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The ServiceNow CSDM and CMDB Data Foundations Dashboards store app contains dashboards which provide insights into the key foundational indicators of your CMDB and Common Service Data Model (CSDM). This app provides recommendations to ensure that the CMDB and CSDM are properly configured for optimal usage and to mitigate any potential risks (see Install and Upgrade CSDM and CMDB Data Foundations Dashboard)
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An interesting bonus in these Dashboards are references to so-called "Get Well Playbooks" at the Support Portal:
These playbooks are of exceptional quality and provide much better insights into CMDB structures and CSDM concepts than all other material and training courses. And since there seems to be no other way to get to these playbooks except through the dashboards, the following article lists all of them.
Notes:
- The CMDB Health Dashboards are something different. They are delivered OOTB and therefore do not need to be installed afterwards.
- If you want to learn more about CMDB & CSDM I recommend the following articles:
Foundation Data & Consumers
Identify and remediate Business Units with missing Company Reference (KB0864259)
The Business Unit is a critical element in the organizational hierarchy as it is often the most utilized object to denote ownership of Digital Product Portfolios and the required planning of said portfolio. If the Company is not populated on a Business Unit object, then you will be unable to organize an effective organizational structure for reporting and IT Business Management. This playbook helps you identify those Business Units that have no Company.
Find and remediate Location for which no Parent Location is specified (KB0864260)
Location records associated with configuration items not having parent location populated indicates that location hierarchy is not maintained. This leads to error prone and time consuming impact analysis for multilocation change requests /incidents and also makes it difficult to get management reports based on location hierarchy. This playbook helps you to identify and fix the locations which are associated with configuration item but does not have a parent location populated.
Find and remediate duplicate Locations (KB0832200)
Locations are used by various applications to locate users, facilities, or configuration items (CI). Having locations with the same name (Duplicates) will result in a poor User Experience. Therefore the goal of this playbook is to help you identify and remediate duplicate Locations.
Identify and remediate Incident Records with missing or 'empty' CI Reference Values (KB0864671)
An Incident should record what was broken (CI), how long it was out of service (MTTR) and how it got fixed (Knowledge). Organizations not utilizing these components tend to have a very reactive Incident process, which delays people getting work done. This playbook will guide on how to ensure that you are improving the selection process of the right CI by focusing on key identification attributes, as well as properly recording the CI, which was out of service (broken).
Analyze and remediate missing CI Information at Change Records (KB0868259)
A Change should always record what was changed (CI), what was impacted by the change, who approved the work and if it got implemented successfully. Organizations not utilizing these components tend to have more unauthorized, failed and emergency changes. Changes that have not been properly vetted prior to execution could potentially result in unintended outages caused by the change. This playbook therefore will guide on how to ensure that you are recording what component has been changed.
Manage Changes that does not relate a Business, Technical, or Application Service and a CI (KB1116973)
A Change Request should record what configuration item, Business, Technical or Application Service(s) is impacted by the change. Service association can help identify the change window with minimal service disruption, accurate risk/impact assessment of the change and detection of unauthorized changes. It is important to identify the actual IT Infrastructure component (CI) that is getting changed, as well as the Service it supports, and use its attributes for proper change request routing and escalation to achieve better Business Outcomes.
Manage Incidents that does not relate a Business, Technical, or Application Service to a CI (KB1116972)
An Incident should record what configuration item was broken (CI), what Business, Technical or Application Service(s) was impacted by its failure, how long the outage lasted (MTTR) and how it got fixed (Knowledge).
It is important to identify the actual IT Infrastructure component (CI) that has failed, as well as the Service it supports, and use its attributes for proper incident routing and resolution to achieve better Busines Outcomes. Services have Service offerings (SO) consist of one or more service commitments that uniquely define the level of service in terms of availability, criticality, scope, and pricing, and other factors. Targets for these cannot be improved/achieved unless the outages are tracked and managed effectively.
Verify that the "Create Asset on Insert" Business Rule is enabled (KB0829855)
When hardware or software CIs are added to the CMDB, an asset record for that CI is required. Without an asset record, the asset lifecycle and any decisions linked to that CI may be inaccurate or incomplete. To ensure proper asset management, the Asset on Insert business rule should be present and active. This business rule automatically creates an asset record whenever CIs are added to the CMDB.
