This getting started article will help Administrators to prepare their environments for the core integrations TeamDynamix supports using TDAdmin. The user must have TDAdmin access as well as People app access with permission to 'Create and modify individuals in the People database'.
Overview
There are four integrations – or connections – to other systems that are so common to implementations that we call them the core integrations: Authentication, email replies, People import, and outgoing SMTP server.
If your organization sets all of these up:
- Your Service Desk or project managers will be able to look up people to add them to tickets or projects.
- Replies these people send to TeamDynamix notifications will show up back in TeamDynamix.
- If these people log into TeamDynamix they will use institution-specific credentials rather than needing a separate TeamDynamix password.
Transcript
From the TDAdmin Interface, the Core Integrations module discusses a more technical look at the common connections to other systems. You will discuss setting up authentication methods such as LDAP and SSO. You will also look at connecting TeamDynamix with an email provider to monitor for ticket replies. You'll also learn how to use the people import to create both technician and client records.
Where to Find This
This feature appears in the TDAdmin and TDNext interfaces.
TDAdmin is where authentication and API integrations are configured, and TDNext is where People can be manually created, modified, or imported as Customers.
Navigate to these features following these paths:
- TDAdmin > Security
- SSO configuration
- BEID/WebServicesKey for API
- TDAdmin > Organization settings
- Authentication Providers
- Email Replies
- TDAdmin > Users & Roles
- Attributes
- Import Jobs
- Users
- TDNext > People application
- Web API
Where to Start
Authentication – Clients may want to use single sign-on or LDAP rather than TeamDynamix-specific usernames and passwords. The Getting Started with Authentication article will help you think through authentication and how it works in TeamDynamix.
Email replies – TeamDynamix sends email notifications; you may want people's replies to these notifications to feed back into TeamDynamix. The Getting Started with the Email Service article describes what you need to do to set up email reply processing.
People import – The TeamDynamix People records can be created in a variety of ways. The Getting Started with People Imports article describes how people records can be created and your options for making sure people exist in TeamDynamix.
Outgoing SMTP server – If you want to change the email address or display name of emails sent via TeamDynamix, this can be done via configuring an SMTP server.
Gotchas & Pitfalls
- For many institutions, the People import can be very difficult to implement. This is because TeamDynamix administrators may be identifying the fields they want to load while the People import is being built, because data may need to come from several sources, because institutions may have a very large volume (100k+) of records to load, or because institutions may have long lead times for the technical people required to build the People import.
- Implementing single sign-on (SSO) is trivial for InCommon participants who have set up SSO before. For other clients, depending on the IAM provider and experience with Shibboleth, SSO can require time to debug.
- OAuth 2.0 can be tricky to setup for email integrations if there is no prior experience.
- For answers to other common core integration questions, check out this FAQ article.
Examples