Lab Exercise 2 – Create Data Source

This lab exercise showcases how an organization can automate resolution of incident tickets through BigFix Runbook AI by creating a data source for the ITSM tool (Service Now) against the Incident Management module. The lab exercise provides a detailed procedure for creating the data source and configuring the necessary parameters.

Scenario

An organization wants to automate resolution of incident tickets through BigFix Runbook AI for which data source needs to be created for the ITSM tool (Service Now) against the Incident Management module. This would help in pulling the tickets from Service Now into BigFix Runbook AI for processing.

In this lab, we will showcase the detailed procedure for creating the data source for organization for Service Now’s incident management module.

Prerequisites

Organization should be configured.

Information about the ITSM module against which data source needs to be created. In this lab exercise, we will consider Incident management module.

ITSM API (Get) along with authentication details should be available

ITSM instance should have a dedicated assignment group for BigFix Runbook AI where identified incidents will be routed. We have considered BigFix Runbook AI Group in this exercise.

ITSM user should have the following rights:

Read rights for incident

Write rights for worklogs/assignment group for incident

Incident routing to other resolver groups

ITSM API should be accessible from the server where Data Collector service is installed.

Access to Super Admin credentials.

Solution

  1. Open BigFix Runbook AI Web URL and login with Organization Admin credentials.
  1. Go to Actions and click Manage Data Sources then click on Create Data Source button
Figure 1. Figure 188 – Create Data Source
  1. The Create Data Source page appears.
  1. On the Organization tab, type in the details as per your requirement. Refer to the Lab Exercise 1 for Organization and ITSM Module information.
  2. Click Next.
Figure 2. Figure 189 - Create Data Source (cont.)
  1. On the Data Source tab, type in the details as per your requirement. The data source could be named as DataSource_BigFixRunbookAI.
  2. Timestamp here indicate that date is in APOC format or not.
  3. Click Next.
Figure 3. Figure 190 - Create Data Source (cont.)
  1. On the Fetch Data Configuration tab, type in the details as per your requirement. It includes multiple sections.

Connection Details

Sample information that can be populated –

URL - https://sample.service-now.com/api/now/v1/table/incident?sysparm_fields=#Columns#&sysparm_query=sys_updated_on>=#StartDate#^sys_updated_on<=#EndDate#^ORDERBYsys_updated_on

Authentication Type, User ID, and Password needs to be provided by ITSM team. In case you are attending the classroom-based training, the instructor will provide you the details.

Figure 4. Figure 191 – Connection Details
Graphical user interface, application Description automatically generated

Password: For password, click on icon next to it. If the password is available in plaintext then select Input type as Input Text and enter the password in Value field. Else if it is available in any Key Vault such as CyberArk then select Input Type as CyberArk and then select any of the configured details from the value field.

Figure 5. Figure 192 - Password in plaintext
Graphical user interface, application Description automatically generated
Figure 6. Figure 193 - Password from Key Vault (CyberArk)

Request Authentication Parameters and Request Header Parameters

See below the sample information:

Key: #Columns#

ValueType: Text

Value:

number,sys_updated_on,short_description,description,assignment_group,incident_state,closed_at,category,dv_assigned_to,sys_id

Key: #StartDate#

ValueType: SQL UDF

VALUE: @@GetFromDateTimeUsingIncidentModifiedDate (applicable for ITSM Tool: SNOW)

Key: #EndDate#

ValueType: SQL UDF

VALUE: @@GetToolCurrentDateTime (applicable for ITSM Tool: SNOW)

Response Body:

{ "result": [{ "number": "INC0079154", "closed_at": "", "assignment_group": { "link": "<https://sample.service-now.com/api/now/v1/table/sys_user_group/All user group>", "value": "All user group" }, "incident_state": "6", "sys_created_on": "2017-12-22 06:59:03", "description": "Memory Utilization:10.0.0.11", "short_description": "Memory Utilization:10.0.0.11", "sys_updated_on": "2018-01-02 06:39:56", "category": "", "priority": "4", "sys_id": "123456" }] }

