HaloITSM Roadmap

Added department mappings to user roles

You can now configure department mappings for user roles.

When a user is assigned a role with these mappings, they will inherit membership in these departments.

WhatsApp Business (via Twilio) Integration is now available

This integration will allow you to receive messages from users to a Twilio WhatsApp phone number and have them created as Tickets or Actions in your Halo instance. Incoming images are also supported.

You can then chose to reply to the user via WhatsApp message using Halo within a 24 hour period.

Our integration with WhatsApp Business is done in partnership with Twilio.

Halo will create and manage a Twilio account on your behalf, and Halo will direct Twilio to onboard and manage your WhatsApp Business account.

This integration is provided free of charge, however you will be billed for usage by Halo on behalf of Twilio.

Please see the Integration configuration page for more details on how to get started using Twilio for WhatsApp Business.

Ticket dashboards have been added

Ticket Dashboards can now be added to the Ticket Details screen on the Agent application. Ticket dashboards are like global dashboards but filter data to be relevant to the specific ticket that is being viewed, and come with a number of additional widget types exclusive to Ticket dashboards.

These dashboards can be used to create an overview screen on a Ticket or be used to customise the layout of the Ticket details screen. Example use cases are for a Major Incident dashboard or Project Overview dashboard.

Example;

Ticket dashboards are configured on a Custom Tab. Create a custom tab for Tickets, and set the type to "Dashboard". Like Iframe custom tabs, these show on all Ticket Types by default, but can be limited to particular types by either customising the Layout or Custom Tab restrictions at Ticket Type level.

You'll then be able to configure the dashboard from the "Configure Dashboard" button. This pops up a dashboard layout configuration screen like the global dashboard editor. When opening this prompts you to choose a ticket to preview whilst creating the dashboard. This is not mandatory but is recommended as many of the available widgets do not show anything unless ticket data has been loaded.

The following widgets are available for Ticket dashboards;

• Report Data - Show the table of a report. $-FaultId is replaced with the ticket ID, allowing you to show data specific to the ticket
• Report Data - Show the table of a report. $-FaultId is replaced with the tickets ID, allowing you to show data specific to the ticket
• Report Count - Show a count, sum or average of a column in a report. $-FaultId is replaced with the ticket ID, allowing you to show data specific to the ticket
• Ticket List - Show a list of tickets. A relationship type can be specified as either "Child Tickets", "Related Tickets", or "Any Tickets". An action can also be set to trigger for the New button. A column profile and filters can also be applied here. For Child Tickets, this respects the "Split child Tickets tab into Ticket link types" setting and shows multiple tabs if multiple link types are found on the parent.
• Ticket Calendar - Show tickets that have start and end dates defined on a calendar. A relationship type can be specified as either "Child Tickets", "Related Tickets", or "Any Tickets". An action can also be set to trigger for the New button. Filters can also be applied here. For Child Tickets, this respects the "Split child Tickets tab into Ticket link types" setting and shows multiple tabs if multiple link types are found on the parent.
• Ticket Kanban- Show tickets on a Kanban board. A relationship type can be specified as either "Child Tickets", "Related Tickets", or "Any Tickets". An action can also be set to trigger for the New button. Filters can also be applied here. For Child Tickets, this respects the "Split child Tickets tab into Ticket link types" setting and shows multiple tabs if multiple link types are found on the parent.
• Ticket Gantt- Show tickets that have start and end dates defined on a Gantt chart. A relationship type can be specified as either "Child Tickets", "Related Tickets", or "Any Tickets". An action can also be set to trigger for the New button. Filters can also be applied here. For Child Tickets, this respects the "Split child Tickets tab into Ticket link types" setting and shows multiple tabs if multiple link types are found on the parent.
• Ticket Progress/History - Shows the action history of the ticket. New action screens will also show in this widget
• Attachments - Shows the list of Attachments on the Ticket as a table. New attachments can be added, and attachments can be edited here.
• Single Field - Choose a single system or custom field to display in the widget. This will display in read mode, and when clicked on will become editable. Note that the field must be in the Ticket Type field list, and set to display on the Ticket details screen in order to show.
• Group of Fields - Choose a group of fields to display in the widget. This will display in read mode, and when clicked on will become editable. Note that the fields within the group or the whole group must be in the Ticket Type field list, and set to display on the Ticket details screen in order to show.
• Workflow progress - Shows the workflow progression chart, as normally shown on ticket details
• SLA information - Shows the SLA metrics, as normally shown on ticket details
• Activity Feed - Shows the Feed records for the selected ticket
• Custom HTML - This allows you to create your own widget from HTML and CSS. Ticket $-variables can be used in this, for example; $-SYMPTOM or $-EMAILHISTORY. Iframes can also be used to embed data from other sites, such as world clocks.

A few improvements have also been made to other features;

• Global dashboards now allow the use of the "Ticket Kanban" widget (agent app only)
• Global dashboards now allow the use of the "Ticket Gantt" widget (agent app only)
• Global dashboards now have an "Appearance" option within widget configuration that can be used to more easily change the style of the widget to a pre-set style instead of writing custom css
• Custom tables now have a "Height override" option which allows you to choose how large the table displays on forms
• Minor improvements to the usability of dashboards

Dynatrace integration is now available

A Dynatrace integration is now available, which allows for the import of hosts and services, as well as for tickets to be created in Halo from Dynatrace alerts.

