Add Me: Set up "Add-Me" for Subscribing to or Following Issues

ASM allows users to add themselves to published issue types. This means users can flag themselves as being impacted or interested and allows support to globally update all users individually.

About Add-Me - Subscribing to Issues

Users can subscribe to issues that are impacting them or that they may be interested in receiving notifications about.

**If the user's have not been granted access to to the specified "Add-Me" Status, they will not see the add-me option. For example, If you create an Add-<e Status called Major Incident, but do not grant portal users the ability to see this IPK Status, they will not be able to see the Major Incidents and add or subscribe themselves to them.

The ability to add yourself to a published issue (sometimes called "Subscribe" or "Follow") is controlled by Role-Based-Access-Security. Users must have the appropriate Self-Service Portal role enabled to be able to leverage the capability.

Some examples where organizations can use the Add-Me Capability are:

• Technology Refresh initiatives

• Beta Testing Volunteers

• User Feedback Groups

• Known Errors

• Suspected Problems - to gauge actual impact

• Vulnerability or Security Threat

• Training Courses - Self Identification and enrollment

Features of Add-Me

The Add Me capability has 3 main features, detailed below.

Optionally Synchronize all child calls	When a user selects to "Add-Me" ASM creates a ticket for the user and links the ticket as a child call to the parent. Updates to the parent, notes, and linked workarounds or Knowledge articles will be cascaded down to all child tickets, thus updating impacted users via email and through the Self-Service Portal. **See Alert box below When an update takes place, confirmation of the update is added to the Parent Call's History and to all the linked Child Call's histories. E.g.: When an Analyst adds a note to the Parent and chooses to "Copy Update to Child Call" this is displayed in the Child Call's history as an update from the Parent Call.
Custom Message Type and Template for Child Calls	Message templates and Subject lines can be configured to specifically address and communicate relevant updates to the subscribed issue.
Multiple IPK Statuses can leverage the Add-Me capability*	Any IPK status can be configured to allow a user to link themselves to it. *As of 10.6.8, any IPK status can be setup as an add-me status. Prior, only Major Incidents could be used for the Add-Me capability. This represents a major change in functionality.

**Some updates are always global

1. When a Linked Knowledge Article is added to the Parent Call, all the linked Child Calls should be updated automatically with the new entry.

2. When a Workaround is added to the Parent Call, all the linked Child Calls should be updated automatically with the Workaround.

Steps to enable "Add-Me"

There are three main steps to configuring the Add-Me capability:

Step 1 - Configure Call Templates

You will need call templates to support "Add-Me". For example, if you are setting up Self-identification and enrollment for user training courses, this will be a long-running static issue type, most likely. You will want a separate call template that assigns to the Learning and Development Team and perhaps even a separate SLA to cover it. On the other hand, if you are creating a Known Error type and want users to be able to add themselves to it, then you might want a different call template altogether that assigns to the Problem team.

See "Call Template Administration" in the Global Search for information on how to configure your Call Templates.

Step 2 - Configure Global Settings for Add-Me Functionality

Now that we have our call templates planned and configured, we need to ensure the global settings that will support it are configured. These settings will include (Images below):

1. Enabling the IPK Statuses for Add-Me and assigning the Call Template that you would like used.

   • Access System Administration> IPK Management>IPK Statuses

   • For each IPK Status you want "Add-Me" Enabled, select the checkbox for Add-Me IPK Status and then select the correct Call Template to use whenever a user adds themself to this issue type.

   

   Step 2, Item 1; Configure IPK Statuses

   • The Portal Partition settings will still apply. If a Partition Value is selected e.g., Partition=2, then only IPK Statuses from Partition 2 will be visible in the "Add Me" widget. If No Partition value is selected then the "Add Me" widget will display all selected IPK Statuses for configuring in Core.

   • The Add-Me widget in the Self-Service Portal will only display those items applicable and according to the User's default partition.

