Best Practices for Process Designer: Author : Raj Hiremath

Best Practices for Process Designer:

Author : Raj Hiremath

1. 
   OOB (Out-of-Box) Approval Mappings for Service Request whose Service Request Definition is attached to the Process Designer Process is not recommended. The Process Designer Process does not wait to execute itself even as the Service Request waits for the approval. The recommeded way to manage approvals in Service Request with Process Designer is to send the request for approval from Process Designer Approval Task Action.
   

2. 
   It is recommended to use a dummy task with Type immediately after the Process Designer Approval Action task. The subsequent Task after such dummy task should have an attached assignment rule with a minimum of 1 minute wait. This is to account for post approval actions from the approval server to complete. Adapting this design will give enough time for the approval server to do its job and then the process designer process to continue executing without interfering with each other. This resolves conflicts like the done rule of Approval Action may over-write the modifications done in the process designer task action after the approval rule. When Wait Rule is attached to a task, and when such task becomes assigned, it remains in the assigned status for the specified time before the actions defined on it starts executing.
   

3. 
   The same dummy task + 1 minute wait rule design should also be applied for sequential approvals (approvals defined in process designer one after another). Task assignment rules are used to stop the process from continuing until a given criteria is met.
   
4. 
   The approval action of Process Designer can only be used for ad-hoc approval types and with processes defined for Service Requests (SRM). Process Designer does not support Group (Parallel) approvals.
   
5. 
   It is best practice to set the Service Request to In Progress status from the First Task of Process Designer Process via Update Request Action, unless you are using Process Designer Approvals, in which case, Approval Action Task should be your first task.
   
6. 
   It is best practice to set the Service Request to Completed or Cancelled status via Update Request Action depending on the process flow from the Last Task of Process Designer Process.
   
7. 
   Many a times, it is best practice to get the submitter’s manager details from the People record and make him approver for the submitter’s requests. The approver can be defined from a process related field, making the request‘s approver completely dynamic at run-time.
   
8. 
   One can refer to Approval_SR, Travel_Request_SR, Request_New_CellPhone and SRM PD approvals.xml use cases from the Sample_Use_Cases for the recommended use of SRM with Approvals.
   
9. 
   Sometimes, these status changes are not immediately reflected after the service request submissions and end user may need to refresh his My Requests window on the right hand side of Request Entry Console in order to reflect the latest status after Service Request submission.
   

10. 
    From ITSM Approval perspective, particularly for change request, it is recommended to do Process Mapping in such a way that, only when the request is approved for implementation, the change request status set by the approval process after approval – get mapped to the Process Designer Process. For Example, in the following approval process, any change to which this approval process gets attached, if required to use the process designer process for its implementation, the Process Designer should be mapped to the Scheduled status of the change request.
    

11. 
    Guideline on Auto Transitioning Change Request
    

When the Change Request is created from Process Designer Task Action, by default it gets created in Request for Authorization.

The Standard Change Process is as follows –

Draft > Request For Authorization > Request For Change > Planning In Progress > Scheduled For Review > Scheduled For Approval > Scheduled > Implementation In Progress > Completed > Closed
In all cases, when the Change Request is required in the process and manual intervention from the Change Manager or Change Coordinator is not expected (apart from approvals) – creation of custom Change Process Flow as follows is recommended :

Draft > Request For Authorization > Planning In Progress > Scheduled > Implementation In Progress > Completed > Closed

You can then attach this flow to your change request template (as an Example CLM Change Template) :

Also, if the Change Approval is required, one can configure it in the following way (again, as an example, CLM - Change Approval Configuration):

The Process Designer Process mapping should be done at Scheduled Status of the Change Request. When the Process Designer Process is completed, the change moves to Completed Status automatically.

12. 
    Process Designer Processes should not be attached to Change Requests where a configuration for the given company has Task Phase Management on.
    
13. 
    Restart- Task feature on dependency is valid only for Process Designer processes attached to Service Requests. This feature is not applicable for the Processes attached to ITSM requests i.e. CHG, HPD, PBM, WO. This is because Restart Task Option is not available for TMS:Task, it is available only for SRM or ABYD Tasks.
    

