Hmmm...that is interesting.  I smell BS, too.  One can only speculate
what their "BMC approved manner" is because there are so many tricks to
get around the submitter being locked and the license agreement is so
open to interpretation.

Just off the cuff, here's what I came up with that might be their "BMC
approved manner":

a) Joe calls Help Desk.  Joe has a read license.  Help Desk logs on to
Remedy as Joe and creates the initial ticket.  When Joe gets to work, he
can then modify it.  Using a generic user account like USER1 or whatever
wouldn't work because you'd run into the "logged onto more than one
machine" error.

b) Joe calls Help Desk.  Joe has a read license.  Help Desk creates a
"shell" of the ticket in a support form.  Joe gets to work and fetches
the "shell" record.  He then clicks a button on that form that pushes a
record to the "real" Help Desk form.

-----Original Message-----
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mike Wallick
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 2:46 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Providing Read/Write Access Without Buying Licenses? I Doubt It

Here's an interesting for for y'all.

We have a very good and fairly long relationship with a BMC partner
that we use for consulting/development/purchasing and, when the time
comes in November or so, we will also be using them for support
instead of BMC.

First, a little background.

We use Remedy Customer Support 5.6 with a not-too-customized version
of the Customer Access Interface deployed through the mid-tier. The
submitter mode on the AR server is locked, so that customers with
account using read licenses can submit and work their own tickets
through the web. However, we have many customers that insist on using
the phone for the initial submission of an issue, and then want to
work the ticket from then on through the web. You see where I'm going
with this? The customer can't update tickets via the web if they were
not the submitter, unless they have a fixed or floating license.
Floating licenses are expensive, so we've been reluctant to go down
that road.

Our VP of support doesn't like the BMC partner that we've been using
nearly full time for the past two years (they're GREAT, BTW), so now
this VP is bringing in another consulting firm who claims that for
$6400, they will solve the customer access interface licensing
"problem" without purchasing any new licenses from BMC and also in a
"BMC approved" manner.

I call B.S.

First, I find it hard to believe that BMC would allow some sort of
scheme where you can get away with not buying licenses and still give
your customer base read/write access to their tickets.

Second, how else would one run a server in locked submitter mode,
while still allowing customers to modify "their" tickets even if the
ticket was submitted on their behalf by a tech support agent? The
first thing that comes to mind would be to have a trigger or scheduled
job or something at the database level change the submitter column to
the customer's login name on insert of a new record. I seriously doubt
that's a "BMC approved" solution.

Perhaps this firm is going to suggest something like having the
customer's "log in" but all the actual interaction with ARS will be
proxied through a single user with a fixed license and all the
necessary permissions. But even that seems like something that BMC
might balk at.

Thanks.

Mike

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