A Customer Success Journey Moving From Tasktop Sync to Tasktop Integration Hub | Tasktop Connect 2018
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The document outlines the transition of TIAA from Tasktop Sync to Tasktop Integration Hub, highlighting the reasons for the move, current integration status, and the benefits realized. Key improvements include enhanced scripting capabilities, streamlined processes, and better tracking of artifacts across various tools like Jira and ServiceNow. The presentation also discusses steps taken during the transition and introduces features such as automated testing of integrations.
A Customer Success Journey Moving From Tasktop Sync to Tasktop Integration Hub | Tasktop Connect 2018
- 1. A Customer Success Journey Moving From Tasktop Sync to Tasktop Integration Hub Mark Ford Tasktop Connect Conference December 6, 2018 TIAA PUBLIC
- 2. A little background on me… 25 years experience with two Fortune (100/500) Financial Services orgs 11 years experience as Admin for HP/Micro Focus ALM 5 years experience as Admin for Tasktop Sync and Tasktop Integration Hub 3 years Board of Directors at Vivit – HP/Micro Focus User’s Group 2 years attended (and spoke at) Tasktop Connect Strong background in computer programming and application development Love to extend vendor products beyond the norm This presentation will get down to the nuts and bolts level… So prepare to go deep… 2TIAA PUBLIC
- 3. Agenda What a difference a year makes: Where TIAA is with Tasktop Today Why TIAA moved from Tasktop Sync to Tasktop Integration Hub Steps to move from Tasktop Sync to Tasktop Integration Hub Go a little deeper into a few of my favorite (Tasktop Integration Hub related) things: Extensions – Tasktop Sync scripting taken to the next level Hub Error API – put this to work for you and have it fix your sync errors Automated Testing of Integrations – simplify your integration testing 3TIAA PUBLIC
- 4. Where TIAA is with Tasktop Today 4TIAA PUBLIC Tasktop Sync 6 Prod Instances 2 Sync Servers ALM, RTC, RDNG, Serena, ServiceNow Tasktop Hub 6 Prod Integrations 1 Hub Server 1 Sync Server ALM, Jira, ServiceNow, SharePoint 2013 - 2017 2018 “Tasktop has enabled us to simplify the integration when acquiring smaller firms by synching work items and minimizing the disruption on each side.” - Don B. (Lead Development Manager)
- 5. Where TIAA is with Tasktop Today 5TIAA PUBLIC Jira Story Creates Jira Bug that is linked back to ALM Defect Created Manually Linked to ALM Test Case Creates ALM Requirement We started using this with Tasktop Sync in February 2017 between ALM and RTC, then ported it over to Tasktop Hub in February 2018 when we replaced RTC with Jira: Jira Stories created and sync with ALM requirements When the ALM requirements are linked to Test Cases, they automatically receive the Jira Story ID(s) ALM Defects created from the linked Test Cases also automatically receive the Jira Story ID(s) The ALM Defects automatically create and sync with Jira Bugs The Jira Bugs automatically link back to the original Jira Stories sync sync “We’ve been able to visualize requirement traceability, test execution status, and application coverage from planning to closure while better tracking defects logged against our requirements.” - Rajeev C. (Lead Quality Analyst)
- 6. Where TIAA is with Tasktop Today 6TIAA PUBLIC TIAA SharePoint Client update is requested MyVest Jira Jira issue created and confirmation returned “We eliminated the need for additional defect management licenses, allowed developers to focus directly on the tool they utilize in their day-to-day activity, and can now better foster communication with others outside of development.” - Russell R. (IT Project Manager) “Tasktop prevented us from rushing to find a new workflow tool at a critical point in our project and eliminated the need for massive re-training by integrating into our existing processes with just a few minor tweaks.” - Beth C. (Lead Business Analyst) We started this integration in Tasktop Hub in February 2018: An urgent need arose to facilitate and monitor client requests between TIAA and MyVest - an acquired subsidiary Requests can originate on either side so the integration creates and updates artifacts both ways Tasktop Support enabled SharePoint Attachments for us Benefit: Specific data fields and customized notes are shared between teams without either having to learn a new platform
