CA Service Management

  • 1.  Office Hours for CA Service Desk, July 10 @ 10 AM ET

     
    Posted Jul 01, 2014 05:13 PM

    Have a question about CA Service Desk? Connect with CA Technologies technical experts to get answers via Office Hours for Service Desk. Our team is here to help you get more out of your technology. Join us for one hour thursday, July 10th @ 10 AM ET.

     

    Some sample topics:
    • Your pain points
    • Product documentation
    • Questions on functionality

     

    Please DO NOT discuss support cases – You will need to open a ticket instead. Also, this is not a forum to discuss support of customizations.

     

    Click HERE: https://catechnologies.webex.com/catechnologies/j.php?ED=266272737&UID=498671547&RT=MiM0 to register, add to calendar and join the day of.

    *Please note that there is no audio. This is for you to submit your questions only and our experts will respond using WebEx.



  • 2.  Re: Office Hours for CA Service Desk, July 10 @ 10 AM ET

     
    Posted Jul 09, 2014 02:27 PM

    Don't forget to join us tomorrow!



  • 3.  Re: Office Hours for CA Service Desk, July 10 @ 10 AM ET

     
    Posted Jul 28, 2014 06:48 PM

    See the text from Office Hours below:

     

    Mark McMinn to Everyone:        Good Morning.  I have a question in regards to the CAB Console for change.  I want to remove the ability for level 1 and level 2 analysts to see the CAB Console as it is not a function for them to approve or deny changes.   I cannot find information on how to do this, can you advise?  These analysts will still need access to modify change orders, but not approve or deny the changes to add to the calendar.

                    Jon Israel (CA) to Everyone:        @Mark McMinn - sure, this can certainly be done. What you need to do is edit the role used by the folks who are level1 or level2 analysts, and simply remove the "CAB Console" tab from the role.  Then they will no longer have that tab on their change order detail form.

                    Mark McMinn to Everyone:        @Jon I just looked at the role for level 1 and level 2 on the tabs section there isn't anything there for the cab console. 

                    Jon Israel (CA) to Everyone:        @Mark McMinn - do you want them to be able to see the workflow tasks but just not have the CAB Console button?

                    Jon Israel (CA) to Everyone:        @Mark McMinn - or do you not want them to see the WF tasks tab at all?

                    Mark McMinn to Everyone:        @Jon just do not want them to have the CAB Console button.

                    Jon Israel (CA) to Everyone:        @Mark McMinn - OK so in that case, its not the tab itself.  What you would have to do is customize the form for their form-group and remove the CAB Console button from the form.  You can do this using Web Screen Painter.

                    Mark McMinn to Everyone:        @Jon thank you for the information.  I will do that.

     

    Roger Morse (CA) to Everyone: CA World is coming!  November 9 - 12, 2014, at Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas Nevada.  Go to caworld.com to register and learn more about CA World 2014!

     

    jason to Everyone:          I'd like to have a workflow task in a classic workflow Change Category to send an email to a pre-defined group but then close itself right away and not require the group to mark it completed. Similar to a Group Start/End task. Is this possible and if so what would be the best way to accomplish this?

                    Jon Israel (CA) to Everyone:        @Jason - you can definitely create a wf task and if the group of folks that you want to be notified is the group that the task is assigned to, it will trigger a notification, however, there is no way to trigger the task to copmlete itself, so I dont think this will work for you. It looks like you want a notification to go out toa  specific group of folks when a change order is opened with a specific category.  You can do that by using an event and macro. Unfortunately there is no way to do this within the WF objects.

                    jason to Everyone:          @Jon - Here's my issue with sending out a notification when the Change Order is created. There are a couple other tasks in the classic workflow that need to be completed before this notification can get sent. Today, one of the tasks the assigned group has is to send a notification to another group that a certain event has occurred. Instead of having a task for this group to send an email to another SD Group we were hoping to have a workflow task notification sent but the task would need to complete itself and not wait for someone to mark it completed. I think the biggest issue with sending the task out when the change order is created is that the note actually needs to be sent out after a couple other tasks are completed. Any other ideas???

                    Jon Israel (CA) to Everyone:        @Jason - classic workflow is not going to allow you the ability to accomplish something like this, however, the preferred method for this type of thing would be to use CA ITPAM as your workflow engine.  I will offer you the flexibility to do these types of complex workflows.

     

    Chris Hackett (CA) to Everyone:                In case anyone missed it check out the CA Tech Insider - CA Service Management Newsletter from CA Technologies, Issue 17 | June 2014 - https://communities.ca.com/docs/DOC-231149114

     

    Phillip to Everyone:         in 12.9 the tabs have been layered on the different forms.  Is that a configurable feature that we can adjust to have only certain elements show up since we may not be using all of the content at deployment?

                    Alexander Perretti (CA) to Everyone:     @Philip starting with ServiceDesk 12.6 the concept of sub-tabs were added. The forms could be customized to break them out of the sub tabs, but that cannot be changed with a configuration change.

     

    James Mascaro to Everyone:      I have a question related to Web Services. I am trying to write code that will create a resolver group or area, then populate the attributes on the auto assign tab, such as location, area or group.I believe these attributes can be set using LREL methods. I am looking for examples/documentation (beyond the tech ref) how to use these methods. I need to know the lrelname of the objects I want to create/modify.

                    Alexander Perretti (CA) to Everyone:     @James It's possible to see columns and what SRELs and LRELs link to a particular object by using the "bop_sinfo" command. For example "bop_sinfo -a cr" gives all information about the Call Request table

                    James Mascaro to Everyone:      @Alexander - I am looking at the output of bop_sinfo grp now, in this string "service_pcat         BREL <- lrel_svc_grps_svc_pcat.cnt (LREL pcat) {cnt = ?}" is service_pcat the lrelname I need to use in the LREL method?

