UNSPSC vs ServiceNow CMDB / Model Categories - mapping question

[Tom Sienkiewicz]

Hi Everyone,

we're going to have Assets/CIs create dvia interface from an external source. Corresponding Model Categories need to be created for those as well, and this is where I would like to tap your collective experience 😉

1. It is clear that SN CMDB does not follow the UNSPSC hierarchy/classes. One CMDB class seems to encompass several different UNSPSC classes etc.

2. Did you have a similar requirement to map UNSPSC in SN and if yes, did you opt for recreating UNSPSC classes 1:1 in ServiceNow, or hanlded it differently?

3. We decided to create Model Categories 1:1 with the subset of UNSPSC we require (about 30-40 categories). However, OOTB ServiceNow does not allow mapping multiple Model Categories to the same CMDB table. We disabled that restriction as we want to point multiple UNSPSC to a single "parent" CMDB class for simplicity. The assumption is that if at any point we really need to have  a more detailed distinction, we will create child classes and reclassify the CIs. But is anyone aware of any risk in disabling this restriction? We could not identify any immediate risk.

So for example, 

UNSPSC 43211506 Thin client computers --> becomes CMDB cmdb_ci_computer
UNSPSC 43211507 Desktop computers --> becomes CMDB cmdb_ci_computer

Just looking for some thoughts or how you have handled the UNSPSC classification in SN. Thanks in advance.

[suvro]

Just to add here servicenow has a field called isVirtual to differentiate physical and virtual CIs. So adding both to the same table is good. I do not find any issues doing that

[Tom Sienkiewicz]

Hi, thanks for the info. In my scenario, it is not as mych about virtual/non-virtual, but rather having e.g. 5 different Model Categories connected to e.g. cmdb_ci_pc_hardware class.

For some reason OOTB ServiceNow does not allow setting that up and I'm looking for reasons why 🙂

[Malik Raji]

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[clktester]

Tom, 

Did your idea work? I took am looking for how others handle commodity codes. 

The organization I work with uses NIGP commodity codes. They haven't implemented HAM yet, just Procurement. They had an implementer add a table called commodity_codes so that when they submit a Purchase Order, the user has to identify the commodity code, which is then tied to the Product Model.

In theory, with HAM, it seems like the Custom Device Type could replace this table, since it has the UNSPSC Commodity ID field in it, which would then tie back to the Product Model. So basically when a user wants to purchase a computer, they'd select a Product Model and instead of having to select / know the commodity code, they would pick just the model. Then the Device type would be set to the correct commodity code like 204-00 with the Name COMPUTER HARDWARE AND PERIPHERALS FOR MICROCOMPUTERS.

But as you point out, the only caveat is that it seems you can only do a one to one relationship with the commodity code and CIs. What they are after is when they purchase something, the Model has the correct commodity code selected, which then would tie back to the vendor. The idea would be they would then be able to pull up a list of all vendors who supply these commodity codes and the list of items they provide. I don't know if that makes sense, but basically that's what we're after without having to have this separate table and ensuring things are done right. Did your solution work for you and was your issue similar to mine? Just curious.