smart-bonding-customer-api

Onboarding Process

Customer Role Requirements

Cisco recommends that the customer have people in the following roles available to support the onboarding process:

  • A project manager: Coordinate the team and their efforts, as well as define timelines, risks, and resources with the Cisco counterpart.
  • A specialist and developer of the customer’s ITSM System: To develop/consume API, define message formats, test the integration and create the user interface forms and set-ups in the customer ITSM System.
  • A case manager: For example, an incident manager to help define processes and test implementation.

More people can be engaged when necessary. For example, a network specialist may be needed to ensure the connectivity between systems.

Self-Onboarding Overview

The self-onboarding efforts can be split into phases:

  1. Analysis Phase: The customer works through the self onboarding documentation including API References, Sample Messages, Field Mapping and a test plan. The customer ITSM developer ensures that the customer ITSM can be configured to consume Cisco’s API.
  2. Implementation Phase: The customer ITSM developer configures the customer ITSM test system so that an API connection is established that pushes information and pulls information to Cisco’s Smart Bonding test system. A pool of Cisco Smart Bonding engineers is available for questions.
  3. Testing Phase: Once the implementation is completed, the customer development and case management teams can test the connection following the Cisco-provided test plan. A final implementation test with the Cisco team will be set up when all tests are completed.
  4. Go-Live Phase: The code/setups done on test systems will be deployed to production during the go-live phase. Cisco Smart Bonding and customer engineers will coordinate a production launch date/time and perform a smoke test on production.

Scope Definition

The scope of the self-onboarding connection includes:

  • Connect one customer ITSM system via Cisco Smart Bonding to Cisco TAC.
  • Incident/Service Request Tickets can be exchanged via this connection.
  • The customer test system is connected to the Cisco Smart Bonding test system.
  • The customer production system is connected to the Cisco Smart Bonding production system.
  • The customer needs to consume Cisco’s API for ticket integration in a push/pull fashion:
    • When information needs to be sent from the customer to Cisco: The customer is responsible for pushing information to Cisco by using the appropriate API.
    • The Customer should pull information from Cisco in regular intervals to retrieve updates on tickets from Cisco.
  • Attachments can be sent from the Customer to Cisco.

Customer Responsibilities

The customer agrees to the following responsibilities split by project phase:

  1. Analysis Phase
  • Review the self-onboarding guide and adhere to the details laid out in that document.
  • Review the Smart Bonding self-onboarding test plan.
  1. Implementation Phase
  • Set up the customer ITSM test system to consume Cisco’s APIs.
  1. Testing Phase
  • Perform self-tests according to the Cisco Smart Bonding self-onboarding test plan.
  • Inform Cisco of the successful completion of self-tests.
  • Prepare, participate, and contribute to testing meetings with Cisco.
  • After successful tests with Cisco – provide “ok” for go-live readiness.
  • Hand-over customer support and operations information to Cisco.
  1. Go-Live Phase
  • Deploy all code/configuration built on the customer test system to the production system.
  • Agree on a go-live plan and date with Cisco.
  • Ensure all necessary work to production environments is done prior to/at the go-live.
  • Participate in a go-live meeting with Cisco.

Support Contacts

Self Onboarding Support

Create a ticket for the Smart Bonding team in case of any issues or questions and when the onboarding and self-test process is completed so that joint testing and production deployment can be arranged.

Post-Project Support

A team in Cisco TAC is responsible for handling all cases related to Smart Bonding connections. The customer needs to provide a 24/7 contact email address that Cisco TAC will use to reach out in case of issues with the connection. It is the customer’s responsibility to monitor this mailbox and get in touch with TAC. If the customer has an issue, a case with Cisco TAC must be created (as described above). The Smart Bonding support team in Cisco TAC will handle the case. Reasons to create a ticket include the following:

  • Connection issues such as 401, 404, and 501 HTTP errors coming from Smart Bonding API
  • Changes in the connection
  • Notifications of planned maintenance.
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