My experience - How I pass CIS – Data Foundations (CIS-DF) exam & few Tips

Tanushree Maiti
Tera Contributor

an hour ago

 

On 30th January’26,  I passed the ServiceNow CIS – Data Foundations (CIS-DF) certification.
Since then, I’ve received several individual requests for the guidance on CIS- DF preparation over LinkedIn and Teams.

So, I decided to write a blog which will help those who will start the preparation to take exam or help those who are currently preparing for this certification.

 

What is all about CIS-Data foundation(CIS-DF)

This certification validates the expertise required to design, implement, and maintain a healthy Configuration Management Database (CMDB) aligned with the Common Service Data Model (CSDM) framework. It is now a critical, mandatory prerequisite for other ServiceNow technical certifications, focusing on data accuracy, governance, and CI relationship management. 

 

why it becomes so important now?

  • This CIS - Data Foundations certification will be FREE until June 2026!
  • New candidates beginning an ITAM, ITOM, ITSM, or SecOps certification path must: Pass CIS – Data Foundations (CMDB and CSDM) before registering or scheduling any of the seven dependent exams (ITSM, HAM, SAM, Discovery, SecOps VR ServiceMapping).
  • Individuals who already hold one of the Seven Certifications :your implementation specialist certification(s) within the ITAM, ITOM, ITSM, and SecOps domains will expire after 12/31/2026 if this CIS-DF is not done!

 First you need to know the Exam syllabus from Servicenow.

Number of Domains

Exam Objectives

Percent of Exam

1

Configuration

Given a scenario:

  • Identify how and when to use CI Class Manager (table, class attributes, hierarchy)
  • Identify when and how to use IRE
  • Identify when and how to configure CMDB 360/multisource CMDB 

15%

2

Ingest

  • Identify how relationships are auto or manually populated
  • Identify the automation opportunities that are available to automate CMDB integration

Given a scenario:

  • Identify which data ingestion method to use
  • Identify how to minimize the risk of technical debt and ensure upgradeability
  • Identify how to populate and maintain non-discoverable/manual CIs or non-discoverable attributes
  • Identify how to track security and regulatory compliance identifiers against CSDM objects
  • Identify how Asset and CI align

19%

3

Govern

  • Identify the characteristics of the six metrics that make up the CMDB health score
  • Identify the purpose and/or requirements of Data Manager
  • Identify the goals of good CMDB governance

Given a scenario:

  • Identify what is needed to govern the CMDB
  • Identify the key roles involved in implementing and managing a CMDB
  • Identify how to configure and gain value from CMDB Health Dashboards to support Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and Critical Success Factors (CSF)
  • Identify how or why duplication records are created and how to remediate them
  • Identify when and how to remediate duplicate records using the deduplication wizard
  • Identify how to operationalize the CMDB
  • Identify when or why to use the CMDB workspace or what features are available
  • Identify how to define principal classes
  • Identify the policy feature in Data Manager that should be used to accomplish the goal of the scenario
  • Identify how to validate data quality and/or data compliance in the CMDB Health Dashboard
  • Identify how to configure Data Manager to manage the CMDB
  • Identify how to improve data quality using the CMDB Data Foundation Dashboard
  • Identify how to manage life cycle CI attributes between CIs

35%

4

Insight

  • Identify the business value of CMDB
  • Identify how to use Natural Language Query
  • Identify how to build custom reports using CMDB 360 data (CMDB Saved Queries)

Given a scenario:

  • Identify how to build out complex relationships within a query and get a full set of results
  • Identify the components and usage of Unified Map or dependency view map
  • Identify the outcomes of using ServiceNow products leveraging CMDB data
  • Identify the benefits of CMDB Foundation Dashboards
  • Identify when to use the CMDB Foundation Dashboard Playbook or the benefits of using Playbook

20%

5

CSDM Fundamentals

Given a scenario:

  • Identify how to work with different stakeholders across industries to correctly map CIs with the correct CSDM domain
  • Identify the approach to abide by CSDM
  • Identify the benefits of implementing CSDM

11%

Total

100%

 

My Exam Experience

  • On Exam Day (90 mins, ~75 questions, ~0.833 min/q):
  • Revision Time (you have to revise only flagged only, mentally prepare that you might not get full revision time what happened to me)
  • Question types:
    • Scenario-based multiple choice
    • Maximum checkbox questions
    • 8-10 drag and drop questions  ,in couple of them - at left side ,more options were given than boxes available in right side.
  • Difficulty: near Hard /hard ( All questions were unknown to me, even after memorizing all related quizes answers of Now-learning material , mock questions answer available in internet)

 

My Tips to pass the Exam :

  1. Go through the two famous simulators . Free Instance will be given to you.

      Configuration Management Database (CMDB) Fundamentals On Demand

       -Configure the CMDB

       -CMDB Health

2. Then starts with following topics along with memorizing all quiz answers

  • Configure the cmdb 
  • Ingest
  • Govern
  • Insight

3.Common Service Data Model (CSDM) Fundamentals ( make your own cheat sheet to memorize each domain with its CI type, purpose & ownership )

Five domains:

    1. Ideation & Strategy
    2. Design & Planning
    3. Build & Integrate
    4. Service Delivery
    5. Service Consumption

Foundation → Crawl → Walk → Run → Fly approach

 4.Introduction to CMDB Workspace

 Introduction to CMDB Workspace to learn how to navigate and understand the various tabs, tiles, charts, metrics, and scorecards available from the CMDB Workspace.

5.CMDB Data Manager Overview (This content will retire on 28/02/2026 . This course helped me a lot . Before Retiring - utilize this course)

Learn how to create and configure CMDB Data Manager policies to better govern the CMDB.

 

Recommendations:

Questions of CIS – Data Foundations are:

  • Concept-driven
  • Scenario-based mostly

So , if you’re planning to take this exam:

  • Make sure Fundamental courses you have read multiple times line by line , memorize the term/definition and its purpose till you think you are ready. If your fundamentals are weak , its very tough to pass this exam.
  • If your project has CMDB and CSDM , during reading , open your non-prod instances and view each and every components and try to relate.
  • During exam Don’t get frustrated and loose your focus- as Scenario base questions will be lengthy . Read first to end then give answer.
  • Don’t give too much time on a question. If you are unable to decide the answer , flag it ,move to next. Make sure this type of skip count should be 2-3 as you will get very less revision time.
  • Practice scenario-based mock questions ( from internet/ free site like Quizlet, youtube or from any paid site like udemy etc ) to validate your concept and time management
  • Any mock questions/Dump will not help here. You have to answer from your own concept only.
  • Who are working on CMDB project ,it may take at max 15-20 days to get prepare for this exam BUT who is not working predominantly on CMDB project , take 20-30 days/more time to get ready for the exam.

Warning: An exam proctor once said to me , if you fail in any of the exam domain (e.g Ingest)  then also you will fail the exam even if in other domains you are getting more than 80% (though nothing is documented on it anywhere). So make sure you have covered all the mentioned domains fully prior to give the exam.

 

Lastly here is ServiceNow’s guidance on this exam:  https://learning.servicenow.com/lxp/en/certified-implementation-specialist-data-foundations-cmdb-and...

 

If you find this blog Helpful, Please mark it as Helpful.

  • 138 Views
0 REPLIES 0