Importing data from Ivanti Neurons

You can import device and user data from Ivanti Neurons as a scheduled import. First you create a new app registration in Ivanti Neurons and make a data connection to your Ivanti Neurons instance, then you use the Data Import connection to schedule the import.

The connector you create to Ivanti Neurons is suitable only for data import. You cannot use it for other purposes such as queries and live look-ups in Service Desk.

Configuring this import is an advanced feature intended for use by people comfortable using technologies such as Postman, JSON, and OData to gather the required connection parameters. If you want support from Ivanti Professional Services in using this feature, contact your supplier.

For more information about data connections, see Data connections, and for more information about the Data Import component, see Data Import.

To create the data connection to Ivanti Neurons:

  1. In the Ivanti Neurons platform, create a new custom app registration. This provides the Access Token URL, Client ID, and Client Secret you require later in this procedure.

    2. For more information about creating a new custom app registration, see the separate Ivanti Neurons help.

  2. Start the Data Connections component, then in the Data Connections tree select the Ivanti Neurons connector and in the Actions list, click New Connection.
    A new connection appears.
  3. Type a name for the connection, then press Enter.
    This name becomes the name of the module you use when configuring the source of the data import.
  4. In the Properties grid, set the URL to the URL to your Ivanti Neurons tenant; for example https://example.ivanticloud.com/.
  5. The Provider is set to OAuth2 and cannot be changed. Specify the Access Token URL, Client ID, and Client Secret. Leave Scope blank.
  6. Click test icon to test the connection.
    If the connection fails, check details above, then test the connection again.
  7. Click save icon to save the new connection.

When you have created a connection to Ivanti Neurons, you can create connection types to access the different types of data available from Ivanti Neurons, such as devices or users.

As part of the import configuration, you need to specify a unique identifier for the items that you are importing. However, in some circumstances, you may be unable to find an identifier that is unique for all the items you want to import. For example, if you are importing devices, you can use Device Name as the unique identifier for Windows devices but not for Apple devices, where you may need to use a different identifier such as Serial Number. In these cases, you need to create different data imports for the different types of device, using a filter to select only the required items.

You can't create a filter for the Neurons data in Service Desk, but instead have to filter it using an OData query as part of the endpoint URL when you create the connection type as described below. For example, instead of specifying an endpoint URL like api/discovery/v1/device, you would specify api/discovery/v1/device?$filter=manufacturer eq 'Apple'.

To create a new connection type:

  1. On the Data Connections tree, click the connection you created above, then in the Actions list, click New Connection Type.
    A new connection type appears.
  2. Type a name for the connection type, then press Enter.
  3. In the Properties grid, complete the following connection type properties.
    End Point Url: the path to the endpoint you are connecting to, for example api/discovery/v1/device or api/discovery/v1/user. If you do not want to import all of the available data you need to include an OData filter as part of the URL, as you cannot add a filter later as part of the data import configuration.
    TPS Class Name: type a name for the object.
    TPS Class Description: optional.
  4. Click ellipsis icon alongside Attribute Mappings.
    The Manage Mappings dialog appears, which enables you store mappings to the OData entities in Ivanti Neurons that you want to retrieve in attributes in the Service Desk connector. These OData entities will then be available to import into Service Desk using the Data Import component.

    5. If you want to access devices in Ivanti Neurons using Desktop Manager, remember to add a mapping for the Neurons ID attribute, as you use this to identify devices. For more information, see Connecting to Ivanti Neurons for Desktop Management.

  5. Click Add Mapping.
    The Define an Mapping Attribute dialog appears.
  6. Use a technology such as Postman to retrieve a suitable device or user record from Ivanti Neurons.
  7. Enter a Name and Title on the Define an Mapping Attribute dialog, then enter an optional Description.
  8. From Postman, copy the name of the entity that you want to import with this mapping, and paste it into the Mapping field.
  9. Click OK.
    The mapping is added to the list on the dialog. If you used a / character to access entities from a tree structure, the / is changed to a . in the Response Mapping column. The Query Mapping column contains the value sent to the endpoint URL, whereas the Response Mapping column contains the path to the data you require.
  10. If the entity corresponds to an array (for example, a user may have several email addresses and you want to select one of these), enter the index of the item you require in the Response Mapping column in [square brackets] before the . separator.

    11. The index numbering starts with 0, so to access the first email in an array of emails, enter Emails[0].Email in the Response Mapping column.

  11. Repeat for other attributes you want to access.
  12. On the Manage Mappings dialog, set Is Name? to True for the attribute that contains a unique value to use as its name, then click OK.
    The Manage Mappings dialog closes.
  13. On the property grid for the connection type, set the Primary Key.
  14. In the Actions list, click Test Mapping.
    A grid appears showing the results of the mappings for the first 10 records returned.

    15. After you save the changes to the connection type, you can add new mappings and delete mappings (other than the Is Name and Primary Key), but you cannot edit existing mappings.

  15. Click save icon to save the changes.

Now that you have created a connection to Ivanti Neurons, you can use it to create a data import. The data import maps the data you defined in the connector type mappings above to the appropriate attributes on Service Desk objects.

To create an import configuration:
  1. On the Import Mappings tree of the Data Import component, select the Scheduled Imports folder.
  2. On the Actions list, click New Scheduled Import, specify the required schedule, then click Save icon.
  3. On the Import Configurations tree, select the schedule you have just created, then on the Actions list, click New Import Mapping.
    The New Import Mapping window appears.
  4. In the Source Module list, select the module that you created when setting the name of the data connection.
  5. In the Source Business Object list, select the object that you created when setting the name of the data connection type.
  6. Under Target, select the Module and Business Object that you want to import the Neurons data into.
  7. Drag the Source Attributes that you want to import data from onto the appropriate Target Attributes.
  8. In the Target Attributes list, select the attribute you want to use as the key, then on the Actions list, click Set Target Key Attribute.
    The Target Key Attribute dialog appears.
  9. Select the attribute you want to set as the key attribute, then click OK. For more information about Target Attributes, see Setting the target key attribute.
  10. Set a Log File Path if required, then click Save icon.
    The data import runs as scheduled.