Licensing Clarification – CSM Portal-Only Customers (B2B Model)

[maxpawan2]

Hi Community,

We are using the CSM & ITSM suite and operate a B2B model where we act as an intermediary between two customers — one at the source side and one at the destination side — and earn a commission for facilitating the service.

We plan to use CSM Case Management to manage disputes via the Service Portal.

#csm

#case

#license

Customer interactions would be:

• Create cases (disputes) – Source customer

• View status – Both customers

• Provide updates – Both customers

• Resolve a case by adding a reference – Destination customer

• Accept or reject the resolution – Source customer

They will only use the portal and will not access the platform UI or perform agent/fulfiller activities.

Would standard customer/requester access be sufficient in this scenario?
Is any additional license (e.g., Business Stakeholder) required if they are updating cases through the portal?

Appreciate your guidance!

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @maxpawan2 

First, for CSM, use the CSM portal instead of the SP portal, as the SP portal is not recommended.

If they are using the SP portal, no license is required, and they can view only their own cases/records. However, a full Fulfillment license is required for full access.

That said, Business Stakeholders do require a license cost [ my experience say]. For more clarity, it’s best to get in touch with your ServiceNow account representative.

[maxpawan2]

Thanks Atul, 

RIghtly pointed, we will use CSM portal. 

In above use-case,

Source customer is raising a case on CSM portal, so no license is needed.

Once case is raised, based on the inputs in the case - we will assign it to target customer group, which does not have any user(fullfiller) mapped to it in Next Experience UI(or workspace).  

This will result in email to target customer, then target customer's contact will be login to CSM portal and will see a case awaiting his/her input. 

Target customer contact will update the case with inputs, which will automatically mark the ticket to resolve.

Then source customer will accept the resolution and which will close the ticket.

Note - We will play around the ACL or roles, due to which target customer will be able to see and update this case in CSM portal. Not yet finalized how we will achieve this. 

Open Question - Does Target customer need any paid license to update the case only from CSM portal. 

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @maxpawan2 

A few points need clarification:

• How is the target contact able to see the source contact case? Is he/she part of the same account?

  • If no, then they should not be able to see other account cases.

  • If yes, then why is it showing on target side?

• To see other cases, a contact must have the Case agent role or dedicated Customer Admin role which work only for that account, which requires a license.

• To work on a case, a license is required.

So in your case, a license is needed, mate.

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[maxpawan2]

Thanks Dr Atul,

Perfect Make sense, totally understand and agree with your point.

To avoid license cost, we were thinking of:

1. Create a custom application and custom widget.

2. Source customer will use this custom widget to submit a case type(complaint) , based on parameter we will be able to determine which target customer need to handle it.

3. Create a task under this case and assign this tast to target customer or utilize ACLs to give access to target customer group to this case. 

4. Target customer will login to CSM portal and can see this task(or case) in custom widget. 

5. Target customer are able to provide comment to task(or case) or mark the case resolve.

6. Update by target customer are also visible to source customer via this custom widget. 

7. Source customer can choose to close the case based on update from target customer.

Actually - The idea is to provide complaint management capability to our customer, even though our orgnization is not directly responsible in resolving these cases. 

Please share your view here.