The theme of this release is the Oomnitza Store – the self-service store for deploying key business process packages and integrations, and for users to request offerings such as accessories, software apps, and services.
Contents
- Top features
- Workflow enhancements
- System enhancements
- Software Asset Management
- Accessories
- Notifications
- Integrations
- Announcements
Top Features
Oomnitza Store: Accelerate time-to-value
This is just a taste of the new packages and offerings that were added to the Store to help you automate business processes, deploy integrations easily, and automate the provisioning of hardware, accessories, and software apps to users.
Some of the highlights...
Security compliance packages for endpoint protection. Ensure devices are secure and implement measures to prevent devices from being compromised. Deploy one, or better still deploy all of these packages to ensure end-to-end compliance with your security policies for endpoint protection.
Security Certificate package. Import and create security certificates and run out-of-the-box workflows to assess the status of security certificates and generate alerts to renew security certificates before they expire.
And, over 27 new integration packages and over 12 new request offerings have also been added.
Check it out! Click Configuration > Store.
Store packages for asset integrations
Store packages for managing assets
Store packages for offboarding
Store packages for user integrations
Granular control of tabbed pages for records
You protect your data by providing access only to the data that users need for their role. And, you reduce the clutter by providing users only with the information that they need to complete the tasks assigned to them.
Now, you can leverage the enhancements that were made to the screen builder to take this one step further:
- You can refine the information shown for all the tabbed pages for records. Not just the Information tab.
- You can show or hide tabbed pages.
- You can show or hide fields that contain sensitive data, such as personal or financial data. Or, any information that is not pertinent to the user's role.
- You can create new tabbed pages that you can customize for each user role.
- You can customize the information, for each role, that is shown on the tile in block view by selecting a title field and subtitle field.
Configuring tab view settings for roles
Oomnitza to the power of AI
The Assistant, powered by OpenAI, enables you to:
- Search for asset and user records.
- Generate notifications in workflows.
- Create and validate Jinja code.
Tip
Don't forget to activate the Assistant! See Adding global settings. To activate, type system.enable_assistant as the key, and set the value to yes. See AI and data privacy.
Looking for asset and user records has never been easier
Just ask the Assistant! You can type keywords or use your microphone to activate speech-to-text. Click the Assistant and type or click the microphone and speak.
You can save and share the search with your colleagues or use the search to create dashboards, schedule reports, or activate workflows.
Use the Assistant to generate message templates
Lost for words or want a head start to generate a message to welcome new joiners to your organization? Just ask the Assistant when you're configuring the Notify and Decision blocks. The Assistant can help you create a welcome message or other message templates that you need, saving you time and effort when you create workflows.
Using the Assistant to create notification messages
Use the Assistant to help you write and validate code
Use the Assistant to generate Jinja code in the API, Conditional Threshold, Oomnitza, and Update blocks. Quickly generate the code snippets that you need and reduce the amount of time and effort spent in writing code.
Using the Assistant to generate jinja code
Usability enhancements to surveys
Leverage the new survey features to create user-friendly surveys that retrieve business-critical information and create request offerings. Make it easy for users to respond and choose assets and accessories by adding images and dropdown lists.
You can create regular dropdowns and add as many as 20 options. When the user clicks on the field, all the options display. All the user has to do is pick one.
You can also use objects, such as assets, accessories, and custom objects to create dropdown lists. You can use a saved search to refine the number of options that display such as laptops manufactured by Dell with a specific model number. Or, you can create dependent dropdowns, so that the offering that a user selects is determined by their location, user role, or department.
And, you can preview your survey as you build it. You want to know that it is just right so the final modifications that you need to make are minimal.
Quickstart your Oomnitza instance
You want a guided, gradual introduction to the Oomnitza experience before you scale up and extend the management of your IT landscape.
A new role called Admin Lite has been added so you can do just that! You get what you want to start your journey in Enterprise Technology Management (ETM).
Your introduction to ETM starts with the management of your hardware - endpoints, architecture, and networking devices.
Upload your company logo, or do it later, and then you’re off to the Store to pick key application and hardware integration packages.
You can download ready-to-go applications that surface business-critical information about your hardware on operational dashboards. You’ll gain insights into:
- The health and status of your hardware
- Data hygiene. Take the risk out of making wrong and costly decisions based on inaccurate, missing, or out-of-date information.
