Configure External Web Links in IT News Content Block

If you work with Solution Manager 7.1 ChaRM or Incident Management, you know you can have different Web Client Business Roles which can be personalized by the users and also pre-personalized by the Administrators. In the Home page of a Business Role there are some content blocks which can be displayed or hidden by the business role administrator, so that they will be available or not to all users assigned to this Business Role. Once a content block is visible by default, users can personalize the Home Page and hide it if they want.

One of the Content Blocks of the Home Page is called IT News. IT News is a content block for Favorites Web Links that can be personalized by the users (each user can create his/her own list of Favorite Links) and by the Administrator (all users assigned to the Business Role will have the links available).

First of all, in order to see the IT News Content Block, the Business Role you are using must have been configured to show it. This configuration can be done in two levels: in the personalization of the Web UI for the user, and in the IMG configuration for the Business Role.

Open the Home Page and check if you see IT News besides My Saved Searches, My Open Task, Favorites, etc. If you don’t see it, click the Personalize button to personalize your screen:

Select one of the empty content blocks available, click the listbox and select “IT News”.  Save.

Now you will see the IT News Content Block in the Home Page.

This block can be populated by each user and by the Administrator. In the case you just want to have your own favorite links, just click the Pencil icon in the IT News Content Block.

Add new links.

If the Administrator wants all users assigned to this business role to see a list of Favorite External Web Links, then it’s necessary to perform some IMG activities. These IMG activities will be saved in a transport request and can be imported into your Solution Manager Productive System (unless you only have a SolMan PRD, and not a DEV,or a DEV and a QAS. If you only have a PRD system, which is not recommended for those who use ITSM, then you will need to configure it directly there.)

Go to SPRO->Customer Relationship Management->UI Framework->Define Web Links:

In this activity, you will create a group of web links to be used in the Business Role. One Business Role can have one group for IT News, but one group can be created for one or for more Business Roles, so if you want you can reuse it.

First create the Web Link IDs. In the example below I created a new Web Link ID for SAP News:

Now, create a Group ID for External Links and assign your new link(s):

Assign the external web links to the group and save your changes:

Go to SPRO->Customer Relationship Management->UI Framework->Business Roles->Define Business Roles:

Select the Business Role you want to edit and, in the left panel, select Function Profile. Click New Entries to create a new line, and insert “EXT_WEB_LINKS” with the Profile Value that you just created (the Group ID). Save.

Go to the ITSM Web UI (transaction SM_CRM) and check the Home Page for the Business Role. You will see the link created for all users and your personal link: