Documentation
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INDEX

Documentation Library

Search for information on Hornbill Documentation.

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Have questions about this site?

What is this site?

  • This website is Hornbill's new product documentation website and is currently under development.
  • It is intended that all existing and future public-facing documentation we produce will be available to search, browse and share.
  • Hornbill's current documentation is available at Hornbill Wiki but over time this content will be migrated to this documentation site.
  • Please feel free to have a look around at any time.

Why has Hornbill created this site?

  • Hornbill's products have moved on considerably since we introduced it almost 10 years ago. At the time, the MediaWiki tool was sufficient, but we have outgrown it.
  • Our customers are more enterprise focused and more self-sufficient than ever before, so for 2023 and beyond we have established a new documentation platform and team to drive our documentation initiative forwards.
  • We are aiming to deprecate the use of Hornbill Wiki for most Hornbill related documentation.
  • We want to enable our growing partner network with product resources and information, documentation beyond our Wiki approach is required.
  • We could definitely do with some help, and may even pay for some! If you have domain knowledge and would like to help, please check out our Hornbill Docs Contributor Guide and contact the Hornbill docs team at docs@hornbill.com.

What will this site be good for?

  • Community contribution will be facilitated, encouraged, and most welcome.
  • High quality documentation, will be kept up to date as rapidly as our products evolve.
  • Real-time content search and discovery.
  • Articles organized into books, books into libraries, creating a more natural and logical structure to our documentation.
  • Legacy API documentation and various other documentation sources will all be consolidated into a single unified documentation system.
  • Documentation available in browser as well as printable/viewable as PDF on demand.
  • Personalized documentation experience, allowing dark/light mode, article subscriptions, social media sharing and other useful features.
  • Almost all publicly available documentation on docs.hornbill.com will be open-source and available to fork on GitHub, allowing customers to derive their own custom documentation around Hornbill products should they wish to.

What is the timeline for this site?

  • We have taken the decision to publish and make available early, there is very little content at this time.
  • As and when we have completed/usable documentation, it will be published here.
  • We have a host of additional features we wish to add over time, so please watch this space.
  • We expect most of our existing documentation should be reviewed/migrated to docs.hornbill.com over the coming months.
  • The documentation project will be ongoing, will continue to expand, evolve and improve day-by-day.

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Configuration Item Explorer

The Configuration Item Explorer provides a graphical representation of associated or linked CIs. The explorer can be launched from within the Configuration Manager app, or from other views where the Configuration App plug in is available. Typically this would be from Configuration Item views such as:

  • Service records
  • Request records
  • Asset records

The Explorer can be used to view and define relationships between Configuration Items.

Features

When opening the Explorer view, it’s root will default to the Configuration item which it was launched from.

Explorer View

If the Configuration item has existing defined relationships to other Configuration Items , then the first level of these relationships will be visible.

  • If further levels exists, click on the + icon of a Configuration Item in the explorer the next level
  • To hide or contract an explorer level, click on the - icon of a Configuration Item
  • By Default the explorer is set to expand to a maximum of 3 levels, but this can be configured in the admin tool under Home > Configuration Manager > Applications Settings and the app.cm.explorer.diagram.level.max system setting

In Policy

Each Configuration Item will either be flagged as being In Policy or not, denoted on the explorer by a Tick or Cross icon.

Configuration Items can be moved in or out of Policy by clicking on the icon and switching it from a Tick or a Cross Configuration Items which do not have a Tick or Cross can’t be marked as in or out of Policy, typically this will be Users etc

Viewing Relationship Links

Inherited relationships between Configuration Items will be shown in the explorer. These could be based on Assets being linked to other Assets or Services in Service Manager, or where Assets have been linked to a Request, or where a Request has an Owner, or a document has been linked to an Asset.

If no Dependancy Relationships exist between two Configuration Items then the link with say Not Set If an existing Dependancy and Impact Relationship exists between two Configuration Items then the link will show the Dependancy relationship and the color will indicate the impact level Clicking on a link will allow the Dependancy and Impact to be viewed and edited.

Explorer View Filters

The displayed Configuration items in the explorer can be filtered on various criteria, this is detailed below.

In Policy

Show all Configuration Items, just those marked as in policy, or those out of Policy

Impact Relationship Visibility

Filter the displayed Configuration Items by level of impact. By default All will be visible, but filter this to only show Configuration Items where the Relationships are marked as High, Medium or Low Impact

CI Visibility

Choose which Configuration Item Types are displayed on the Explorer CI Types list.png by enabling or disabling the Types from the menu control.

By Default all Configuration Types will be displayed Configuration Item Types are:

  • Assets
  • Requests
  • Documents
  • Users
  • Services

Set Current Configuration Item Node as Root

Having clicked on and viewed the Details of a Configuration Item, use the CI Root.png icon from the menu to set that Current Node as Root in the Explorer

This will reset the explorer view using this Configuration Item as the Root. This option will not be enabled if the Configuration Item in focus is the current Root on the Explorer

Show Legend

Use the CI Legend.png icon to open the Explorer Legend and for an explanation of the Explorer content

  • red background - an entity has high impact on the other
  • orange background - an entity has medium impact on the other
  • green background - an entity has low impact on the other
  • dark border - selected item
  • green tick - item in policy
  • red cross - item not in policy

Details

Click on the name of a Configuration Item in the explorer to see it’s information displayed in the Details section on the explorer.

Select the Title of the Configuration Item from the Details section to open the Configuration Item in a new tab Hide the Details section on the explorer view to create more space by selecting the Hide detailsaction item. If the Details section is hidden select Show Details to show it again on the explorer

Defining Dependancy & Impact Relationships

Relationship Definitions

Define bi-directional relationships between Configuration Items by setting the Dependancy type and level of impact by selecting form the defined dependancy types and impact levels.

  • Dependancy on the Parent
    Click on the Explorer and the arrow facing the Parent Configuration Item, choose the relevant Dependancy from the drop down and the Impact level and select Save to create the relationship
  • Dependancy from the Parent
    Click on the Explorer and the arrow facing away from the Parent Configuration Item, choose the relevant Dependancy from the drop down and the Impact level and select Save to create the relationship

Edit or remove the relationships by clicking on either relationship link and changing the Dependancy or Impact and selecting Save to apply the change

The available relationship types can be set differently depending on the direction of the relationships, and be different depending on the type of Configuration Items being connected.

These options can be configured in the admin tool under Home > Configuration Manager > Application Settings and the app.cm.explorer.items.dependencies system setting.

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