Manage workflow options

A change request's workflow determines which lifecycle stages it will pass through. You can customize change request lifecycles, by creating new workflows, and by disabling or deleting the built-in workflows. Furthermore, you can modify the set of conditions determining when each workflow should be assigned.

You must define the parameters for integration with your external corporate Change Management System (CMS). AFA can connect to AlgoSec FireFlow, BMC Remedy, HP Service Center and Service Manager (formerly Peregrine), or any other system supporting Web-based access.

When implementing a requested change in the device, many organizations choose to specify a CMS change request ID in the relevant rule comment. AFA will automatically detect such CMS change request IDs in rule comments. Wherever a rule is displayed in the AFA report, its comment will include a link to the CMS system, pointing at the relevant change request. By a simple click on the link, a browser window with the relevant CMS change request will open, to allow further examination of the change (who requested it, who authorized it and when, etc.).

Do the following:

  1. In AFA, access the AFAAdministration area > Options tab.

  2. In the Options Menu area, click Workflow.

    The Workflow page appears.

  3. Select the Enable integration with external Change Management System check box.

  4. Do one of the following:

    1. In the drop-down list, select Algosec FireFlow.

    2. In the Server field, type the name of the AlgoSec FireFlow server to be accessed (usually the AFA server).

    3. In the URL Template field, specify the structure of the URL that will be created for change request ID links in AFA reports.

      The following keywords will be replaced by the relevant values: __SERVER_NAME__ and _REQUEST_ID__.

    4. Click the Show Full URL button to see the resulting URL string.

    1. In the drop-down list, select BMC Remedy.

      The fields change:

    2. Fill in the different fields, in order to allow AFA to create the correct links. The format of a typical URL to a Remedy change request is as follows:

      <protocol>://<mid_tier_server>/arsys/servlet/ViewFormServlet? server=<server_name>&form=<form_name>&qual=<query>

      Where:

      • <protocol>: may be either http or https
      • <mid_tier_server>: (required) - the server name or IP where the Mid Tier is installed. May contain an optional port number, format: 192.168.2.60:8080
      • <server_name>: (required) - Name of the AR System server to be accessed.
      • <form>: (required) - Name of the AR System form to be accessed.

      For example, if the parameters are:

      • Mid Tier Server: 192.168.2.60:8080 (Host: 192.168.2.60, Port: 8080),
      • Server: remedy  (this is its DNS name)
      • Form: Sample
      • URL Template: kept at the AlgoSec default

      Then the fully formatted URL for change request id 12345 would look like this (all on one row):

      http://192.168.2.60:8080/arsys/servlet/ViewFormServlet? server=remedy&form=Sample&qual=%27Change%20ID%2A%2B%27%3D%2212345%22

      The URL template that AFA uses can be viewed and edited in the URL Template field. It contains the structure of the URL that will be created for change request ID links in AFA reports. You may change this field to specify the URL format explicitly (over-ride the defaults).

      The following keywords will be replaced by the relevant values: __SERVER_NAME__, __MID_TIER_SERVER__, __FORM_NAME__, __REQUEST_ID__.

    3. Click Show Full URL to see the resulting URL string.

    1. In the drop-down list, select HP ServiceCenter (Peregrine).

      The fields change:

    2. Fill in the different fields, in order to allow AFA to create the correct links. The format of a typical URL to an HP ServiceCenter change request is as follows:

      protocol://<server>/sc/index.do?ctx=docEngine&file=<file>&query=<query>&action=&title=Ticket%20Information

      Where:

      • <protocol>: may be either http or https
      • <server>: The HP ServiceCenter (Peregrine) server (name or IP address)
      • <file>: The table name
      • <query>: Format of the actual query string, e.g. number="__REQUEST_ID__" or incident.id="__REQUEST_ID__"

      The string "__REQUEST_ID__" must appear in the query, and will be replaced by the actual request ID in the final link URL.

      The URL template that AFA uses can be viewed and edited in the URL Template field. It contains the structure of the URL that will be created for change request ID links in AFA reports. You may change this field to specify the URL format explicitly (over-ride the defaults). The following keywords will be replaced by the relevant values: __SERVER_NAME__, __FILE_NAME__, __QUERY__.

    3. Click Show Full URL to see the resulting URL string.

      Note: Some versions of HP ServiceCenter may require the URL to contain a hash value in addition to the query itself. In order to integrate with AFA, this option should be disabled. In order to configure ServiceCenter Web application to ignore this hash value:

    4. Add the following lines to the Web application's web.xml file:

      <init-param>  <param-name>sc.querysecurity</param-name>  <param-value>false</param-value></init-param>

    1. In the drop-down list, select Other.

      The fields change:

    2. In the Server field, type the name of the HP ServiceCenter server to be accessed.

    3. In the URL Template area, specify the structure of the URL that will be created for change request ID links in AFA reports.

      The following keywords will be replaced by the relevant values: __SERVER_NAME__, __REQUEST_ID__.

    4. Click the Show Full URL button to see the resulting URL string.

  5. In the Change Request ID Format area, define a format to which the device rule comments must comply, so AlgoSec recognizes them as containing a change request ID.

    Only properly formatted rule comments will be linked to the CMS change request. This is relevant for all the Work Flow systems. AFA will look for the following format in the rule comments:

         <Before><Ticket_id><After>

    Where <Before> and <After> are fixed strings, and <Ticket_id> is a Perl regular expression (see note below).

    For example, if: Before = 'Ticket #', Ticket id = '\d+', and After = '#'

    Then this comment will become a link: 'Ticket #1234#' but this comment will not: 'Ticket 1234#' , because <Before> is not equal to 'Ticket #'.

    Note: The required Ticket_id format should be specified as a Perl regular expression. You can find tutorials on writing regular expressions on the Internet.
    Here are some examples for the type of things you can accomplish:

    \d represents a digit, \s represents a space, \w - an alphanumeric character.

    Examples:

    • \d\d\d\d-\d\d- comments must contain a ticket number like 1234-56
    • \d\d-\d\d-\d\d\d\d- comments must contain a date like 01-01-2007
    • [A-Z]{2}\s*\d+- comments must contain two capital letters, then zero or more spaces, then one or more digits (e.g. “AK  123”)

  6. Click OK.

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