Most implementations of the Common Service Data Model (CSDM) begin with IT services. But in real enterprise and government environments, IT is only one part of the bigger picture. For my customer, we faced a challenge: how do we align HR and other business services—delivered through HRSD—with the same CSDM standards already governing IT services?
The Challenge
Out-of-the-box, HR services in ServiceNow live in their own tables. They don’t automatically create entries in the cmdb_ci_service_offering table. That means HR cannot benefit from the same:
- Service Portfolio visibility in DPM/Service Portfolio Management
- Unified reporting across IT and other Business functions
- Alignment to the enterprise’s CSDM-based governance model
Guidance from the Product Team
When we reached out to the CSDM team in ServiceNow, they confirmed:
- CSDM today primarily covers IT Services.
- Services should be represented in cmdb_ci_service_business / cmdb_ci_service_technical with child records in cmdb_ci_service_offering.
- In short: HR isn’t fully covered by CSDM yet, but there’s no restriction against extending the model.
Our Approach for my customer
To close this gap, we implemented a lightweight solution:
- Business Rule Automation – Whenever an HR service is created in HRSD, a corresponding Service Offering is created automatically in cmdb_ci_service_offering.
- Custom Classification – These offerings are tagged with a classification of “HR Service”.
- Single Pane of Glass – Now, all HR services sit alongside IT services in the Service Portfolio, visible in DPM and available for unified governance and reporting.
Why This Matters
- Governance – Aligns business functions (like HR) with the same enterprise service model used for IT.
- Visibility – HR services are no longer siloed, but part of the same portfolio dashboards and reports.
- Scalability – Paves the way for other business domains (Procurement, Legal, etc.) to follow the same model.
- Future-Proof – When ServiceNow expands native HRSD support in CSDM/DPM, our model will be ready to adapt with minimal disruption.
CSDM is a data model, not just an IT model. By extending it to HR services with a small automation, we enabled enterprise-wide service visibility for our customer. This approach can help other organizations adopt a true single pane of glass for services—IT and beyond.
Was this a perfect solution? Probably not, but it provided the Enterprise Architects of the customer a unfied view of the non-IT services. We extended the similiar model to other business functions (Procurement, Finance, Legal).
A snapshot of service offering created automatically from the HR service :
Security Considerations
Only service definitions (name, classification, parent service) are copied to the CSDM tables.
No HR case data, employee records, or sensitive information is exposed outside the HRSD application.
