Showing posts with label JSON. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JSON. Show all posts

Monday, December 2, 2019

Creating incident ticket in IBM Control Desk using the new REST API

Background

Maximo 7.6.0.2 introduced a new REST API that can be accessed via .../maximo/oslc . Here's a link to the documentation on it:

https://developer.ibm.com/static/site-id/155/maximodev/restguide/Maximo_Nextgen_REST_API.html

This is an all-JSON API that makes things a ton easier than it was with the older (and deprecated) XML-based REST API.

The Problem

However, that documentation is aimed at Maximo Enterprise Asset Management users and not IBM Control Desk users. That means there aren't any examples for creating incidents or service requests, for example.

Why You're Here

You want an example of creating an INCIDENT in ICD, and that's what I'll provide. I'm using ICD 7.6.1.1 on WebSphere, DB2 and IBM HTTP Server, along with the sample data. That's how I have a classification ID and hierarchy structure in the example below.

Basically, the best way I've found is to use the MXOSINCIDENT object structure because it already has a bunch of relationships (including one to TICKETSPEC, so you can add specifications when creating an incident). Here are the details:


Additional header:
properties: *

BODY:
{
    "reportedby": "MXINTADM",
    "description": "second MXINCIDENT OS API",
    "externalsystem": "EVENTMANAGEMENT",
    "classstructureid": "21010405",
    "ticketspec": [{"assetattrid": "computersystem_serialnumber","alnvalue": "99999"}]
}

RESPONSE:

{
    "affecteddate": "2019-11-29T15:02:00-05:00",
    "template": false,
    "creationdate": "2019-11-29T15:02:00-05:00",
    "hierarchypath": "21 \\ 2101 \\ 210104 \\ 21010405",
    "historyflag": false,
    "actlabcost": 0.0,
    "createwomulti_description": "Create Multi Records",
    "selfservsolaccess": false,
    "outageduration": 0.0,
    "ticketuid": 46,
    "inheritstatus": false,
    "reportdate": "2019-11-29T15:02:00-05:00",
    "class_description": "Incident",
    "description": "second MXINCIDENT OS API",
    "reportedby": "MXINTADM",
    "classificationid": "21010405",
    "sitevisit": false,
    "_rowstamp": "10009026",
    "accumulatedholdtime": 0.0,
    "createdby": "MXINTADM",
    "isknownerror": false,
    "affectedperson": "MXINTADM",
    "class": "INCIDENT",
    "ticketid": "1040",
    "ticketspec": [
        {
            "classstructureid": "21010405",
            "changeby": "MXINTADM",
            "changedate": "2019-11-29T15:02:00-05:00",
            "alnvalue": "99999",
            "mandatory": false,
            "refobjectname": "INCIDENT",
            "ticketspecid": 7,
            "assetattrid": "COMPUTERSYSTEM_SERIALNUMBER",
            "_rowstamp": "10009029",
            "refobjectid": 46,
            "displaysequence": 1,
        }
    ],
    "status_description": "New",
    "externalsystem_description": "EVENT MANAGEMENT",
    "classstructureid": "21010405",
    "changeby": "MXINTADM",
    "changedate": "2019-11-29T15:02:00-05:00",
    "externalsystem": "EVENTMANAGEMENT",
    "actlabhrs": 0.0,
    "relatedtoglobal": false,
    "hasactivity": false,
    "statusdate": "2019-11-29T15:02:00-05:00",
    "createwomulti": "MULTI",
    "hassolution": false,
    "virtualenv": false,
    "pluspporeq": false,
    "isglobal": false,
    "oncallautoassign": false,
    "pmscinvalid": false,
    "status": "NEW"
}

Prerequisites

To successfully do the above, you do need to Configure Object Structure security: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/using-object-structure-security-limit-access-security-groups , and the user MUST have a Default Insert Site, which apparently my MXINTADM user does. MAXADMIN in my system DOES NOT, so it fails if I use that user.

I'm using Postman for testing, which I highly recommend: https://www.getpostman.com/downloads/

Of course you'll use some specific language (or curl) when you're doing this in production, but for testing, you want to use Postman.

A helpful link

In addition to the API documentation, this link was very helpful to me:


Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Processing JSON in automation scripts in IBM Control Desk 7.6

Background

You may need to deal with JSON-formatted data in an automation script, and it can be a little tricky. I've written this post to provide the few little pointers to make it easier for you.

JavaScript

You can write automation scripts in Rhino JavaScript or Jython. While Jython is the most common language used for automation scripts, it turns out that JSON processing is MUCH easier in JavaScript. Specifically, in a JavaScript automation script, you have access to the popular object named JSON that will give you everything you need. Here's an example:

var jsonObject = JSON.parse(jsonString);

And that's it. You can now work with jsonObject as a JSON object as described in this reference material from w3schools:


As far as I know, this will work in both WebSphere and WebLogic application servers. One possible caveat is that the JavaScript engine is changing from JDK 7 to JDK 8. Here's more information on that:

Jython in WebSphere

For Maximo/ICD automation scripts, Jython is by far the most popular language. It's also more thoroughly documented and, IMO, easier to work with in this context. However, JSON parsing has a couple of caveats. Specifically, the Jython interpreter in ICD 7.6 is version 2.5.2, which doesn't have a built-in JSON parser (one was added in Jython version 2.6). However, we're still in luck because WebSphere actually includes a JAR file that provides JSON processing. The specific class that you need to import is com.ibm.json.java.JSONObject :

from com.ibm.json.java import JSONObject
...
my_json = JSONObject.parse(my_filebody)

And from there, you can deal with my_json appropriately according to the JavaDoc here:


Jython in WebLogic

Admittedly, I haven't tested this one. I've tested the above two, and from my research, I believe this will work. Specifically, these two links give the necessary information:



If you find that it doesn't work, please ping me and I'll help you get it to work then update this entry as necessary.

With that in mind, you just need to import the appropriate classes in your automation script:

from javax.json import Json
from javax.json import JsonObject

And there you go.