CMDB updates and reconciliation behavior

[Tresselt]

Hello!

I have a scenario with two data sources:

• Source A -> Reports on the operational status of a CI

• Source B -> Reports additional details about the CI, but does not provide lifecycle/operational status information

Here’s what I’m seeing:

• Source A last reported 1 year ago, with operational status = Operational.

• I’ve set up a custom rule: if a CI hasn’t been discovered by Source A within 60 days, it should be set to Retired.

• This part works fine.

However, when integration from Source B runs, the CI’s operational status unexpectedly changes back to Operational, even though Source B has no mapping to that field.

My suspicion: ServiceNow is pulling the last known value from cmdb_multisource_data, effectively reusing Source A’s old record when Source B updates the CI. This is problematic, since that record is very outdated.

I’m considering whether Data Refresh Rules might help here, but since Source B has no reconciliation rule for operational status, there’s no “lower priority” source compared to A.

[Nehal Dhuri]

have you tried by creating reconcilation rule for operational status field?

[Tresselt]

I havent, and maybe something to look at. But source B will always report null value on operational status.

I am just wondering if its really the case that a year old multisource record really overwrites the CMDB value. Sounds really strange. But I have verified that CMDB value is retired, trigger Source B which has no mapping or no value of operational status, and the CI changes back to operational.

[Nehal Dhuri]

I think you should try by creating a reconciliation rule, and also the solution suggested by Pratiksha

[Bhuvan]

@Tresselt 

Create a Reconciliation rule for Operational Status field so that only Source A is allowed to populate the attribute.

Below is sample for reference

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Thanks,

Bhuvan