RIchard Horton

It appears at the bottom of every email that is being received from this source in the following format PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE Ref:MSG0826488

While it would be nice to think everyone will keep using Hornbill forever there will be scenarios where people don't and will have a need/desire to take an extract of their ticket data. What are the recommended ways of doing this ? Using the Export to CSV gives some form of compromise but it's not a good view of the longer fields and doesn't get the timeline. Specifically I have an area which is stopping use of Hornbill and wants a download that includes the timeline history. We've established that if you print a ticket as a PDF that gives a very tidy view for a single ticket, and this is the best I've found so far, but we are not aware of a way of scaling to a rather larger number of tickets, whether macro based or other. Another approach would be a download which links timeline and request data. The response to that seems to be that the system isn't designed to do that, and it isn't really feasible. I can see timeline entries in h_buzz_activities, but not how to link them and it looks a messier way of doing it. I get that you want people to use the system but surely there have been people who have exited Hornbill who have wanted to do something comparable ? I don't think attachments are a big deal here, but I'm sure they will have been for someone. Thanks Richard

When an initial email is received, at the point it is used to create a ticket you can extract information and put it into a custom variable for use later in the Business Process. However if you get a reply to a ticket notification with the ticket no in the subject, while it updates the ticket, you don't get an option to extract information. In our scenario the reply includes a watermark and I want to be able to extract that and put it into a customer variable so I can include that in my next notification. I gather this is not possible. Any chance of it happening ? If it helps, I know what point in the workflow I'll be at when the reply is received (though I appreciate that may not always be the case) To be more specific, I've sent a notification from HSM to a supplier's ITSM system, which will create a ticket on their system. I need to extract the watermark from their response email so that any further notifications I send will update the correct ticket. Thanks Richard

I scrapped using sub-lanes as I want to be able to extract the present the information that is in the board differently. I have set a task in the workflow to ask what position you want to move the task to. I'm not validating that at the moment. If I set 3 tickets all to be in position 1 in turn, it seems to put the position number to 1 for all 3 (ie when I do a get Card Info after moving it, which makes sense) . What I'd like is a way of translating that into the position it actually is on the board ie 1, 2, and 3 in this case. In this case it is about the changes that happen to the tickets that have been usurped in position 1. I'm not sure whether it's feasible to do this (ie to update other tickets to say what their new position is based on another ticket being pushed above them a BP task in that other ticket). If it isn't next best would, I think, to be able to do an extract from the board. What tables would I need to be working with for such a report ? I want to make the board information available to an audience which doesn't have access to the Board Manager (and never will) which is one reason why I'm trying to do this. The other is that I'm sending ticket information into another system from within the workflow and want to be able to give meaningful information about a ticket's position on the board Does that make sense ?

I'm also interested in being able to see more detail on the request timeline and trying to work out what I need to be picking up for that

I had spotted that, but for some reason unknown to me services that are live and as far as I can see from the Portfolio in the Catalogue don't appear in that list. Thanks Richard

Thanks Both. That's helpful I've now got the Service ID, but we aren't using progressive capture so I don't have that option, and when I look in Database Direct for some reason it isn't showing all of our catalogue services when I execute the query. So, I'm still not quite there on the Catalog ID. Richard

I'm wanting to identify the Service ID and Catalogue ID [to put in a script that is triggering a BPM from outside Service Manager]. I was anticipating that this would be under Service Portfolio against Details or Config but I can't see anything appropriate - the ID's seem to be numbers from the working example I'm looking at. Can you point me in the right direction ? Thanks Richard

By the way, when working on this I'm trying to set the priority within the workflow based on a choice made (rather than relying on using the escalation option, which maybe I should really be doing). To do this I can use the Update Request>Priority Automation, but to do that I need to be able to look up the UID corresponding to the priority level selected. I couldn't see anything on the Wiki telling me how to do that. Could you point me in the right direction ...

So, if I want to move within a sub-lane I think I could take one of these approaches 1/ move into the lane using the BPM, but then shuffle position on the Board. This movement wouldn't then be reflected in the ticket, but as long as it stays in the same sub-lane would be consistent with the workflow and allow it to proceed. As long as I don't want to see the current position in the ticket then this would be OK. 2/ scrap using 3 sub-lanes and have 3 lanes. I would then be able to extract/set the position in the lane from the workflow (e.g. a task that says something like 'Your current position is 5. What position would you like to move to ?") Am I on the rights lines here ? Thanks Richard

PS wasn't sure if I should raise this under Board Manager or Service Manager - hopefully someone at Hornbill can sort out it getting flagged appropriately !