1. Setup the Global Option to Automatically update Child Calls. If you want to automatically update all child calls, enable the Automatically Update Child Calls checkbox in System Administration>IPK Management> IPK Settings

   1. With this setting enabled: When Knowledge Articles are linked to the Parent Call, they are automatically synchronised with all the existing linked Child Calls.

   2. When the Workaround field is added/updated via the Explorer Menu > Workaround or added to the Workaround field on the Screen, it is automatically updated to all of the existing linked Child Calls.

   3. Note: The existing "Copy the workaround to the child calls" and "Link entries to children" functionality that manually updates the Child Call is still available.

   4. Knowledge articles and Workarounds automatically synchronised will also trigger an Email Update to the User(s) of the linked Child Calls. This Email Template can be modified by an Admin Analyst in the standard Message Template/Types via Screen Designer.

   

   Step 2 Item 2: Automatically update Child Calls Global Setting

1. Review the Self Service Portal Home Page and ensure your settings and Screen Design support and Showcase the Add-Me Widget

   

   Step 2 Item 3 - Verify Self Service Portal Widget

   • Add the widget to the home screen if it is not already there

   • If it is hidden, unhide it (CAUTION: This change will be immediate. You may want wait for this step until you are ready to "Turn it on".)

   • Ensure the size will accommodate your anticipated length and volume

Step 3 - Configure RBAC

1. Configure Self-Service Portal Security Roles

   • Access System Administration > Self Service Portal > Self Service Portal Role

   • For each role that should have "Add-Me" enabled, select the check box "Review Add Me IPK Statuses" (Image below)

By granting a SSP Role Access to review Add Me Statuses, they will not be able to see all Add Me items if they have had IPK Statuses Restricted (on the IPK Statuses tab in the given SSP Role).

For Example, if you have enabled Add-Me on Facilities, Known Error, and Incident, but the given SSP Role only has access to the Facilities IPK Status, Users with this role will not see any Add Me items for Incident or Known Error. They will only see Facilities.

1. Configure Analyst Security Roles (Global updates) - To allow Analysts the ability to globally update Users of linked calls

   • Access System Administration>IPK Management Security Roles

   • Tick the checkbox Copy Update to Child Calls

   • For all Calls that have linked Child Calls, when adding a note in the Actions and Solutions field on the Details screen, analysts with appropriate security will see a checkbox called "Copy Update to Child Calls". This is unchecked by default. Checking the box will append the current entry to the linked Child Call's Call History and confirm the update and contents.

   • This same checkbox is also seen on the Add Note screen allowing analyst's with sufficient rights to add a note and make it globally available to all linked chid calls.

   

   Step 3 Item 2; Configure Analysts security

Partitioned Systems

Information about partitioned systems and how they will behave with the Add-Me feature is included in all of the above sections. Here is it listed specifically, in order to give you a Birds-Eye view of all of the considerations you will need when setting up Add-Me in a partitioned system.

1. The Add-Me widget in the Self-Service Portal will only display those items applicable and according to the User's default partition.

2. If Call Templates are partitioned, you must ensure that the Call Template you are assigning to the IPK Status is also available in the default partition of the User on the Self Service Portal and that the Admin Agent configuring the Add-Me capability also has access to the Call Template and Partition being configured.

3. Ensure that if IPK Statuses are partitioned, these IPK Statuses are available to the target users of the Self-Service Portal, e,g, they are not prevented seeing them because they do not have the necessary partition.

4. A knowledge article may not be visible to the User's on the Self Service Portal if it is not a SSP-facing article or is assigned a different partition from the user.

Example Configuration

Many clients create an entirely new IPK status for users to subscribe to. You can call it "Subscription issue", or something similar. This way you can:

1. From any Known Error, Major Incident, problem, or other Call type, you can clone to a 'Subscription Issue" and link the Subscription entity as a child to the parent call.

2. This way the only issues that appear on the portal are those you specifically publish to the portal.

3. This controls updates as well as the only updates you would need to add to the subscription issue are those you want to push to end users.