SOI & ServiceNow w/o Process Automation

[Daniel Blanco]

Hello, looking at a future project here and was wondering about the following consideration. Client is looking to implement SOI with Service Now yet they do not have CA Process Automation.

Started reading the PDF for the service now connector and noticed that it requires CA PA.

ftp://ftp.ca.com/CAproducts/SOI/Connectors/Documentation/CA%20Connector%20version%204.5.01%20for%20ServiceNow.pdf

 

Install the components in the following order:

    1. (Optional) CA Catalyst Server or a consuming product like CA Service Operations Insight

    2. CA Catalyst 3.4.1 Container

    3. ServiceNow connector

    4. CA Process Automation operators

 

Question is if client does not have CA PA, what is lost with regards to functionality? Can they still open SN tickets and close them respectively? Is there a way around this requirement since client has not intention of purchasing this product.

 

Thank you.

[Shaheen Ahmed]

Hi Dan,

I think you can use the UniversalhelpDesk to create ticket to SN. This would require CA Services engagement or you can request help from third party developer. I know other clients have implemented UHD and integrated it with ServiceNow. The details on how to use/configure the UHD jar file can be found here:

"https://wiki.ca.com/display/SOI33/How+to+Configure+Other+Help+Desk+Product+Integrations?src=search#HowtoConfigureOtherHe…"

Thanks

Shaheen

[Michael Boehm]

Hi Daniel,

 

for clarification:

There are two parts of integration to ServiceNow.

The Connector is used to import CIs from ServiceNow into SOI.  These can be Issues/Problems as well, but in this case taken as CIs to becom part of a Service, not to work on them.

The Connector does also support some Synchronization scenarios, such as setting the Administrative status of CIs.  But again, not creating/updating issues.

 

The part to integrate with ServiceNow for ticketing processes (create/update/close) is performed by Process Automation workflows, they have nothing to do with the connector.

When using CA PA for this part, you can import the provided workflows and all is working out-of-the-box (and fully supported by CA).
As Shaheen mentions: you can develop this part on your own by using the Universal Helpdesk integration.  This is a set of Templates to connect SOI to 3rd party Helpdesks.

You have to know the exact mechanisms how to peform ticket actions and then code them in the templates.  In this case you can get help by CA Services, but you have to be aware that all this is "Field Developed Code" outside the normal CA Support because it is individually developed.

 

There used to be a (low- or no-cost) "Player" version of Process Automation, used solely to integrate SOI with Helpdesks with the provided workflows.

No other usage of this CA PA version was possible (such as defining your own workflows).

You should check with your CA Sales-Rep if this is still available.

 

MichaelBoehm

[Daniel Blanco]

Thank you Michael. So to clarify

> The SN Connector allows SOI to hook into SN, and extract the CI's if any that reside in SN and just like other connectors I can build services and what not.

 

> For opening/closing tickets, SOI & SN would need customized java code in order for the ticketing portion to work? Meaning from w/in SOI if client wants to open/close ticket in their SN instance, is it not as easy as configuring from w/in the SOI Dashboard, Admin Tab, SOI MGR - <soi mgr machine name> - Helpdesk Configuration and entering the SN info? This piece is actually connecting to a running and configured CA Process Automation in order to do the whole SN Ticketing methodology?

 

Help Desk Type CA Process Automation / Gateway Server Details

And this requires coding?

 

Thank you.

[Michael Boehm]

Hi Daniel,

 

> The SN Connector allows SOI to hook into SN, and extract the CI's if any that reside in SN and just like other connectors I can build services and what not.

Correct.  The connector works like every other connector: it looks for CIs (of any type) and brings them into SOI for the purpose of modeling Services.

It does not perform any actions regarding Ticketing.

 

> For opening/closing tickets...

You have to integrate SOI with the ticketing system.

If you make use of the built-in functionality of SOI to connect to ServiceNow, you can configure the connection via the Administration "Help Desk Configuration" and select "ServiceNow".  This requires CA Process Automation as gateway engine.  And you have to load the provided workflows into CA PA.

Then you can make use of all functions such as "open ticket", .... without any further coding or configuration.  It is a generic integration from SOI to ServiceNow.

see: https://wiki.ca.com/display/SOI33/How+to+Configure+a+ServiceNow+Integration

 

If you don't want to use CA Process Automation, you can use the "Universal Helpdesk API" (in the same Admin part).

This requires coding, because the universal API is only a template that is prepared to connect to any Help Desk that is not supported directly.

see: https://wiki.ca.com/display/SOI33/How+to+Configure+Other+Help+Desk+Product+Integrations:

As an administrator, you can configure a custom integration with any third-party help desk product using the Universal Help Desk API. The API provides a Java source template file in which you can code callback routines that CA SOI calls to acquire information from the help desk. The Universal Help Desk API can interface with help desk products through web services or local calls.

 

You can also write your own scripts to call a ServiceNow API to open, update, close tickets and call these executables via Escalation actions.

But this is a one-way connection from SOI to ServiceNow.

 

I hope this helps in your decision which way to go.

 

MichaelBoehm

[Daniel Blanco]

Yes this helped very much. Thank you Michael.

[Anon Anon]

Hi Daniel,

 

We have experienced this situation a number of times, where the connector be it SNOW, BMC is licensed with the client but the CA PA player license has been omitted from the CA portfolio agreement with the client. I simple admission. I'm sure you can come to an agreement with the CA account manager to provide this CA PA player license FOC. There is very little value without and with the SNOW connector now supporting a proxy/gateway to cloud based SNOW, CA PA can provided the two-way workflow between SOI <--> SNOW:

 

 

■ After you close an incident in ServiceNow, you can manually clear the corresponding alert in SOI or it can get cleared automatically.

 

■ After you clear an alert in the SOI, you can manually close the corresponding incident in ServiceNow or it can get closed automatically.

 

■ An alert annotation that you create for a CA SOI alert is reflected on the ServiceNow incident. Similarly, ServiceNow incident journal update entry reflects in the CA SOI alert annotation table.

 

 

All difficult to do if you needed to code this manually

 

Regards John

 

[Daniel Blanco]

Thank you for the info John! We'll be hitting up our CA rep with this. Thank you again.