Question

When making a ServiceDesk advanced ticket, there are fields for the user's Location, Department, Equipment (hardware inventory, such as computers, etc.) and Services. These may be empty or are not populated correctly. You want to know how to populate these fields in order to use them.

Answer

Neither ServiceDesk nor Active Directory manages data for the primary contact's Location*, Department, Equipment or Services. This data comes from the CMDB Solution product in the Symantec Management Console and must be populated there first to be later used in ServiceDesk. If these have not been previously populated by the user in CMDB, they will appear empty in ServiceDesk as there is no data to sync from.

* The Location field is also an actual field in ServiceDesk for its users. This is not imported from Active Directory in the ServiceDesk AD sync as there is no out of the box Location field in AD. If this field is manually populated, and no Location field has been assigned to the user in CMDB, this field can then be entered automatically when selecting a primary contact in an advanced ticket. However, it is recommended that the Location be populated in CMDB for the users instead of doing this in ServiceDesk.

The following describes how to add Locations, Departments, Equipment and Services into CMDB.
 

1. In the Symantec Management Platform Console, click on the Manage button > Assets.
   
   a. Locations and Departments are located under Organizational Types.
   b. Equipment (i.e., resources and their asset owners) is located under Manage Configuration Items > Computers and Peripherals. An asset owner, which refers to the primary contact in an advanced ServiceDesk ticket, can be added by editing a resource and adding a user to the Asset Owner field.
   c. Services are located under Datacenter Types > Service.
    
2. Create any needed data, such as Locations. This can be done by manually creating data, importing data from a Data Connector import rule, using Microsoft Active Directory Import or a CMDB rule. Regardless of how the user chooses to add CMDB data, until the data is here in CMDB, it cannot be later used in ServiceDesk. Notes: (1) Certain data, such as locations and departments, are associated data. These must be associated with computer or user, respectively, to enable them to appear on a ServiceDesk ticket. Merely having available associated data does not in itself appear on a ServiceDesk ticket. (2) It is beyond the scope of this article to describe how to automate the assignment of CMDB data. This is covered in the following article:
   
   How to automate the assignment of departments and locations to users and computers
   http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO64252
    
3. After creating CMDB data, allow 15 minutes for this to begin to appear on the ServiceDesk server (after the next IIS refresh cycle occurs). If an advanced ticket form is open, this may need to be closed and re-opened as well to refresh the data.
    

Note: ServiceDesk users also have a field named "Office Name". This field is not available on an advanced ticket but can be confused for one of the above fields, which it is not. This field can be populated by ServiceDesk's AD sync or manually added.
 

Troubleshooting

• If recent changes to CMDB fields are not appearing in ServiceDesk, reset server extensions and then reset IIS on the ServiceDesk server. Otherwise, after IIS next refreshes automatically, these fields will be updated with their current data. For example, if a Location is removed, it may still appear in ServiceDesk until the next IIS refresh occurs. Also, if IIS has been modified to increase the amount of time that it performs an automatic check, it may be necessary to perform this procedure to force the CMDB fields to be seen by ServiceDesk, even if the values have been present in CMDB for some time. Likewise, if there is an issue with IIS updating correctly, or, its cache timeout has been extended, this may impact CMDB data being able to be seen by ServiceDesk. Verify that the default cache timers are set correctly, which can be found by reviewing the following article:
  
  How to increase the page cache times for ServiceDesk and Workflow
  http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO9818
   
• Verify that the user that is picked for the primary contact is the same user that has populated data in CMDB. Compare the NT ID (domain\username) and email address in both locations to establish if a different user was selected by accident in ServiceDesk.
• If no CMDB data is being found, verify that "Use CMDB7" was selected during the ServiceDesk install and that IsUsingAMS is enabled. If not, this will result in CMDB data not being used in ServiceDesk.
  
  
  1. In ServiceDesk, go to Admin > Data > Application Properties.
  2. Click on the action button and then click on Display Definition Values, for the ServiceDeskSettings entry. Note: If no ServiceDesk settings are present, this indicates a failed installation. Try performing an Upgrade install to reinstall ServiceDesk. If this fails, a new install will likely be needed. For more information on how to perform a new install, refer to the following article:
     
     How to Install and run ServiceDesk 7.0 MR2 with a domain account instead of local system account
     http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO31346
      
  3. Click on the action button and then on Edit Values.
  4. Verify that IsUsingAMS is enabled. This is located under the Services category. If it is not enabled, click to enable it.
  5. If changes were made, click on the Save button.
      
• Run the ServiceDeskDataServices.asmx file directly on the ServiceDesk server to find what CMDB data is able to be accessed.
  
  
  1. Open a web browser on the ServiceDesk server.
  2. Enter the following URL:
     
     http://localhost/SD.DataServices/ServiceDeskDataServices.asmx
      
  3. Select the data type to test. For example, click on SearchLocations.
  4. Click on the Invoke button.
  5. A new page will open with HTML code. In this, the data, for example Locations, should appear. If not, then CMDB data is not able to be accessed by the ServiceDesk server.
      
• Verify that the Notification Server that is being used by ServiceDesk for licensing is where the CMDB data is stored at.
  
  
  1. In Windows, click on the Start button > Altiris > Workflow Designer > Workflow Designer.
  2. Click on the Plugins menu > Notification Servers Credentials.
  3. Verify that the NS Server Name value is the Notification Server where CMDB data is stored at. If not, either the data must be added at the other Notification Server listed, or, the ServiceDesk license must be transferred to the Notification Server that does have the data.
  4. Remove and add in the correct server that has CMDB data and the ServiceDesk license as necessary.
  5. If the listed server does have the CMDB data, however, remove the entry anyway, and then re-add it.
  6. Close the window after making any changes. Note: It may take a minute or two for the window to close. This is normal.
  7. Right click on the Task Tray Application and then click on Restart Server Extensions.
  8. In Windows, click on the Start button > Run.
  9. Type iisreset and then click on the OK button. 
      
• Customizations to the SD.DataServices project may also result in issues even if these were working successfully earlier. If the SD.DataServices project has been customized, temporarily revert back to the out of box version to verify if the customizations are the issue. The following article describes how to backup and restore projects:
  
  How to restore a ServiceDesk Workflow project to its out of box version after it has been customized
  http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH127262
   

Related Articles

Locations, Departments, Equipment or Services are not being populated in ServiceDesk
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH175838

How to add or remove values from dropdown fields in an advanced ticket form
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO26051

How to use the Classification field in an advanced ServiceDesk ticket
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO31143

How to view ticket CMDB Locations in a ServiceDesk report
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO65664