artifact.

  • The Task parent field is writable only on create and cannot be updated

  • Change detection: Attachments and comments added to Tasks via the API are generally not detected automatically. Attachments or comments added to Tasks via the UI are detected.  

Supported Containers

Containers that can be modeled as Flow Items

Applicable Repository Versions

Unique URL?

N/A

    

Containers used to define which artifacts are included in an Artifact Set

    

N/A (entire tool serves as container)

Any supported repository version:

  

 

 

Supported Field Types

Planview supports configuring rule-based modeling (i.e., conditional modeling) using the field types shown below.

Note: If one field of a given type is supported, others that are also that type in theory should also work. However, sometimes there are instances in which this is not the case due to the repository. So, while we can claim support for fields at the type level, there is a chance that some specific fields of a given type will not function properly.

Standard Field Type

How is field type referenced in repository?

Sample Repository Fields Supported

Particular Repository Fields NOT Supported

checkicon.png String

  

Summary

Temporary Workaround

Site

Site Group

Region

Product Name

Organization

Company

Contact Company

Assigned Group

  

checkicon.png Single Select

Checkboxes

Type

Impact

Investigation_Driver

Priority

Urgency

Investigation_Status (read-only)

Investigation_Status_Reason (read-only)

Note that some Helix ITSM dropdown/single-select fields are treated as read-only string fields by Viz

  

Not_allowed.svg.png Multi Select

      

Not_allowed.svg.png Boolean

      

 

Functional Limitations

Category

Limitation

Applicable Repository Version

Feature Unsupported

Remedyforce

The BMC Helix ITSM connector does not support the Remedyforce extension.

Any supported repository version:

Third Party Functional Limitation

Projects

Because Helix ITSM does not support the notion of ‘projects,' the following behaviors may be observed when using Viz:

  • Users must select an artifact type rather than a project when creating an artifact set.

Any supported repository version: