What is the purpose of linking service offering and catalog items?

[Suggy]

What is the benefit that I will get when I link the service of friends with catalogue items? 

Also I heard that we need to tag one service offering to one catalogue item only

or

one service offering to multiple catalogue items. 

Not sure which is the recommended one. Please let me know if you are aware of this

[palanikumar]

You can tag one Service Offering to multiple Catalog Item.

Refer the below article for more details:

https://www.servicenow.com/community/common-service-data-model/csdm-amp-request-catalog-service-offe...

[Sarthak Kashyap]

Hi Suggy,

Purpose:

• A Service Offering represents a defined deliverable under a Business Service (e.g., "Email Service" → "Corporate Mailbox", "Shared Mailbox").

• A Catalog Item is the user-facing request option in the Service Catalog (e.g., "Request a new mailbox", "Request a shared mailbox").

• Linking them ties the back-end Service Portfolio with the front-end Service Catalog.

Benefits of linking:

1. Visibility in Service Portfolio – You can trace which catalog items are enabling which service offerings.

2. Reporting & Metrics – Helps in SLA, usage reporting, cost tracking, and demand management.

3. Service Mapping – End users request via catalog items, but IT tracks demand/consumption at the service offering level.

4. Consistency – Keeps the service model (offerings) aligned with what’s available for request.

Please check below URL

https://www.servicenow.com/community/common-service-data-model-forum/how-to-define-our-services-and-...

https://www.servicenow.com/community/incident-management-forum/what-s-the-purpose-of-the-service-ser...

https://www.servicenow.com/community/developer-forum/how-to-relate-a-catalog-item-to-a-service-offer...

Please mark my answer correct and helpful if this works for you

Thanks,

Sarthak

[aruncr0122]

Hi @Suggy ,

Why link services (service offerings) with catalog items?
Because it helps you tie catalog requests back to the business service they belong to. This gives:

Better reporting (which services are being requested most, SLAs, costs, etc.)

Clearer service ownership (you know which team is responsible for a request)

Easier impact analysis (you can see requests tied to a service if that service has issues).

One service offering ↔ catalog items:

It’s normal and recommended for one service offering to have multiple catalog items.
Each catalog item should map to the one service offering it belongs to, not multiple offerings.

✅ In short:

One catalog item → one service offering

One service offering → can have many catalog items

That’s the best practice and gives you clean reporting and ownership.

[vignesh parthib]

Hi @Suggy 

Linking service offerings and catalog items in ServiceNow connects business-defined services with user request options, enabling better service tracking, SLA management, and reporting. It ensures catalog items are aligned with the organization's service portfolio.

For example, the catalog item "Request Laptop" can be linked to the service offering "Standard Laptop Provisioning" under the IT Hardware service.

Thanks & Regards,
vignesh parthiban

If my response helped, please mark it as the accepted solution so others can benefit as well.