- 7. Where TIAA is with Tasktop Today 7TIAA PUBLIC Activity by Tasktop Hub Integration Average Monthly Updates Average Monthly Creations ALM Defects – Jira Bugs (5 ALM projects syncing with 95 Jira projects) 15,984 704 Jira Stories – ALM Requirements (5 ALM projects & 86 Jira projects) 13,633 971 ServiceNow Incidents – MyVest Jira Issues 203 12 SharePoint Issues – MyVest Jira Issues 3,281 855 ServiceNow Problems – Jira Features New in 2018 New in 2018 ServiceNow Problems – ALM Defects New in 2018 New in 2018 ServiceNow Incidents – ALM Jira Issues New in 2019 New in 2019 Currently 4 Production integrations running with 2 more we’re adding in December Syncing artifacts between 4 different application delivery tools (Micro Focus ALM, Jira, ServiceNow, SharePoint) Looking into improving our SDLC reporting options with Tasktop Enterprise Data Stream Looking into how Flow Metrics could provide valuable information into our SDLC processes
- 8. Why TIAA Moved from Sync To Hub – Several Reasons 8TIAA PUBLIC Scripting is much improved! Stay Current with New Developments! Adding new Projects to Integrations is much faster! Easier Project Filtering! Data stored in Oracle or SQL Server! Models provide generic end- point interfaces! Easier Tasktop Upgrades! That Cool Integration Landscape Visual!
- 9. Why TIAA Moved from Sync To Hub – Simplicity 9TIAA PUBLIC
- 10. Why TIAA Moved from Sync To Hub – Support TIAA PUBLIC • Hub is much easier to work with • Personally I like the Eclipse environment with Tasktop Sync, but it can be intimidating to non-developers • My manager is not a developer and was able to log into Tasktop Hub and set up an Integration without any training - it’s that intuitive • Hub is much easier to share support duties with others on my team enabling us to respond quicker to sync issues – documentation (Confluence) helps
- 11. Why TIAA Moved from Sync To Hub – Filters TIAA PUBLIC • Artifact filtering can be done directly in Hub instead of relying on end-point specific filtering • This makes it easier to add new integrations – you don’t have to learn how to create filters in the end-point systems • In some cases, the Hub filtering might actually be better to work with! • With Sync I had to set up 6 different integrations each with a different ServiceNow filter to select 150 unique Applications - SN couldn’t handle 150 ‘OR’ statements • With Hub, I only need one integration because it can handle a virtually unlimited number of ‘OR’ statements in it’s own Artifact Filter • In some cases though, you might still want to use an end-point specific “pre-filter” with Hub to weed out a very large volume of artifacts that will never be included – like the 200,000 Closed defects in Micro Focus ALM since 2010
- 12. Why TIAA Moved from Sync To Hub - Models 12TIAA PUBLIC ALM Defects Jira Bugs RTC Defects Bugzilla Issues When using Tasktop Hub it helps to understand the concept of “Models”. With Tasktop Sync you make field connections between tools by defining specific field mappings between tool end-points. However, you need to start from scratch with those field mappings when you bring a new end-point into a synchronization. The Approach with Tasktop Sync
- 13. Why TIAA Moved from Sync To Hub - Models 13TIAA PUBLIC “Defect Model” ALM Defects Jira Bugs RTC Defects Bugzilla Issues With Hub you define generic models for your org into which you plug various tools, reusing your field definitions for new integrations and connecting them automatically with “smart fields.” The “Universal Adaptor” approach with Tasktop Hub
- 14. Why TIAA Moved from Sync To Hub - Scripting Differences in scripting: 14TIAA PUBLIC Tasktop Integration Hub Tasktop Sync Called Extensions Called Scripts Uses Javascript (or more specifically ECMAscript) Uses Groovy Handles translations like String to Single Select You have to code translations between String and Single Select No longer needed for status transitions (Jira) Needed for status transitions (Jira) Can make HTTP calls to your web services! Can make Java program calls Much easier to access source and target resources More complicated to access source and target resources Cannot access a Single Select’s list of values Can access a Single Select’s list of values Can access company’s LDAP for person verification Cannot access company’s LDAP (at least not natively) Easy to write a list of field id’s to the log Need to look up field id’s elsewhere
