ActiveControl has long offered an Integration Framework to enable integrations with tools such as ServiceNow, JIRA and HPSM.
Over the years, this Integration Framework has been expanded as new and existing customers have requested integrations with new products, or indeed to introduce additional capabilities with existing ActiveControl integrations. This has often required significant Development work within Basis Technologies, and as a result, sometimes also detracted the focus from other important product evolution. As a result of this impact – and also due to customer feedback over the last couple of years – Basis Technologies are introducing a new Node-red Integration Framework as part of ActiveControl 8.40, which over time is intended to replace the existing SAP Integration Framework.
Node-RED is a programming tool for wiring together hardware devices, APIs and online services in new and interesting ways. It provides a browser-based graphical editor that makes it easy to wire together flows, thus Basis Technologies believe will allow our Delivery Consultants and Customers to become much more self-sufficient in the setup of new and existing Integrations between 3rd Party tools and ActiveControl.
The Node-RED framework added as part of ActiveControl 8.40 is aimed primarily at ITSM, DevOps and Automated Testing tool integrations – ie where the common integration use-cases are:
(1) automated creation of a Business Task at the appropriate point in the corresponding ticket lifecycle.
(2) automated updates to a Business Task, when the fields on corresponding ticket are updated.
(3) automated updates to the ticket status, when the corresponding Business Task reaches (configurable) Deployment statuses.
(4) automated signoff of Testing of a Business Task, based on a (configurable) ticket status change.
(5) automated signoff of Testing of a Business Task, based on feedback from 3rd Party Automated Testing tools.
The above – plus some other actions currently covered by the underlying suite of ActiveControl SOAP APIs will be available as of ActiveControl 8.40.
The expectation is that during early 2021, some Templates will be created by Basis Technologies for popular Integration requirements such as JIRA or Azure DevOps, to make it quicker and easier to implement these Integrations at new customers. It should be noted that Basis Technologies consulting services will still be needed in most cases in the short-term, to help Customers setup both new and existing Integrations via Node-Red. Over time, the effort and cost to do this will reduce through the use of Templates.
Configuration Steps
Please refer to the Node-Red Integration Guide for details on setting up an integration using this new capability. This Guide is available via https://docs.basistechnologies.com/
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