Integrations Made Easy

How to Connect Third-Party Applications

to BMC Helix Business Workflows
Table of Contents
01 Introduction

02 The Benefits of an Integrated System

03 How It Works: The Anatomy of an Integration Within BMC

Helix Business Workflows

04 The Basics: Cases, Tasks, and Dynamic Case Fields

06 Integrating Third-Party Applications with Automated Tasks

08 Let’s Examine the Technical Processes Behind Each of

These Steps

10 The Big Picture: Easy Integrations Means Greater

Automation
Introduction
BMC Helix Workflows delivers a variety One of the key capabilities that enables BMC Helix
of business benefits by streamlining and Business Workflows to achieve these outcomes is
automating processes with cognitive service its easy integration with third-party applications.
Today’s complex, multi-cloud environments
management. From increasing speed and
demand that systems work together to work most
agility to improving accuracy and customer efficiently, and BMC Helix Business Workflows is no
satisfaction to optimizing costs, BMC Helix exception. In this paper, we’ll examine why these
Business Workflows can have a dramatic integrations are so important and how they work
impact on teams like Human Resources and within the BMC Helix Business Workflows system.
throughout the enterprise.

1
The Benefits of an
Integrated System
The cognitive capabilities of BMC Helix Business • A business manager needs some financial budget
Workflows form the foundation for managing, numbers. BMC Helix Business Workflows
automating, and scaling service delivery to drive dynamically pulls the data from the ERP system
peak efficiency. Formless case creation makes it so it’s ready and waiting in the case for the agent.
easy to create a case using natural language, for • A new hire needs to sign some paperwork as part
instance, while automatically applying templates of the onboarding procedure. By connecting to
and categorizing cases eliminates manual work. But an e-sign provider, it’s easy to complete the
to fully realize the benefits of this functionality, the process in one interface.
system must be able to work with other elements of
In each of these instances, the integration
your IT infrastructure.
between BMC Helix Business Workflows and
a third-party application enables HR to deliver
Third-party applications, such as a human capital
faster, more accurate, and higher quality services
management (HCM) or enterprise resource
to their employees. It saves IT time and costs by
planning (ERP) system, both provide additional
empowering HR to provide services on its own. It
information to BMC Helix Business Workflows and
smooths and simplifies common processes, like
trigger processes in the system.
onboarding and administration activities. And at
the highest level, smart integrations with BMC
HR Example using HCM Helix Business Workflows improve not only the
• An employee submits a request to check on their way services are delivered and scaled across the
remaining time-off balance. The HCM system enterprise but also the way services are consumed
provides this information to BMC Helix Business by employees, clients, and beyond.
Workflows to seamlessly respond to the query.

3rd Party Apps

• Workday
• SAP SuccessFactors
• Epicor HCM
• ADP Workforce Now
• ...and more

2
How It Works:

The Anatomy of an Integration Within

BMC Helix Business Workflows
At its core, cognitive service management allows 2. Automating the explicit execution of
teams throughout the organization to operate more processes. For example, integrating with an
efficiently. Greater efficiency translates to myriad HCM system so that an employee can easily
other benefits, like productivity, speed, and cost- request that their address be updated after they
effectiveness, and stems from pervasive, cutting- move to a new location. This is where the
edge automation. integration story comes in.

BMC Helix Business Workflows automates Let’s look at the second instance in more detail to
processes in two ways: understand how integrations work within BMC Helix
Business Workflows.
1. Using cognitive capabilities. For example,
auto-classifying inbound emails and creating
cases of the corresponding type. This removes a
large amount of manual work from agents and
allows them to focus on tasks that add more
business value.

3
The Basics: Cases, Tasks,
and Dynamic Case Fields
Every work request, or case, within BMC Helix Finance, or Facilities are working on a task at the
Business Workflows is categorized as a certain type same time. They can also be assigned to either
with parameters defined by a case template. In the individuals or groups.
example above, for instance, the case type would
be defined by a Change Employee Address case While some tasks need human attention and must
template. be at least partially manual, BMC Helix Business
Workflows enables many tasks to be completely
The case template defines an ordered sequence of automated. Task automation, in fact, is the “nuts
tasks that an agent must accomplish to successfully and bolts” of the overarching automation benefits
resolve and close the case. The task sequence is delivered by the platform. Automated processes
defined by the task flow (created with the Task Flow run off a series of automated tasks defined by the
Designer) and task execution can be conditional, case template, just like their traditional manual
sequential or parallel; a parallel task may be used, counterparts.
for instance, when different groups like Legal,

Figure 1: A task template for an automated task

Figure 1 shows a task template for an automated task; in this case, retrieving an employee’s vacation balance
from Workday. You can see under the Task Description that the task executes by pulling information from
Workday. Once that information is pulled, it would be entered into a dynamic case field, which are sections
within the case template where related data points are stored.
4
Dynamic case fields play a large role in the at the case, the corresponding field already has
execution of automated tasks. Data can be a value – which means the agent already has the
entered into them by the requestor, an agent, or information he or she needs to complete the case.
automatically by the system. For example, to make
a time-off decision you often need to know what Let’s look at an example of how BMC Helix Business
the time-off balance of an employee is. As part of Workflows uses dynamic case fields and automated
the case template for that request, an automated tasks to resolve cases more quickly and efficiently.
task pulls the information automatically from a In this instance, an employee has submitted a ticket
3 party system like an HCM. The automated task
rd
to update his or her legal name.
updates a dynamic field and when an agent looks

Figure 2: Dynamic case fields and tasks for a name change request
Integrating third-party applications with automated tasks

The screenshot in Figure 2 illustrates dynamic case data fields as well as tasks and their execution
order. In the center of the screen, you can find the dynamic fields (e.g. New Name, Reason for
Change, etc.) At the bottom, you can see the task sequence. The second task is an automated
task: to update the name in the HCM system. You can also see that the first task, to review the
documentation for the name change, is in Assigned state, so it’s the next task to be worked on. The
other tasks are in Staged status, which means they are not scheduled for execution yet. This makes
sense as the name in the HCM system should only be updated after the supporting documentation
was reviewed and confirmed.