                    Alexander Perretti (CA) to Everyone:     @James I think the discussion may be a little in depth for this venue. It may be a great topic to discussion in the  Service Management section of the CA Communities. Perhaps a topic can be posted there with some more in depth information.

                    Chris Hackett (CA) to Everyone:                Here's the SM Community link: https://communities.ca.com/community/ca-service-management/overview then go to Content -> Discussions to participate

                    James Mascaro to Everyone:      @Alexander - fair enough, I will see that works, if not then I will look into that community.

     

    Phillip to Everyone:         Today we only use the Knowledge in SDM for the call centers knowledge.  I want to propose that we start using KM in CA SDM for our Standard Operating Procedures for the higher technical staff departments.  Does CA have any greenbooks or other best practice material on how to properly architect a good knowledge store in CA SDM?

                    Alexander Perretti (CA) to Everyone:     @Philip I'm not sure if this is exactly what you'd like, but there is some useful information in the Service Desk Manager Greenbook that provides information on Knowledge and best practices: https://support.ca.com/phpdocs/7/common/greenbooks/CA_SDM_r125_Green_Book_ENU.pdf

    Mark McMinn to Everyone:        I would like for whenever the TYPE on a change order has been changed to "Emergency" that a notification is sent? Is this possible?

                    Jon Israel (CA) to Everyone:        @Mark McMinn - this can be done using a macro/event that will check the "type" and when set to "Emergency" can trigger a notification to go out.

                    jason to Everyone:          @ Jon - Yeah, I figured that was going to be the solution. We just implemented it last month to replace CA Workflow for all of our Service Catalog workflows. It is very powerful. We've been trying to avoid using it for Service Desk, if possible. I'm guessing the business may not want to pay for this to be developed  and will continue to have the assigned group with a task just send the email to the other group and then close their task. Thanks! At least it confirms that I couldn't figure it out for good reason!

                    Mark McMinn to Everyone:        @jon - 2 for 2 today.

                    Jon Israel (CA) to Everyone:        @Mark McMinn -  thanks

     

    Mark McMinn to Everyone:        Last one about change.  Our change manager wants to have her view of the change calendar to be fixed to have only the items that pertain to the enterprise.  I have showed her how to filter by category, however she wants it to be defaulted without having to filter.  Any suggestions?

                    Jon Israel (CA) to Everyone:        @Mark McMinn - currently there is no way to set a default per user on the change calendar.  It is currently only a global setting for all users.   For something like this I would recommend that you post it in the CA Service Management as an "Idea"

                    Mark McMinn to Everyone:        @jon 3 for 3 I will add an "Idea" for that one.

                    Jon Israel (CA) to Everyone:        @Mark - thanks

    lisa to Everyone:               do you offer a session like this for Service Catalog?

                    Chris Hackett (CA) to Everyone:                @Lisa - We don't offer Office Hours for Catalog at this time but are looking to do so in the future! Thanks for giving us one more reason to start them up:)

                    jason to Everyone:          @Chris - yes, OH for SC would be great! Any way we can help encourage CA sets this up?

                    lisa to Everyone:               @Chris - great!  I have lots of SC questions!

                    Chris Hackett (CA) to Everyone:                @Jason - You're encouraging us to do so now:)

     

    jason to Everyone:          I've been hearing a little bit hear and there about R13. What can you share about this? Is it true that Service Catalog, Service Desk, and APM will be bundled into a single install?

                    Rajeev Kumar to Everyone:         @jason Service Desk Manager, Service Catalog, and APM will have a common installer after 13.0. However, in 13.0 it will not have the baility to install/upgrade all products/servers from a single entry point. Common installer would be run on each server which will provide the ability to discover and upgrade product on the sever, and integrate with other SM products and common components (CABI, PAM, EEM) automatically.

     

    Mark McMinn to Everyone:        In regards to the "self service" feature of SDM is it possible to post on the Emplyee interface to post the upcoming approved changes that affect the enterprise so that our regular non IT staff could see them?

                    Alexander Perretti (CA) to Everyone:     @Mark Would it be possible to use "Announcements" for this?

                    Mark McMinn to Everyone:        @Alex I was looking for more of an automated way, announcements are manual requiring someone to enter them.  Or maybe I am wrong and there is an API that can do this for me?

                    Alexander Perretti (CA) to Everyone:     @Mark Understood, there isn't currently a functionality to allow it to link a Change Order to the Employee in this fashion. There are also some "Licensing" restrictions that prevent Employees from seeing Change Orders created for other users.

                    Mark McMinn to Everyone:        @Alex Thanks I appreciate your answer.  I will continue to do announcements for now.  I was trying to find a way to "Advise" my users, without actually giving the access to the module.  We will just develop an external calendar using the APIs to pull change order data out, to a view.

                    Alexander Perretti (CA) to Everyone:     @Mark That sounds like a great idea.

    Chris Hackett (CA) to Everyone:                Thanks for attending everyone! We're wrapping up but please join us again in August!

     

    July 10, 2014           7:48:29 AM         from Chris Hackett (CA) to Everyone: Great conversations today!

     

    July 10, 2014           7:50:21 AM         from Roger Morse (CA) to Everyone:  Thanks, Everyone!  Have a great day!



  • 4.  Re: Office Hours for CA Service Desk, July 10 @ 10 AM ET

    Posted Aug 12, 2014 03:56 AM

    Thanks for posting this, Chris.

     

    I always learn something from these transcripts.

     

    Removing this document from the Featured Content, as there is now a New Event for the next Office Hours on the main page:

     

    Office Hours for CA Service Desk, August 14 @ 10 AM ET

     

    Recommend that those who can, join it, to ask away.

     

    Thanks, Kyle_R.