Connector Functionality

From the standard process flow above, it is envisaged that the developed connector will provide the services required on the ITSM side to initiate a web service call to ActiveControl to create an AC Business Task (which will be the representation of the ITSM ticket within AC).

The following functions need to be available within the connector:
1. Initiating integration: The exact conditions required for the integration to be initiated will vary from client to client. This means that a flexible, configurable way needs to be developed to initiate integration. A set of conditions need to be able to be created, including the value(s) of any field on the incident/change ticket and its status, which when met, initiates the integration to ActiveControl.
2. Default values: When initiating integration to ActiveControl, we need to be able to specify default values for the mandatory fields on the ActiveControl Task. These are:
a. Project
b. Group
c. Type
3. Mapping: The fields on the ITSM ticket need to be able to be mapped to fields in ActiveControl. Any fields on the ITSM ticket, including any customer defined fields, need to be able to be mapped to any field in the ActiveControl Create Task WS, including custom fields.
4. Processing: Once the ITSM ticket meets one of the conditions to fire off integration and the fields have been mapped to the ActiveControl Web Service, the connector should be able to call the AC web service. A system username and password will need to be passed to enable authentication for some clients, other clients may use SSO. Both authentication methods should be available. ActiveControl will either return an error or the internal number of the Task that has been created. The connector needs to be able to update a field on the ITSM ticket with the AC Task number or to store the error message.
5. Error processing: The connector should be able to be configured to try the integration more than once and to store any error messages that are returned. After a configured number of retries, an email (or other notification) needs to be sent to a configurable list of users, informing them of the error and the ITSM ticket involved. An administrator must be able to manually re-send the integration record if the maximum number of retries has been exceeded.

It should be noted that the connector will not be able to cater for all possible scenarios that may be required by a customer. It is really just a starter which may be extended by the client themselves.