5
Integrating Third-party Applications
with Automated Tasks
BMC Helix Business Workflows is a state of Automated tasks are important to understand
the art service management solution that is because they play a critical role in integrating
built on our powerful BMC Helix Platform. third-party applications with BMC Helix Business
Workflows. By leveraging a process that uses either
BMC Helix Business Workflows takes a Web Request action or a Connector action,
automated tasks make it easy for companies to
advantage of all of BMC Helix Platform’s
connect BMC Helix Business Workflows to other
capabilities and showcases how customers elements of their infrastructure.
can build their own applications using BMC
Helix Platform.
Are automated tasks the only way
With BMC Helix Platform, customers can to integrate BMC Helix Business
create modern apps on an open, extensible, Workflows with other applications?
enterprise-ready platform
While using automated tasks to
They are able to develop powerful, reusable leverage Web Request and Connector
connectors with integration service so apps actions is the simplest way to connect
can communicate with the required third- BMC Business Workflows to third-party
party services and core systems. apps, you can also use the BMC Helix
Integration Service and define the flows
Also create, share, and amplify developer of data between applications. For more
innovations quickly through reusable information on this process, please visit
components—connectors, APIs, and bmc.com/businessworkflows.
libraries.

This approach leverages the ability to make REST

API calls that are flexible and allow customers
either to directly call into their applications or use

6
an enterprise integration platform to manage Integrating a third-party application using
their APIs across applications. This is all done in a out-of-the-box functionality from BMC Helix
codeless way by configuring BMC Helix Business Business Workflows requires just three steps:
Workflows and using BMC Helix Innovation Studio
1. Determine the REST API and required
Process Designer.
request/response structures to be used

While not required, using enterprise integration a. Option 1: The REST API provided by the
platforms like Jitterbit, Workato and more to 3 party application for a specific
rd

connect Business for this process has multiple function

benefits. First, it allows organizations to take b. Option 2: Defining an operation and
advantage of their existing investment without generating the corresponding REST API
requiring much additional effort or cost; simply in an enterprise integration platform
add BMC Helix Business Workflows as a consuming
2. Configure a Web Connection and API in BMC
application. The enterprise integration platform
Helix Business Workflows
acts as a central place where the interoperability
of enterprise applications can be defined and 3. Design the automation process in Process
managed, point-to-point integrations can be Designer inside of Innovation Studio
avoided, and applications can be decoupled – a
significant advantage if older or homegrown
applications need to be phased out.

7
Let’s Examine the Technical Processes
Behind Each of These Steps
Step 1. During the first step, information like the host name, the path for operations, and the structure of
request bodies and responses is gathered. If an enterprise integration platform is being used, this might
include defining a flow or sequence of API calls and transformations as prep-work. This is an extra step but
comes with the interoperability and decoupling advantage.

Step 2. In the second step, the information is used to configure the Web Connection and API. This is
usually straightforward and done via copy & paste of the information from step 1.

3rd Party Apps

• Oracle Netsuite
• SAP
• Epicor
• Microsoft Dynamics
• Coupa

Figure 3 shows the result of defining

a Web API for an operation that calls
Workday to get the PTO balance.
In this example, calling Workday is
modeled as an operation in Jitterbit
and exposed as a POST request with
a certain path (right hand side of
the screen). The request body and
the response have been added as
document definition before defining
this Web API. Both were created using
copy & paste from Jitterbit.
Figure 3: Definition of a Web API to get the PTO balance from Workday
using Jitterbit
8
Step 3. In the third step, the execution process is defined using Process Designer in Innovation Studio.
When creating an automated task for the integration, BMC Helix Business Workflows automatically creates
an empty process and allows the business analyst to navigate to process designer with a single button click.
Dynamic case fields are available automatically without any additional configuration and you can begin
creating the process immediately in three steps:

1. Creating the request body: The structure of the from the Web API; in this example, the PTO
request body is already defined by the Web API. balance is returned. Use the Update Task Data
Use the Create Document action to map action to map the API response back to the
dynamic case data fields to request body fields. dynamic case data fields.

2. Calling the Web API: Add the Web Request While the details are technical, the process is quite
action. Select the Web API Connection, the Web simple. BMC Helix Business Workflows automates
API and the Request in three drop-down lists. most of the tasks, subject matter experts just need
to configure the integration APIs and map the data
3. (Optional) Updating the dynamic case fields: structures according to business requirements and
This is only required when data is received back use cases.

Figure 4: An integration process in Process Designer

9
The Big Picture: Easy Integrations
Means Greater Automation
While it’s helpful to understand how BMC Helix and more time devoted to increasing employee
Business Workflows integrates with third-party engagement, boosting productivity, and supporting
applications, the why is even more important. digital transformation in the enterprise.
Seamless integrations form the backbone of
automation, relieving agents of manual tasks so The easy integration capabilities of BMC Helix
they can focus on adding business value. For HR, Business Workflows are just one way that BMC
that means fewer hours spent tracking down Helix ensures your organization maximizes its
remaining PTO days and entering new addresses investments and meets its business objectives.

For more information

For more information about BMC Helix Business Workflows, visit bmc.com/businessworkflows

About BMC
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