Effective Way to Query BMC helix Remedy Database other than smart reporting

Question

Currently we are connecting the AR system through Oracle database for this purpose. I need to know is there any alternative way to access or query the Remedy data base effectively. Is there any built in api which we can utilise which will increase the efficiency of the work.

Answer 1

What could be used is the REST api, in which you can query directly the forms. Please check following url: REST API Doc

It will result with JSON object containing all data. In order to obtain access to all forms you need to create a "service" user with fixed license and permissions to the forms which you would like to read using the API call.

Answer 2

You can query the Oracle back-end directly, with a few caveats. It should only be for reading data, not writing or modifying data. Otherwise, you could break data integrity as well as bypass workflow that should be fired. Also, this direct access does not enforce any permissions, nor does it translate any of the data. For example, selection fields come back as a number instead of their string value, dates are in epoch format, etc.

There is a Remedy ODBC driver, which isn't being updated, nor does it support joins. However, you can open multiple connections with it and join them manually. Plus, it does handle permissions and translations for you. https://docs.bmc.com/docs/ars1911/odbc-database-access-introduction-896318914.html

If you know in advance what joins you will be doing, you should setup join forms within Remedy. That way the joins are done efficiently in the database. Otherwise, you are stuck with either of the above solutions or using one of the APIs which don't support ad-hoc joins.