14. 
    In order to make provision for reopening of change requests and thereby restarting the Process Designer Process attached to it, a provision in made in the Process Designer Mapping form. However, it is recommended to test it for your use case.
    

15. 
    As part of Process Designer Installation Approval Process gets installed. If you don’t intend to use Process Designer Approval for Change – You can disable the record as below :
    

16. 
    ITSM TMS Tasks (Ad Hoc, Task Templates and Task Groups) should not be used in conjunction with Process Designer tasks for the same ITSM requests
    
17. 
    The tasks created from the Process Designer are not listed in the sequence in which they are created in the process. Request Tracker should be used to trace the current status of the process.
    
18. 
    Always attach status of ITSM request to the mapping form, don’t leave it blank.
    

19. 
    Only blank task should not be created without any action on it, it will never be completed. Exceptions being if you assign this task explicitly to some support group so that he can manually complete it or type tasks.
    
20. 
    One can set outcome field in the Task Details tab. From End-User understanding the process from request tracker, setting outcome provides better visual aid than creating conditions on dependencies, wherever applicable. Please refer to the OutComeExample in Sample_Use_Cases.
    

Also, setting the outcome on the task and not using it by using conditional evaluations instead will not work.

Without Outcome set :

21. 
    One can refer to Sample_Use_Cases\Loop_Example to check on how to create a loop based on the requested quantity form SRM.
    

22. 
    For Simple Processes and for processes without sub process calls or without restarts it is recommended to check Maintain Layout in Process Tracker. Select this option if you choose to have the Process Tracker display an executed instance of the process with the same layout as that was designed in the Process Designer Client. When unchecked, an automatic layout algorithm is used.
    

For the below process,

Without Process this action checked:

With This Action checked:

23. 
    If no assignee is specified, in case of Change, Change Manager Group becomes assignee of the tasks created by Process Designer. In case of Incidents, Incident Assignee becomes assignee of the task. As a best practice, one should explicitly create representational assignee group and assign for the automated tasks created by Process Designer while designing the process flow. If this is not done, the work done in the automated actions of the tasks would be attributed to potentially non-related support group.
    

24. 
    Recommended use of RKM for Wizard Help on Tasks.
    

The best working environment can be provided to support staff using Process Designer Process wizard and Remedy Knowledge Management. Support staff will be assigned the task depending on process flow defined in the process designer. However, they may require referring to the documentation in order to actually carry out this job. We can provide limited help in the form of help text on this on the PD Wizard. Even better solution can be – to document the complete text and the flow how it reached there and how it will proceed further based on RKM (knowledge management) decision tree. It would essentially mean, support staff can navigate through the documentation based on the flow and decisions made in the process designer process.
Example :
Knowledge Management :

Process Designer Process:

25. 
    Alternatively, help can be found on the Process Designer Wizard. The Process wizard in BMC Remedy ITSM Process Designer Provides a method of entering data for a request Helps navigate the best-practice process flow without the need for specialized training on the BMC Remedy ITSM application
    

26. 
    The Process Designer Client uses the Mid-Tier session to communicate with the AR server. For this reason, when the Process Designer client is launched from the Mid-Tier, that browser session should not be logged out for the duration of work performed form Process Designer Client. From Process Designer Client, Update Process should be performed from time to time after modifications of processes.
    
27. 
    By Default, Default Web Path value is mandatory in the server information page of the AR server. This is the mid-tier from where the Process Designer Client library would be downloaded. One can explore more options from Configuration tab - Client Launch options.
    

28. 
    When Process Designer Client is launched, it caches in all Process Designer related configurations. So if you create a new configuration record, like Assignment Rule or SLA/OLA, you need to close and re-launch the Process Designer for the configurations to show up in the Process Designer Client.
    
29. 
    While doing import of the processes, it is important to verify that the configuration data to which the importing process is referring to, exists on the target server. If the configuration data such as Support Group or Company or Wait Rule, etc is not present on the target server, a warning will be presented at the time of import. The run time will ignore such non-existing configurations.
    