Configuration Items
Adhere to standard naming for custom CMDB Classes (KB1116975)
This playbook does not provide specific remediation steps, but general guidance in identifying CI Classes not adhering to standard naming. CMDB customizations should be reviewed to ensure they are both relevant and appropriate.
CMDB attributes on the right level (KB0832206)
This playbook does not provide specific remediation steps, but general guidance in identifying custom attributes and if they are on an appropriate level in the CMDB hierarchy. Excessive custom CMDB attributes should be reviewed to ensure they are both relevant and appropriate.
Use of custom attributes in the CMDB (KB0832208)
This playbook does not provide specific remediation steps, but general guidance in identifying custom attributes and if they are on an appropriate level in the CMDB hierarchy. Excessive custom CMDB attributes should be reviewed to ensure they are both relevant and appropriate.
Use of custom attributes in ITAM (KB0998512)
This playbook does not provide specific remediation steps, but general guidance in identifying custom attributes in your IT Asset Management implementation. Excessive custom attributes should be reviewed to ensure they are both relevant and appropriate.
Percentage of Custom Status Values for CI Lifecycle Stages (KB0952946)
The various status choice lists on a configuration item are utilized by various process within the ServiceNow Platform. Dependency on these status objects and their choices are critical for platform functionality provided by ServiceNow. The Status attributes are choice lists. Common customizations include adding new choices in the choice lists, changing the Label of an existing choice, and changing the Value of an existing choice. This playbook helps you identify where custom status values exist for configuration item statuses and helps you correct the customizations where appropriate.
Managed CIs with invalid or empty (unpopulated) Names (KB0829852)
The Configuration Management Database (CMDB) needs a way to uniquely identify configuration items (CIs). Valid CI names are critical for using many of the features of the CMDB and other ServiceNow applications.
Managed Hardware CI without/wrong references to models (KB0852421)
The supportability and security of impacted Configuration Items is at risk when the Model information is unknown. Hardware Configuration Items should have a Model ID which references a record in the Hardware Model table. The Hardware Model helps to tie the CI to it's corresponding Asset. The Hardware Asset record tracks the Cost, Purchase Price, Vendor, Extended Warranty Contracts and other procurement records. This model reference also tracks Manufacturer, warranty length, technical specifications and compatible alternative models in the event a device should require replacement. Manufacturers release Security patches based on Model, this could result in your organization failing to implement them in a effective and timely manner.
Refresh stale CIs (KB0829106)
A stale configuration item (CI) is one that you have not updated within a specific number of days (for example, 90 days). Stale CIs can lead to incorrect decisions where the data is used (for example, at the Application Level), inaccurate classification of risk and level of urgency, which can increase the mean-time-to-respond (MTTR) and inaccurate lifecycle states, which can create a poor user experience. The goal of this playbook is to help you identify and refresh the stale CIs.
Manage CIs with empty (unpopulated) discovery source values (KB0829078)
The goal of this playbook is to help you identify and manage those Configuration Items (CIs) that don't have values in the discovery source field (discovery_source). A valid entry in the discovery source field is required if you want to use the Identification and Reconciliation Engine (IRE) to maintain the integrity of your data.
Handle Duplicate CIs in your CMDB (KB0829103)
You need to resolve (remediate) any duplicate CIs. Resolving duplicates ensures that your platform processes are accurate. To help you resolve the duplicates, and ensure their accuracy, use the wizard included in the base system. This wizard merges duplicate records into a single record.
Make sure that Business Services use OOTB CMDB Tables (KB0831512)
ServiceNow's value is created by ServiceNow products for the data model outlined by the CSDM. Deviation from CSDM may result in reduced base capabilities and related value. Therefore, this playbook helps you identify those custom service tables for your review and subsequent remediation.
Analyze and remediate active CIs in the Server Class without a Location (KB0966472)
The supportability and availability of servers are at risk when the location information is unknown. Hands and feet support, patch deployments, network outage impact assessment, failover planning/execution, and location-specific management reporting are affected when Server locations are not populated. Therefore, this playbook helps in identifying and fixing servers with unpopulated locations.
Manage Hardware CIs with missing Serial Numbers (KB0829077)
The configuration management database (CMDB) uses a serial number to track physical devices, such as laptops, servers, printers, and network devices. Each device in the CMDB needs a unique serial number. Otherwise, you run the risk of creating duplicate CIs. The goal of the playbook is to help you identify and manage CIs that do not have serial numbers.