I've got a workflow I'm setting up (for problems as it happens) where I'm trying to work out the best way of proceeding. So far I have got a form to create a Request, and extracted all the info OK. I've also set up a prioritising board with 3 lanes (basically unprioritised, prioritised, done). I've split the Prioritised lane into 3 (for different priority levels) and moved the PRB into the correct sub-lane based on the priority assigned. So far, so good. What I want to do now is work out how, once I've assembled a load of problems in the 3 Prioritised sub-lanes, I can most effectively move them up and down the sub-lanes and also to change the priority level if relevant. It would be nice to be able to drag them around on the board and then do a Get Card Info to find out where they have ended up, but I don't think it works like that. I could create a looping task that asks where they want to move the priority to until they choose that it's done. I guess I should prompt for a position they want to move to and put that into the Order parameter in Move Card on Board. [As an aside the wiki for this function does not include Lane Column in the list of Options which confused me at first, but fortunately it is there]. I haven't got my head round how the parameters would work here . Presumably one can work out how many positions there are to move to using a Get Lane command and validate using that ? Something I am not clear on is how the Get Lane command works when you have (say) 3 sub-lanes. It's not clear from the info given (to me anyway) which of these parameters refers to the lane and which refers to the sub-lane. It reads like none of them refer to the sub-lane. In that case how do you know what sub-lane you are dealing with ? Is this making sense ?! Am I on the right line or overcomplicating it ? Thanks Richard

Thanks @Gerry I did have a bit of a look at desktop notifications. This wasn't successful, though that's probably me rather than the desktop notifications. However I haven't delved further since discovering that this automation would do what I wanted : Our scenario is that people aren't living in Hornbill so we need to work out when they need a notification Richard

I note that Gerry's 2019 reply said this would be looked at in the next 2-3 months. Interested to know the outcome of that/current situation. Thanks Richard

Thanks for that really clear explanation. It's very close to what I was trying to do. My mistake was pasting in the User ID when the drop down was blank rather than keying in the Handle

apologies for the multiple screen shots - I thought I had got rid of the bottom ones

I'm trying to set the customer for a request on a Business Process. I'm struggling to work out where the Wiki info is that would help me. The artlcle on Hornbill Automation doesn't say much and words like Update Request and Customer lead you into woods for trees territory. Is there a page you can point me to ? Specifically, here is what I am trying to do. For temporary test purposes I want to hard code a specific customer. When I look at the Co-worker field below it has a Manual option to enter a User, but I haven't managed to enter any text. The drop down shows nothing and while it lets me enter text (I'm assuming that it might be the User ID that I need possibly in quotes) I can't get it to save it. So, I'm interested in my specific little case and also how I find more info on the Wiki. Given that the way the automation works is that for your application the scope choices change and so on I was wondering if the Wiki might work similarly ie what is your application ? Here are the Scope choices. Pick one and it gives you the Entity choices relevant to your selection, until you end up on the right page for explaining the parameters for the Task you have chosen in its context.

Sorry, just reread Trevor's response more carefully and have found the answer to my question through it - remove quotation marks round New and it works

I've got it to go through the Add Card to Board node successfully, but it doesn't add it to the board. Clearly my parameters aren't right ! Here's what I've got (trying Board Manager as the application didn't help). The Board was selected from option presented so I assume that is OK but I had to add the lane manually (we have a lane called New). Again, I expect I'm missing something basic.

That's really helpful, thanks, both. Yes, I was picking up the old one. Hopefully I'll be able to make progress now.

Hello. I'm trying to start using Board Manager in conjunction with an HSM BP. The board is set up and I'm wanting to do things like add a Change Request to the board as a card automatically when the ticket is created. I can see help articles that indicate that there are 4 functions under Automated Tasks in BP. I only see Hornbill Automation which has only one (different) . Is there some configuration I need to set or is the screen shot used an old one ? I get one function offered (for adding a Request to a Board) rather than the 4 in the wiki article, but even then I'm not sure what format I should be using to tell it which board to add to. Is there a help article that talks you though setting this sort of thing up ? I may well be confusing two different things. Thanks Richard

By the way, while I do want the change as stated, a selectable flag that says whether category has been filled in or not would be better than nothing. Thanks Richard

Hello @James Ainsworth. Just wondering if you have a better view on how/when this might progress as someone else has asked me for it. Thanks Richard

I meant Retrieve Contact

We have a situation which we are encountering in Hornbill automations within an HSM business process, but I gather it is a collaboration feature We want to create a Contact if the Contact does not already exist. This is coming a cropper because Create Contact fails if it is already there (or has been archived). What we would like to do is a Retrieve Customer (based on an email address, so we know it's ID to use), but that function does not exist. Any chance of this being made available ? While I'm at it, knowing whether the Contact is active or archived would be handy as part of this. And so would an additional option to Unarchive Contact Thanks Richard