How we create Technical Services and what is TSO

[shaik_irfan]

Hi,

I am looking for recommendation on how can we create Technical Services, when i look at the CSDM diagram it says Technology Consumer > Request Catalog > TSO > Technical Services.

SSo is that mean we need to submit a Catalog request which creates a Technical Services ? 

I tried navigating to Technical Request Catalog where i need to submit a record with Catalog item and Service Offering, Is that going to be generic catalog item or record producer. 

I am new to this and unable to follow documentation, please help me

[CMDB Whisperer · Accepted solution]

Here are the basics:

• Technical Service - The outcome that is delivered to the consumer.  For example, Telecommunication Services.
• Technical Service Offering - The specific method that the Technical Service is delivered. For example, Video Conferencing.
• Catalog Item - The requestable service related to the Service Offering.  For example, Reserve Video Conference Room, or Request WebEx Account.

To create your Technical Services, go to CSDM > Technical Service > New.  Once you are on the Technical Service, go to the Offerings tab and select New to create a new Technical Offering.

The idea of connecting the two is that it allows you to provide context sensitive Requestable Service depending on who is Subscribed to those Services.  The specifics of how to associate your Technical Service Offering with your relevant requestable Catalog Items can still be a bit unclear, depending on what applications you have installed and what subscription options/lists you are using.  For more on this see: CSDM & Request Catalogue - service offering and catalog item association.

[shaik_irfan]

Hi @Paul Coste 

Thanks for the reply and article you shared helped me alot to understand better way. One question which i did not understand you subscribe Catalog item and Service Offering lets say Video Conferencing TSO and Reserve Video Conference Room so what difference it made's in terms of workflow and does it display any relationship on sc_request/sc_req_tem table and how it has the relationship with Technical Services?

Wanted to understand does RITM/REQ shows any relationship like it belongs to Reserve Video Conference Room TSO or it belongs to Telecommunication Services Technical service 

[Barry Kant]

Good day,

the catalog item can be linked to the service offering (sc_cat_item_subscribe_mtom). 
Meaning it is a 1:1 relation between catalog item with a service offering. (not sure if this will be 1:n). (--> This is for catalog items and not for record producers). This information can also be seen from a Service Owner Workspace view.

While it is 1:1 imo the service offering should be part of your RITM record information as well. 

Cheers,

Barry

[CMDB Whisperer]

FWIW there is debate about whether it should be 1:n or m2m, and also inconsistency as to whether this is enforced, but not a lot has been acknowledged thus far about the fact that the cardinality of this relationship demands a particular granularity in your definition of Service Offerings and Catalog Items that may not be feasible or desirable in practice, and may be inconsistent with many of the guidelines that ServiceNow has themselves provided in how to define Service Offerings and Catalog Items.

EDIT: I've edited the paragraph above, because I realize that the comment above states that there is a 1:1 relationship, which I first accepted at face value, but I actually am not sure that anyone has suggested this is the case, and if it is, then I would appreciate a link to that recommendation.  Rather, the standard relationship is 1:n, i.e. one Service Offering to 1 or more Catalog Items.  The article I linked to in the reply below discusses the difference between a 1:n relationship which is enforced in Service Owner Workspace, and a many-to-many relationship, which is only allowed without Service Owner Workspace.  That use case is different, meaning that the same Catalog Item could be related to two different Service offerings.  So this still affects how users may define their Offerings and Catalog Items, but a 1:1 relationship would be nonsensical, because it would mean either that your Offerings would be too specific or that your Catalog Items would be too broad.