30. 
    In a production environment, assign the ARID plug-in its own private thread pool to avoid conflict with other users and processes when performing operations on the AR System server. On Development or other low-volume servers, this step is not required; the Process Designer server will use the general thread pools.
    
31. 
    The server queue must have a minimum of 2 threads available. The maximum number of threads depends on how many worker threads you need to perform server-side operations. In general, the higher this value, the faster the process designer server can complete its operations in a high load environment; However, assigning too many threads to this function can result in slowing down other areas of your AR System server. BMC recommends a minimum of 2 threads and a maximum of 8. This allows up to 7 operations to be performed concurrently if required.
    
32. 
    By enabling audit for a process or a task, one can track individual changes to processes and tasks, SLAs and OLAs, and assignment rules. The details include the user who made the change and the time when the change was performed.
    

33. 
    Set Delete Successful Jobs in the Configuration tab of Process Designer as Yes. This should be configured to No only while debugging.
    

34. 
    During the development time, Development Server can carry several versions of processes. However, in the Production Box, it is recommended to keep and audit only the process which has undergone modification from the actual business process perspective.
    
35. 
    If Process Template Tab of Process Designer Configuration Console, or from Process Designer Client Explorer, the current processes in Design, Test, Suspended and Archived phase should be noted. Unless specific design time auditing requirements or processes which are past the auditing date requirements, should be deleted. This avoids un-necessary clutter of processes, as well as, increases the Process Designer client and run time performance marginally.
    
36. 
    From Process Designer Client, each new save (Update Process click) will create a new version of a process. During one development or test cycle, a developer would save multiple times creating a new versioned process each time. Unless specific design time auditing requirements, all such prior versioned processes should be deleted. This avoids un-necessary clutter of processes, as well as, increases the Process Designer client and run time performance marginally.
    
37. 
    When a problem arises, more often than not, the root cause can be found in the logs. The Logging tab on the Configuration Console provides details of log entries if the logging option is set to Form on the Configuration tab. Search Criteria is provided to help you locate the log entries that relate to a particular request. Additionally, you can find the corresponding entries in ABYD:ARIJob and ABYD:Task records.
    
38. 
    BMC Remedy ITSM Process Designer creates locks when you open a process template Process Designer Client for editing. Locks prevent multiple users from editing the same template simultaneously
    
39. 
    The SQL Queries tab on the Configuration Console lists the SQL queries that are provided as a part of the standard installation. These queries are used in conjunction with the Set Fields action in BMC Remedy ITSM Process Designer to simplify the counting of records where this is required as a part of the process logic.
    
40. 
    In large development environments, it is necessary to use Process Designer Sample form for process Unit Testing. It can potentially save a large development time. One can run SRM as well as ITSM processes form the Sample Console. One could easily see the tasks being created for ITSM processes can also use the Process Designer Wizard to input values. One can view process tracker as well as field values form the Console.
    

41. 
    If the environment is expected to be English-only, do not install all the locales (locales supported from version 8.3.04 onwards). Some fields created by Process Designer on non-English locales might require manual layout updates.
    
42. 
    Always take backup of ABYD applications and ITSM form records to which you are integrating from time to time. There are previous instances of data corruptions.
    
43. 
    If you have installed Process Designer and there is transactional data in the system, do not upgrade ITSM or SRM. Contact BMC for help on this.
    
44. 
    One can call process designer processes form custom forms as well. You need to do push field on ABYD:ARIJob form
    

In case of Custom forms, for Task Schema – the value would be ABYD:Tasks

Template ID is the Request ID of process template.

One can study the ITSM Process mapping code in case you want the Process Template Id to be picked form the code with similar to ITSM feature.
The filter should have its execute condition based on the requirement (Submit, Modify, any other Run If conditions).

45. 
    In running sub processes, it is important to decide from which task you want to return to parent. If you want the parent process to pause before sub process is completed – you can check return to parent from last task of process. If you want rest of the parent process and sub process to execute in parallel, you can return to parent from first task. If you want parent process to pause up to certain task and then execute in parallel, you can do return to parent on in between task of sub process.
    
46. 
    The sub process has no initial task – this should be corrected. Please get a defect id form Raj later.