- 15. Why TIAA Moved from Sync To Hub - Scripting Being able to receive and return values of a Select List in an Extension saves a lot of code. I was able to replace this Sync script with a much more concise Extension. 15TIAA PUBLIC function transform(context, input) { if (!input) return; var currentValue = context.targetRepositoryArtifact.customfield_15306; if (input == "Closed" & currentValue != "Canceled“ & currentValue != “No Workaround Required") return "Retired";} if (currentValue == “” | currentValue == undefined return “Under Review” return currentValue; } public void map(syncContext, sourceAttribute, targetTask) { if (!sourceAttribute.model.getConnectorKind().contains("servicenow")) return; def sourceValue = "" def waStatusLabel = "WA Status" def sourceValueKey = sourceAttribute.value def snAttribute = sourceAttribute.taskAttribute def snMapper = snAttribute.taskData.attributeMapper def snMap = snMapper.getOptions(snAttribute) def targetTaskAttr = nulll for (Map.Entry entry : snMap.entrySet()) { if (entry.key.equals(sourceValueKey)) { sourceValue = entry.value break}} for (def attr : targetTask.getRoot().getSubAttributes().values()) { if (waStatusLabel == attr.getMetaData().getLabel()) { targetTaskAttr = attr.taskAttribute; break}} if (targetTaskAttr == null) return def targetValueKey = targetTaskAttr.getValue() def targetValue = "" def mapper = targetTaskAttr.taskData.attributeMapper def map = mapper.getOptions(targetTaskAttr) def retiredKey = "" def underRevKey = "" def unassignedKey = "" for (Map.Entry entry : map.entrySet()) { if (entry.key.equals(targetValueKey)) targetValue = entry.value if (entry.value.equals("Retired")) retiredKey = entry.key if (entry.value.equals("Under Review")) underRevKey = entry.key if (entry.value.equals("Unassigned")) unassignedKey = entry.key} if (sourceValue.equals("Closed") & !targetValue.equals("Cancelled") & !targetValue.equals("No Workaround Required")) { targetTaskAttr.setValue(retiredKey) return} if (targetValue.equals("") | targetValueKey.equals(unassignedKey)) { targetTaskAttr.setValue(underRevKey) return} } Hub Extension Sync script
- 16. Why TIAA Moved from Sync To Hub - Landscape Tasktop Integration Hub provides a nice visual – the “Integration Landscape” that shows the artifact connections as they flow between your configured end-points. 16TIAA PUBLIC
- 17. Steps to Move from Sync To Hub 17TIAA PUBLIC Step 1 Reuse your requirements from before or update if needed Step 2 Add new Hub Repositories if needed Step 3 Identify an existing Hub Model or create a new Hub Model Step 4 Create new Hub Collections to tie the end-points to the Hub Model Step 5 Rewrite your Sync Scripts as Hub Extensions (this can take a little time) Step 6 Create your new Hub Integration Step 7 Redo your Sync end-point filters as Hub Artifact Filters Step 8 Implement your action plan to handle your existing syncing artifacts
- 18. Steps to Move from Sync To Hub – Existing Artifacts Ways to handle your existing syncing artifacts: 1. Wait until an end-point is retired and then sync all of the existing data to the new end-point 2. Run Sync and Hub in parallel for awhile by specifying a cut-off date, setting your Sync filter to exclude new entries after that date, setting your Hub filter to only include new entries starting from that date, wait until all of the artifacts under Sync Close and then eliminate Sync 3. Recreate “open” artifacts with Hub and delete the former artifacts created by Sync 4. Let Hub create new artifacts and ignore the old artifacts from Sync 5. Engage Tasktop Support to re-establish the links between existing artifacts – give them plenty of advanced notice to prepare for this 18TIAA PUBLIC