Manage Hardware CIs with missing Model Entries in the CMDB (KB0832205)
The supportability and security of impacted Configuration Items is at risk when the Model information is unknown. Hardware Configuration Items should have a Model ID which references a record in the Hardware Model table. The Hardware Model helps to tie the CI to it's corresponding Asset. The Hardware Asset record tracks the Cost, Purchase Price, Vendor, Extended Warranty Contracts and other procurement records. This model reference also tracks Manufacturer, warranty length, technical specifications and compatible alternative models in the event a device should require replacement. Manufacturers release Security patches based on Model, this could result in your organization failing to implement them in an effective and timely manner.
Percentage of Hardware CIs installed but name and hostname do not match (KB0864735)
Records within the CMDB should be accurate without any conflicting information within the records themselves. If the values in the ‘name’ and ‘host_name’ fields are in conflict, then the records are not reliable and consequently, all the processes making use of them (specifically Incident, Problem and Change Management) are drawn into question and rendered useless. These practices are designed to mitigate risk – but they can’t do that when the underlying data is inaccurate or unreliable. A system only has to fail once for it to be ineffective.
Percent of Hardware and Virtual Machine Instance CIs not updated within 90 days (KB0867489)
The goal of this playbook is to help you identify Hardware and Virtual Machine Instance Configuration Items (CIs) that have not been updated within the last 90 days. Then this playbook will help you review common reasons why these CIs might be stale and will provide high level guidance on how to get them updated or removed from the CMDB.
Enable Create CI on Asset Insert Business Rule (KB0999333)
For every Asset there should be a CI. This Business Rule ensures the corresponding CI is created when a new Asset is inserted. This Business Rule ensures that new Assets are also created as Configuration Items in your CMDB and are available to be used in workflows. The goal of this playbook is to help you verify (or re-enable) the use of the Create CI on insert business rule during the Asset creation.
Manage CIs with referenced Product Models that have no Product Owner (KB0864257)
Product Models provide Product Owners the ability to oversee their product portfolio life cycles as these model objects are referenced throughout the platform. In many cases, a configuration item provides critical details about a product in either design, build, or operational life cycles. A configuration item that identifies its product model yet said product model is absent an owner may result in increased financial and security risk. If the Product Model does not have an owner, then there is no accountability of products in the face of financial and security risk. This playbook helps you identify those named product models utilized on configuration items in the CMDB that have no product owner.
Remediate Technical Service Offerings with no Support Group or no Change Group Populated (KB0952941)
Starting with the Quebec release, the synchronization of Support Group, Change Group (previously known as Assignment Group), and Managed by Group to the respective CIs is performed automatically. But to gain value from this configuration management capability, the Technical Service Offering needs Support Group, Change Group, and Managed by Group to be populated. This playbook helps you identify where Technical Service Offerings do not have the required data populated and help you correct the absence of data.
Identify and remediate missing Service Owner Data (KB0869040)
ServiceNow recommends that organizations populate and maintain Service owner data. Service owners are responsible for managing and making decisions with respect to the utility (fitness for purpose) and warranty (availability, capacity, continuity, and security) components of the value provided by their respective Services/offerings. Omission of Service owner information reduces organizational ability to find Service owners to make appropriate decisions to help the business achieve desired outcomes. This playbook will help you find unpopulated Service ownership fields and will suggest procedures to maintain Service ownership data.
Find and reclassify custom Business Application Tables (KB0868431)
ServiceNow recommends against custom business application tables. Use default classes whenever possible to get the value and ease of use provided by their dependent NOW platform functionalities and supported platform features. If the records within your CMDB (and CSDM specifically) are not located within the provided classes, you risk incurring additional costs in terms of ongoing maintenance, support and development of all sorts of reports, dashboards, digital workflows, access controls and much more that are already being developed, tested, and delivered by the platform.
Guide for integrating third party Discovery Sources correctly (KB0854301)
The goal of this playbook is to help you identify third party sources of discovery data and update them to make use of the Identification and Reconciliation Engine (IRE). The IRE is designed to maintain the integrity and accuracy of your CMDB by avoiding duplicates while also ensuring that the correct records are updated or inserted. If you are not using the IRE, you are missing out on a large amount of value in terms of automated governance and granular control over your discovery sources. The result will always be questionable data within the CMDB and a poor user experience. The goal should be a CMDB with fresh, accurate and complete data.