Figure 7. Figure 194 - Request Authentication Parameters

Mandatory Parameter Mapping

This section maps the mandatory columns required for BigFix Runbook AI with the fields available in response received. The field values are the same as the ones available in JSON added in Response Body section. Refer to below table for sample information:

Table 1. Table 5 – Sample Mandatory Parameter Mapping
TicketNumber JSON.Keys result.0.number
Summary JSON.Keys result.0.short_description
Description JSON.Keys result.0.description
CreatedDate JSON.Keys result.0.sys_created_on
StatusCode JSON.Keys result.0.incident_state
ResolvedDate JSON.Keys result.0.closed_at
LastModifiedDate JSON.Keys result.0.sys_updated_on
Figure 8. Figure 195 - Mandatory Parameter Mapping

Optional

This section is an extension to Mandatory Parameter Mapping section. You can create additional columns in Automate database if extra parameters are to be mapped. Refer to table below for sample information:

Table 2. Table 6 – Sample Extended Mandatory Parameter Mapping
AssignedGroup JSON.Keys result.0.assignment_group.value
Col1 JSON.Keys result.0.sys_id
Figure 9. Figure 196 – Optional Key Parameters
  1. Click Next after populating all the sections in Fetch Data Configuration tab.
  2. On the Release Rules Configuration tab, type in the details as per your requirement.

ITSM (PUT) details have to be entered as shown in below screenshot. See below the sample information:

  1. URL: https://sample.service-now.com/api/now/table/incident/#incident#
  2. AuthenticationType, UserId, Password, RequestMethod has to be provided by ITSM team. Please get in touch with lab instructor for the information.
Figure 10. Figure 197 – Release Rules Configuration
  1. Password- For password, click on icon next to it. If the password is available in plaintext then select Input type as Input Text and enter the password in Value field. Else if it is available in any Key Vault such as CyberArk then select Input Type as CyberArk and then select any of the configured details from the value field.
Figure 11. Figure 198 - Password in plaintext
Graphical user interface, application Description automatically generated
Figure 12. Figure 199 - Password from Key Vault(CyberArk)
Graphical user interface Description automatically generated

It also has the other fields. Request Payload should be populated in following fields:

Figure 13. Figure 200 – URL Path Parameters
  1. Considering that sample information has been populated as in Figure 197 – Release Rules Configuration, URL Path parameters sample value can be referenced from the table below:
Incident Table.Columns Col1
  1. For sample Request Body, refer to following section:

RequestBody

{ "assignment_group" : "#AssignmentGroup#","work_notes" : "#work_notes#" }

  1. Sample request can be captured in following fields:
Figure 14. Figure 201 – Key Parameters Sample Request
  1. For sample Response Body, refer to following section:

Response Body

{ "result" : "#success#" }

  1. Response Key value mapping can be done as per below table:
#success# Text OK
  1. Click Submit to create the data source.
  2. To view the data source and related information, go to Organization and click View Data Source.
  3. Ensure that the newly created data source is visible in the list.
Figure 15. Figure 202 – Data Source List
  1. To manage the entry criteria, click gear icon in Action column against the data source.
Figure 16. Figure 203 - Data Source List (Cont.)
  1. The Manage Entry Criteria popup appears.
Figure 17. Figure 204 – Manage Entry Criteria
  1. Define entry criteria on this screen. For example, if you want to pull tickets for BigFix Runbook AI Group Assigned group only, then you can save the same filter condition as shown in above screen.

Conclusion

Post the completion of this exercise, you should have a thorough understanding of creating the data sources for the respective module of the ITSM tool and defining the entry criteria for enabling BigFix Runbook AI to pick the filtered tickets as per the scope.

The next step is to create the users and mapping them to the necessary groups which will be covered in the next exercise.