To use this integration you must generate an access token in Dynatrace with permission to read and write entities, and read and write problems. Please be aware that the URL you need to enter is not the same as the URL of your Dynatrace instance. 

Site Mappings

Dynatrace does not have a concept of sites or customers, so to determine which site an asset should be created against you can sue site rules. These rule sare based on field values, and if matched will assign an asset to the site of the mapping.

Host and Service Imports

Most of the configuration is shared between the host and service imports. THey ue the same asset type mappings and matching field 

The asset types can either use a fixed type for all assets, be determined from one of the fields, or use asset type mappings that are determined using rules based on the values of the mapped asset fields.

If none of the rules are matched, a default asset type will be used, which can also be configured to not allow the import of any assets that don't match any of the rules, allowing for certain assets to be excluded from the import.

The field mappings are different between hosts and services, as they have different fields in Dynatrace.

Hosts and Services can be imported separately both manually and automatically via the integrator.

Additionally there are settings to deactivate assets deleted from Dynatrace, to not create new assets, to not update exisitng asset types, and to not change the site of exisitng assets.

Alerting

You can enable alert processing for the integration. This allows you to generate a username and password to use as basic authenntication for the alert webhook.

The content of the webhook can be copied from the integration configuration. The values of some of the properties, like the title and details can be changed, but the default values should provide all the required information. 

The alerts are configued as problem notification in Dynatrace with the type 'custom integration'. Alerts fro problems with Hosts and Servcies will generate tickets in Halo.

If the p[roblem is reolved in Dynatrace, then the ticket in Halo will be closed. Similarly, if the ticket in Halo is closed, then it will reolve the problem in Dynatrace, adding the closing note as a comment on the problem.

You can specify the default user and ticket type for the tickets created from alerts.

The MYOB Integration is now available

You can find this integration in Configuration > Integrations > MYOB.

Here you can create tenants and each tenant allows the importing of tax rates, accounts, customers, suppliers and, products. It is also possible to sync to sync changes to MYOB for customers, suppliers, products, invoices and purchase orders.

The integration works with both the cloud and desktop versions of MYOB. If using the desktop version, the MYOB instance must be accessible by your Halo instance. 

Google Business integration is now available

This integration will allow you to import and respond to Reviews and Questions left on any of your Google Business accounts.

To configure this integration, navigate to Configuration > Integrations and select Google Business.

From this configuration page, you are able to Add/Edit any connections to a Google Business page, as well as configure what happens when you import data from Google.

To reply to a Review or Question, you can configure an Action to show the 'Send to Google Business' toggle. This is found in Action configuration > Details, in the "Action Settings" group.

Wordpress Integration is now available

This integration will allow you to import Wordpress Posts as Knowledgebase Articles.

Posts can also be imported using the Halo Integrator on a recurring schedule.

Mattermost Integration is now available

This integration will allow you to send notifications to specific Channels in Mattermost.

Using the Halo Integrator, you can retrieve any replies to the Post created by the notification and have it added to the Ticket in Halo.

Configuration requires allowing Personal Access Tokens in your Mattermost System Console, which can then be generated by an Admin in the Security tab of their profile. Then simply add the Channels you wish to send notifications to, and create your notification with a Notification Type of "Mattermost Notification".

Prometheus Integration is now available

This integration will allow you to import Targets from Prometheus and create Tickets from Alerts when using Prometheus Alertmanager.

Multiple Jira instances can now be connected to and it can be used simultaneously with the Azure DevOps integration

Multiple Jira Instances

The Jira integration is now multi-tenanted and includes the following improvements:

1. To facilitate connecting to multiple instances, the configuration screen has been redesigned. This includes organising the different configuration settings more clearly and other minor changes, such as the 'Test Configuration' button no longer creaitng an Issue in Jira.
2. The product and release setup screen now has a Jira tab. Here you can manually link a Halo product to a Jira instance and project. You can also create custom field mappings for the project.
3. All inbound webhooks from Jira are now recorded against the Jira instance record. They are maintained for 2 weeks before being removed.You can click into each request to see more details about the webhook that was received, including the request body and headers.
4.  All outbound POST/PUT requests sent from Halo to Jira are now recorded against the Jira instance record. They are maintained for 2 weeks before being removed. You can click into each request to see more details about the request that was sent, including the request body, headers and the response from Jira.
5. Primary issue and primary work item can now be added as columns for ticket lists. These can be used instead of the existing third-party ID column when using the Jira and Azure DevOps integrations together. (See below)
6. Minor other fixes and improvements to the Jira integration as a whole

Using Jira and Azure DevOps

In addition to the improvements to the Jira integration, the Jira and Azure DevOps integrations can now be used at the same time.

Products can be linked to both an Azure DevOps and Jira project.

This allows tickets linked to that product to be linked to a ticket in both instances. An action with the system use "Create Bug/Issue/Work Item" will create an issue/work item in both Jira and Azure DevOps. 

Updates will automatically sync to both integrations and comments can be sent to both by adding the 2 "Sync to Azure DevOps/Jira" field to the action.

Comments received from one of the integrations will be added to the Halo ticket, but will not be synced to the other integration automatically.