- Coverage gap analytics. Detect the endpoints, infrastructure, and network devices that haven’t installed endpoint protection (EPP) to ensure end-to-end compliance with your security policies.
- Audit readiness.
New applications are made available in the Store constantly! So don’t forget to visit the Store regularly and download the applications that will help you manage your hardware, reduce costs, and gain valuable insights into the health and status of your devices.
Now, you’re ready to pick the vendor applications that you want to use to sync your hardware data with Oomnitza. Through experience, Oomnitza has configured the integrations with vendor applications to ensure that key device information is ingested and managed in Oomnitza.
Applications installed and integrations scheduled to run? Now, you can take advantage of the unified view of your hardware data and of the dashboards that are automatically updated as your data is ingested by Oomnitza.
You can decide when and how you want to extend the management of your IT portfolio. Your next step might be to manage your SaaS applications and services or your desktop software. Just contact your customer success representative to continue your journey in ETM.
Setting up your instance in minutes
Workflow enhancements
Nested workflows
You have a sequence of workflows, and based on the outcome of one workflow you want another workflow to run. You don't want to bundle all the workflows on a single canvas because you want to know, at a glance, what each workflow does. With nested workflows, you can minimize the complexity of workflows and make it easier to manage and maintain workflows. You can also work more efficiently by creating nested workflows that can be called from multiple different parent workflows.
Notifications and alerts for migrating packages
When you migrate packages from your Oomnitza development to your Oomnitza production instance, wouldn't it be great to receive notifications when the migration completes successfully? Or get an alert when something goes wrong so that you can do something about it.
You can now create a workflow to do just that! You can run a workflow:
- To get real-time updates and track activities. You can stay informed of the latest package migration activities and you can closely monitor the progress of each migration.
- To quickly troubleshoot failed migrations. You can trigger an alert when package migrations are unsuccessful to identify and resolve any issues.
- To integrate with external ticketing systems. You can integrate your workflow with an external ticketing system to streamline the process of resolving migration issues.
Tutorial: Creating a package migration workflow
More workflow enhancements:
- Feature-rich editor. The new feature-rich editor, which has been added to the API, Conditional Threshold, Oomnitza, and Update blocks, provides syntax highlighting and autocompletion. Makes your life easier and writing code easier.
- Coding option for Update blocks. The new Coding option in the Update block allows you to manipulate and manage your data. This feature lets you use Jinja, a powerful templating engine for Python, to update field values. See Using the coding option in the Update block.
System enhancements
Anonymize user data
In compliance with GDPR, personal data, such as the user's name, email address, home address, and phone number can now be anonymized.
To anonymize a user's personal data is a two-step process. The user's record must be archived before the user's personal data can be anonymized.
In addition to the user's personal data being anonymized, the history of their activities is deleted.
Delete object records
Reduce the clutter by deleting the object records that are no longer needed. To reduce the risk of deleting object records by mistake, the delete process is a two-step process. First, you archive the object, and then you delete it. Before the object record is actually deleted, validation checks are performed to ensure that the object has no dependencies.
The dependencies are detected and recorded in the dependency checker. You can use the dependency checker to detect and resolve any issues that might cause problems when the object record is deleted. For example, if a location record is specified in a stockroom, you must remove the location from the stockroom before you delete it.
Selecting objects in list views and surveys made easier
Make it easier for users to choose options in surveys and to update object records! You can choose the options that are shown when a field that uses an object as its data type is added as a variable to surveys or to the object list view. For example, for the asset object, the default option that is shown is the asset tag, which when added to a survey doesn't provide enough information to users to make a choice. The same applies to updating the record.
For example, instead of just showing the name of an accessory, you can also show the category. For the Location object, you can show the name and the address of the location.
Just click Configuration > Objects, open an object, and choose the options that you want to show.
Configuring objects for enhanced data views
Copy tab settings for roles
You can quickly and efficiently customize the tab settings for new roles or roles that were already created by copying the tab settings of a source role to a target role. And, then, you can customize the tabs of the target role to meet the requirements of the new role.
Enhanced usability of object list views
Reduce the clutter so that you can focus on the actions that you want to complete and the information that you want to review.
The same features and actions are available in all the object list views! Search at the top so you can quickly focus on the records that you want to process. The total number of records is also displayed and when you select records, the number of records that you selected is also displayed. Good to know when you're doing a bulk edit!