- 19. Favorite Things: Extensions - Tips 19 Call a web service from Person Reconciliation Person Reconciliation Extensions are a little limited in what they can do but you can greatly extend their functionality by calling a web service and returning the results of the call. Conditional “Additional Fields” in Transition script Tasktop Support provides an extension to use to transition status values. Sometimes transitions require another field to be set. You can tweak their code to set those values based on decision logic. Call other tool APIs In most cases you probably cannot call another tool API direct from an Extension (GET only, HTTPS, authentication) but you can of course call a web service from an Extension that calls your other tools APIs. Can make Jira Plugin Support possible Tasktop only supports a few Jira plugins so what do you do if your Jira instance uses a cool Jira plugin not supported by Tasktop? Write a web service! Extensions are powerful ways to use logic when syncing field level data across end-points: TIAA PUBLIC Tip 1 Tip 2 Tip 3 Tip 4
- 20. Favorite Things: Extensions - Tips 20 Call an environment web service Calling web services requires you to code a URL that can be different between Test and Prod. I call a web service I place on the Hub web server to read a local file to give me the environment URL for my other web service calls. Push constant back to source upon creation Hub only allows you to populate a constant in a field on creation and only on the target. You can do this with the source through an Extension. Use a Source Control tool Use an external editor and a source control tool to write and store your Extensions. This gives you a place to compare changes and restore from backup if you goof something up. Share Your Extensions I still think it would be great if Tasktop customers could share their Extensions via an external library so you could browse the library to get an Extension and modify to suite. Extensions are powerful ways to use logic when syncing field level data across end-points: TIAA PUBLIC Tip 5 Tip 6 Tip 7 Tip 8
- 21. Favorite Things: Hub Error API I was surprised to initially find out that Hub did not provide a way to email errors. They’ve added that functionality recently, but they also provide a REST API for you to use instead or in addition to. I wrote a Java program that runs every 5 minutes and reads the Hub Error API. This allows for more granular error detection and email capabilities and even escalation. It also provides the ability to “auto-correct” some types of sync errors. No way to cancel or ignore errors through the REST API – but that would be really nice! Step 1 Read Errors from Hub Error REST API Step 2 Add/Update additional details like: created, updated, closed, # of retries, acknowledged Step 3 If applicable, call tool APIs to Fix the issue or Skip the error Step 4 Send Emails to Technical Support, Business Users, Escalation Contacts, etc 21TIAA PUBLIC
- 22. Favorite Things: Automated Testing of Integrations We always ran new versions of Tasktop Sync through a series of tests on our existing integrations in a lower environment before we introduced the new version into Production. We do the same today with Tasktop Hub. We typically upgraded Tasktop Sync once or twice a year so it was manageable. However, Tasktop Hub is a younger product with more features being added quarterly that we will want to leverage. So upgrade testing will occur more frequently now. We might even look at adopting (CD) releases if we had this in place. We started an initiative to perform upgrade testing via automation looking at two approaches: 1. Run tests at the service layer, calling end-point APIs to create and update artifacts and then call other end-point APIs to read artifacts and verify a successful sync. 2. Use an automation tool like UFT to script going through the front end of each tool to create/update artifacts and verify a successful sync. 22TIAA PUBLIC
- 23. Favorite Things: Automated Testing of Integrations Since we had a resource on the team with UFT experience, management decided to go that route. He has been working on scripting two of our integrations so far. Barriers/challenges have been: • Object recognition on applications like Micro Focus ALM • Working in sufficient wait time for sync activity to complete Tasktop performs their own API testing so it would be interesting to see if they could provide a mechanism to their customers to make API calls and validate successful syncs for those interested in more of a services layer type test of their own integrations. 23TIAA PUBLIC
- 24. Contact Me TIAA – Lead Developer – mford@tiaa.org Twitter – @markdmia LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/markeford/ 24TIAA PUBLIC