Data Archive Jump Start (KB0830056)
This play is designed to assist in quickly configuring Data Archive to assist with cleaning the CMDB.
Relationships
How to manage customized Base System Relationship Types (KB0829857)
To work properly, service maps use relationship types to establish connections between CIs. In many service maps, the system IDs (Sys_IDs) for the CIs are hardcoded in the relationship types. When a relationship type is deleted, and a new one is created with a different Sys_ID, the relationship types don’t work and the service map connections fail. Using the base system relationship types helps to ensure that product features function as intended.
Custom attributes on CI relationship table (KB0868633)
Remediating customizations on the relationship table reduces the risk with upgrades and future product improvements related to the table. Additionally, you may gain a performance improvement in data retrieval and form load times.
Custom created CMDB relationships (KB0829858)
This playbook can improve the integrity of your CI relationship types, which reduces the number of incidents and improves process automation.
How to manage orphaned CI Relationships (KB0829101)
Orphaned CI relationships mean that one of the CIs in the relationship is no longer in the system, and that the relationship is invalid. These invalid relationships adversely affect how you use the system and how your system performs. Therefore the goal of this playbook is to help you identify and remove any orphaned configuration item relationship records in your system.
Information Objects with Business Application Relationship (KB0831514)
Business Applications with Information Object Relationship (KB0831515)
Information Objects are the CIs that logically describe the types of data (or the information) that is interchanged between the application and the database. The Business Application has a relationship to these Information Object CIs to identify the types of information their application possess such as PII, PCI, etc. If the relationships between the Information Object and its Business Applications are missing (unpopulated) then the Information Object will be an orphan, unable to provide application context, leaving it without value.
Application Services with Business Service Offering Relationship (KB0831510)
Business Service Offerings with Application Service Relationship (KB0831511)
Application Service is a service type that is a logical representation of a deployed application stack. It is a uniquely deployed instance of a Business Application. These Application Services often impact the business. The business is represented as Business Service Offerings with relationship from Application Service to Business Service Offering in the CMDB. Together, these CIs provide a complimentary summary of the technology provided for the business to consume. If the relationships between Application Services and Business Service Offering are missing (unpopulated) then an Application Services will lack the ability to show and relay impact to the business.
Business Application with “Consumes::Consumed By” Relationship to Application Services (KB0831503)
Application Services with Business Application Relationships (KB0831505)
Business Application with Application Service Relationship (KB0831506)
Application Portfolio Management (APM) uses relationships to provide value such as identifying risk to deployed instances, Application Services, related to publisher and manufacturer end-of-life (EOL) dates. A deployed application that will no longer be supported by a publisher may be a critical security and operational risk. APM requires the relationship between a business application and application service use ‘consumes::consumed by’. If the relationships between Application Services and Business Applications are not ‘consumes::consumed by’ APM will not be able to provide Technology Portfolio Management capability. Furthermore, Application Services will lack the ability to identify design details including the type of information (ex. PCI, PII) that could be present within the Application Service.
Identify and correct missing References from Technical Service Offerings to Technical Service CIs (KB0831509)
A technical service has an operational view made up of one or more technical service offerings. This allows for KPI reporting across a broad view of offerings within a particular Technical Service for their service owners. This reporting may include insights into total cost, outages, SLAs, and availability. If the reference between the Technical Service Offering and its parent Technical Service are missing (unpopulated) then the Technical Service Offering will be an orphan, unable to provide data roll-up to its parent for reporting purposes. This playbook helps you identify those Technical Service Offerings without references to a parent Technical Service.
Analyze and remediate the Dynamic CI Groups for which CMDB Group is not specified (KB0952944)
A Dynamic CI group is a dynamic grouping of configuration items (CIs), based on a criteria defined through a CMDB group. Dynamic CI groups were called as “Technical Services” before Paris version and used to allow selection of CIs only from one CI class with filter conditions. This was restrictive as it allowed selection from only one specified CMDB Class where as CMDB group provides an approach to include CIs from multiple CI classes. With the Orlando version onwards the dynamic CI groups utilize the CMDB groups to create the required grouping of CIs, but the technical services migrated from previous versions does not automatically utilize CMDB groups. This playbook helps to analyze the dynamic CI groups missing the CMDB groups and provide ways to fix them.