Actions that you don't complete often are still there, just click anywhere in the column heading and select More actions. And, if you don't want to drag & drop to reposition a column just click Move to right or Move to left.
Enhancements to displaying images
Show thumbnails of images on the Media page Show an enlarged view of the image on the Media page
To speed up the load time of images when you view records in the block view, the images are compressed and displayed as thumbnails. On the media page for the record, you can get an enlarged view of the image.
Providing more information on record tiles
You can provide more information on the record tiles in block view. You use the Screen Builder to add two headings, a title and subtitle, and you use the Block view settings
feature to add more information. See Configuring the block view.
More system enhancements:
- Selecting options in dropdown lists made easier. Autocomplete is great for choosing options in dropdown lists. But, why not not make choosing options even easier? Now, you just click in the field and the options are displayed. Autocomplete is still available. If you know the name of the option, just type the first few letters of the option to select it.
- Assets search enhancement. You can cut and paste a list of email addresses into an email or user fields, such as Assigned To and Created By, to retrieve multiple results. The emails must be separated by commas, or on separate lines.
- Searching for child assets enhanced. The restriction of searching for fields specified in the tile settings has been removed. Now, you can search for values in any of the fields on the Child Assets page.
- Providing more information about dashboards. When you create a dashboard, you can add a link to a document that will help users gain insights into the information that is shown in the dashboard and actions that they might need to complete depending on the information that is displayed.
- Voiceover for company logo. In General > Preferences, you can now specify the voiceover text for your company logo.
Custom object enhancements
Tailored custom objects
Now you can design custom objects that truly reflect real-world requirements. For example, when you create custom objects, you can now choose the field that you want to use as the unique identifier because the Name field is no longer a mandatory field. You decide which field uniquely identifies each custom object.
Effortless custom object integration
Now that the name field is no longer mandatory, you have more flexibility in designing custom objects that best fit your data structure needs. For example, there are scenarios where it might be beneficial to post data not directly to 'assets', but to a custom object that you created such as 'security certificates'.
It's all about flexibility. If you want, you can still provide a name, but it's no longer mandatory. You can adapt the system to your unique needs.
Ticketing webhooks
You can receive data from webhooks for ticketing systems, such as Jira webhooks, without having to provide a unique name for each item that is created. No more reformatting API payloads! And, the data is processed much more efficiently.
Configuration migration
Configuration migration objects to custom objects
Packages in the Migration > Packages menu have been converted to a custom object, providing a range of new functionalities and features. In addition to providing you with the ability to bulk import and format package displays, you can also trigger workflows on packages to gain actionable insights and simplify tasks. For example, you can create package workflows that:
- Update the status of a package when it is migrated to a new environment.
- Alert administrators when a package migration fails.
- Create a report on the usage of all packages.
Tutorial: Creating a package migration workflow
Software asset management enhancements
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SaaS Management Integration performance enhancements:
- Reduced database calls, restarting at the point of failure, and refactoring code.
- Increased run priority to improve performance and reduce delays.
- SaaS user details are updated in bulk instead of on a user-by-user basis.
- SaaS Management Integration usability enhancement. Now, like all other integrations, when an integration doesn't complete successfully, you can review the status of the integration and the number of errors that were generated.
- Enterprise contracts enhancement. To provide a more detailed account of budgeted costs for contracts, the maximum number of line items for budgeted costs has been increased from 25 to 50. If you need to add more than 50 line items for budgeted costs, contact your Customer Success Manager.
- Enterprise contracts for desktop software enhancement. When the number of seats for a license is changed, a workflow is automatically triggered to notify the change to the number of seats, and the change is tracked on the History page.
- Enterprise contracts for SaaS enhancement. If you add rules to automatically assign SaaS users to contracts and the user no longer meets the criteria for assigning them to a contract, they will be automatically unassigned from the contract.
Accessory enhancements
The Accessories page for the Stockroom object has had a makeover. Here’s what’s new:
- New, intuitive icons were added for accessory actions such as assigning, receiving, and deprecating accessories.
- A new configurable column allows for personalized views of the accessories page, including dedicated columns for new and used accessories. As a result, enabling the Show New and Used Accessory Counts checkbox on the Information page is no longer necessary for the column display. However, you can continue to use the Show New and Used Accessory Counts checkbox to display new and used accessory counts in the sidebar.