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- 27. Where TIAA is with Tasktop Today 27TIAA PUBLIC TIAA ServiceNow An Incident is assigned to MyVest MyVest Jira Jira Issue created and updates are kept in sync We started this integration in Tasktop Hub in February 2018: Incidents get raised in ServiceNow that require work from MyVest – an acquired subsidiary We worked with the MyVest Jira team to create a Jira issue that would accommodate these incidents SN team added a customized “Send to MyVest” button Benefit: Eliminated email handoffs and allows each organization to continue using their respective tooling “We eliminated the need for additional defect management licenses, allowed developers to focus directly on the tool they utilize in their day-to-day activity, and can now better foster communication with others outside of development.” - Russell R. (IT Project Manager) “Synchronizing our Production Incidents between the two organizations allows us to track their status from start to finish with nothing falling through the cracks.” - Brian H. (Lead Development Manager)
- 28. Why TIAA Moved from Sync To Hub - Improvements 28 1 5 3 Send error emails to specific users per integration, end-point, error type, escalation and ability to cancel errors via REST API Ability to promote Integrations, Collections, Models, and Extensions to Production Ability to view integrations from multiple Hub servers in a single Integration Landscape 4 Ability to see low level details like artifact field names (helpful for developing extensions), modify artifacts (helpful for testing), and trigger individual artifact resyncs 2 Ability to see results of an integration’s filter without creating artifacts in your end-point (can simulate with Enterprise Data Stream) TIAA PUBLIC A few areas of improvement for Tasktop Hub
- 29. Favorite Things: Extensions - Improvements 29 1 5 3 Ability to pull Extension source code from an external editor/source control tool Make the values for a field’s Select List available in an Extension Ability to call tool APIs direct from an Extension4 Support for Person fields in Custom Data Transformation Extensions2 Ability to use an include statement for common Extension code TIAA PUBLIC A few areas of improvement for Hub Extensions
- 30. Favorite Things: A few other items… • Tasktop Support suggested using a separate Jira Server as an “API Server” and pointing Hub directly to that server instead of our Jira load balancer. A good idea, but pointing to our load balancer helps guarantee a connection. • We’re looking at setting up Tasktop Hub for a Disaster Recovery environment. This would include replicating our Oracle Schema to a DR server and setting up a Tasktop Hub application server in DR. We’ve had areas inquire about fail-over during a DR situation. • It’s possible to promote Integrations, Collections, Models, and Extensions by extracting the JSON information out of the configuration table in your external database schema and updating/inserting it into the configuration table in another environment. It’s not a simple process and you have to be very careful to maintain the key order or Hub will crash. But I built a process that does it and have used it to great benefit many times so far! 30TIAA PUBLIC
- 31. Tasktop Customer Connections One other thing I would be interested in seeing Tasktop do next year is get local customers together for implementation round tables or meet and greets. Coming to a customer conference once a year is a great way to meet other customers and connect with Tasktop, but it’s not a possibility for all customers unfortunately. Knowledge sharing between Tasktop customers can be a great way to learn more about a product and maximize the benefits you receive. Sometimes you encounter things that you can leverage that you never thought of. Round table sessions are a great way to go and hear others talk about implementation topics and share what you’ve learned. Tasktop Support is awesome for when you have a question or an issue, but hearing about what other customers do can sometimes trigger questions that you never even thought to ask. If interested, talk to your Tasktop contacts about it and maybe we can get some started! 31TIAA PUBLIC