Hornbill How To: Importing Assets From Supportworks

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Introduction

If you're undertaking a migration from Supportworks to Hornbill Service Manager, you may choose to transfer all your asset data from Supportworks into Service Manager's asset repository. This page will provide guidance in how to approach and succeed in the migration of this data.

Hornbill Database Asset Import Utility

The tool of choice is Hornbills Database Asset Import Utility. This is a tool that can securely connect directly to your on-premise Supportworks database, query the required information, then transform and load the records into your Hornbill instance. The tool connects to your Hornbill instance in the cloud over HTTPS/SSL, so as long as you have standard internet access then you should be able to use the tool without the need to make any firewall configuration changes.

Preparing for the Import

Generally speaking, an import can be considered in two parts; what records will be brought from the source database (Supportworks), and where will the data sit in the target database (Hornbill). The aim is to divide all the records that exist in the Supportworks source into corresponding Hornbill asset classes as a Database Asset import utility configuration file is prepared for each Hornbill Asset Class (see Understanding the Hornbill Asset Structure for more information on Hornbill Asset "Classes" and "Types").

Querying the Supportworks Database

The location of asset data will depend on the data dictionary that's being used.

ITSMF or ITHD

If you are using the ITSMF or ITHD data dictionary then the asset data will be stored in a table called "equipmnt".

ITSM Enterprise

Where ITSM Enterprise is installed, the asset structure is a little more extensive as will be explained. The main table is called "config_itemi" and in addition to this there will be several extended tables. Out-of-the-box the following extended tables exist:

citype_genhdw
citype_server
citype_software
citype_network

As Supportworks allowed manipulation of the database schema, there may have been more extended tables added. To understand how many extended tables you may be dealing with, you can inspect the table "config_typei". The name of the extended table can be found in a column called: "extended_table". Begin with the following query "SELECT DISTINCT extended_table FROM config_typei" which should help you understand if/how your schema might have been modified.

Once the situation with the extended tables has been established, it is likely that for each asset class you will want to join the main table (config_itemi) with the relevant extended table (e.g. citype_genhdw). To do this, the query will be along the lines of:

"SELECT * FROM config_itemi JOIN citype_genhdw ON config_itemi.pk_auto_id = citype_genhdw.pk_ci_id WHERE config_itemi.isactivebaseline='Yes'"

The WHERE clause, "config_itemi.isactivebaseline='Yes'", is important because there are multiple records for any one asset due to Supportworks storing the previous state of the record to support the audit history.
Equivalent queries can be written to obtain information from the other extended tables.

Preparing Hornbill to receive the Asset Records

While the Database Asset Import Utility configuration file is where you define the field mappings (see Understanding the Hornbill Asset Structure for help with this), it is necessary to review the configuration of the Asset Types in Hornbill. Depending on how your Supportworks database has evolved, it is likely that you will need to remove some of the default Service Manager asset Types and add some new Asset Types to cater for the records that you'll be importing. Information on Asset Types in Hornbill can be found here Managing Asset Types in Hornbill.