The following features have also been added for stockroom accessories:
- Adding accessories to stockrooms made easier. You can now use saved searches to add accessories to stockrooms. Instead of searching for the accessories that you want by name or SKU, you can now select a saved search before you enter the accessory details. See Adding accessories to stockrooms.
- Identify the accessories that don't need to be returned. In the stockroom, you can label the accessories that don't need to be returned to your organization by your employees as consumable.
Notifications
Max options in dropdown lists limit
To improve performance, from this release on, the maximum number of options that can be added to regular dropdowns is 100. Don’t worry! You can still create dropdowns with more than 100 options. You can create a custom object and then add the options as the records of the custom object. And when you add a field, you can choose the custom object instead of selecting short text as the data type to create the dropdown. Don’t forget, you can create dependent dropdowns to make it easier for users to select options.
If you created dropdowns using short text as the data type with over 100 options in a previous release, they will not be affected. However, you won't be able to add new options.
(The max number of options that you can add, free of charge, for a custom object is 1,000.)
Terminology change
The name of the People object when it is selected from a list or when it is referred to on pages, other than the People page, has been changed to Users. For example, when you select a data source for a dashboard or when you select an object on the Objects page, you select Users.
The name change has been made to the following dialogs and pages:
- Activities
- Data Model
- Objects
- Roles
- Widgets
- Workflows
- Workstream
Integrations
Netskope ShadowIT
The Netskope SMI integration has been transformed. The focus has changed from tracking the apps and webpages to tracking the unsanctioned applications that users access. (You also have the option to track sanctioned applications that users access.)
You can get key security information such as who accessed unsanctioned apps, which apps were accessed, and when the apps were accessed. IT Security can monitor the information in Oomnitza to revise their security policies by either adding the unsanctioned app to their list of sanctioned apps or by denying access to the apps. Information about sanctioned apps can also be ingested by Oomnitza to monitor usage and to determine whether a subscription to an app should be continued or discontinued.
Creating an extended integration for Netskope ShadowIT
Custom extended integrations
Oomnitza's custom extended integrations allow you to integrate with any application, even if it is not supported by Oomnitza. In the past, custom integrations could only be used to stream data to the user and asset objects. However, with custom extended integrations, you can now transfer data to any object in Oomnitza.
Here are some examples of what you can do with custom extended integrations:
- Sync inventory levels from external inventory management systems directly into Oomnitza's stockrooms and accessories object.
- Transfer security certificate data to a custom object that you have created in Oomnitza.
- Sync desktop or SaaS software information from external systems directly into Oomnitza's software object.
Custom extended integrations have the following advantages:
- Flexibility: You are not limited by the out-of-the-box vendor integrations provided by Oomnitza. Custom integrations allow you to connect with a wider range of systems.
- Data integrity and efficiency: Importing records using an API reduces manual input, minimizes errors, and saves time.
- Scalability: Custom objects can be used to adapt your Oomnitza environment to your specific requirements. As your organization grows and evolves, you can easily add new types of objects.
The following changes were made to the Oomnitza interface to make it easier for you to add and deploy custom extended integrations.
New mapping overview page
When you add an integration to Oomnitza, extended or custom integration, wouldn’t it be great to be able to review all the integrations that you sync with? The sync keys that each integration uses, and the fields that are mapped from the vendor API to Oomnitza.
You can use the mapping page to maintain data quality and integrity, as well as:
- Instantly view all your active fields.
- Monitor all sync keys to prevent duplication.
- Effortlessly modify the mapping of specific integrations.
More integration enhancements:
Update to CORS policy for Service Desk integrations. To enhance security, we've made updates to our Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) policy for Oomnitza Service Desk integrations for Fall 2023. We’ve introduced a new global variable security.allowed_cors_domainsthat allows you to build a list of trusted domains in your Oomnitza instance. This enhancement improves the security of your Service Desk integrations and ensures that they are protected from unauthorized access. See Fall 2023: Updates to CORS policy for Service Desk integrations.
Announcements
AI and data privacy
We understand that data privacy is of the utmost importance to our customers. When using the Assistant, no record content or personal data is sent to OpenAI. The data exchange is strictly limited to the information that is required to complete the action.
Data retention
The retention period for the Activity feed, Workflows, integration logs, and historical data for archived objects is limited.
Deprecation of basic integrations
In the Winter 2024 release, some basic integrations will be deprecated. To continue syncing your data with Oomnitza, switch to an extended integration.
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