Difference between Asset and Sold Product in CSM

[SwarnadeepNandy]

I am trying to figure out the difference between Asset and Sold Product. Or what is the relationship between Asset and Sold Product. When to use Asset and when to use Sold Product. Where should the assigned product be stored?

Where should the case be raised on? How the BOM should be mapped, either in Assets or Sold Products?

More in-depth insight will be really helpful, maybe with an example (if possible not the Boxeo dev, qa and prod example Or Sold Product is only meant for SAAS products).

Thanks & Regards,

Swarnadeep Nandy

[Stijn Verhulst1]

Hi Sironi,

my apologies for my delayed answer.

Sold products are the products sold to external customers, hence they help to create visibility for agents and managers as sold products can contain other sold products (think about packages). Each of the involved products can contain install base items which represent Configuration Items that are deployed and help to deliver the end product (= sold product to which they are related).

This approach simplifies for example the process when an incident must be created starting from a case if it concerns an IT related matter (for example, one of the Configuration Items helping to deliver the service, such as a router, server, etc., fails by which it disrupts the service sold to the customer). In other words, by using sold products and install base items it helps agents and managers to understand the involved components of a product that was sold to a customer, and which ones not.

Yet, sold products can also be used to track products, non-IT or IT, that are not an actual service: such as a router in your example if the ServiceNow customer would be a networking equipment manufacturer - vendor.

When CSM was introduced by ServiceNow, products sold to customers were typically tracked as assets. Though, it's strongly advised to move forward with sold products instead as more and more new CSM features will support sold products and not assets. And it doesn't matter whether the sold product represents a non-IT (think about insurances) or IT product.

So the question would be: do you still need an asset in your example? Well, that depends on the business context and what Asset Management is truly about. Asset Management deals with the financial and inventory tracking of assets belonging to the organization. Therefore, if we take the router of your example, you should ask the following questions:

• Is the router leased by the customer to which it was "sold"?
  
  Than it would still be technically property of the organization and not the customer, hence an asset could be created to track the financial and inventory aspect within Asset Management.
  
  
• Is the router bought by the customer to which it was sold?
  
  One might argue it wouldn't be necessary to create a separate asset as the agents / customers can report cases against a sold product and its install base items.
  
  THOUGH: if warranty is provided and this information must be tracked, or inventory tracking is needed, or you want to use Field Service Management; an asset most likely will have to be created.

I hope this helps you forward but as you can see, its important to understand what the purpose and outcomes are of the organization implementing the CSM solution whether assets should be created or not.

In essence, it depends more on the fact whether they want to apply Asset Management internally and / or use Field Service Management.

Stijn

[Sarup Paul]

Here are the official docs on this 

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/orlando-customer-service-management/page/product/customer-service...

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/orlando-customer-service-management/page/product/customer-service...

[S_bastien Timme]

Hi all, 

I would like to add a question here: is that possible to link assets to a sold product? It would give the ability to the customer to see his assets based on his sold products screen.

Thanks

[Stijn Verhulst1]

Hi Sébastien,

you cannot directly relate assets to a sold product which actually isn't necessary either. As assets are related to a product model, you'd instead define the Product (= product model) on the Sold Product record.

If a sold product is being chosen on a case, be it automatically or manually, the related product as defined on the sold product record will be automatically defined on the case as well. Hence this will still allow filtering on the customer's assets etc... as it already exists OOB on the Service Portal.

I hope this answers your question.

Stijn

[SwarnadeepNandy]

Hi Sebastien,

You can link it. But its quite a long traversal.

Sold Product -> Installed Product -> Install Base Item -> CI -> Asset.

You may have a usecase, where you directly want your vendor to assign a Work Order for a particular Sold Product.

If you are offering a SAAS service then this model works, or else you can directly create a relationship between Asset and Sold Product.

Sold Product -> Asset.

You may also create an m2m between Sold Product and Asset, if you have use cases.

Regards,

Swarnadeep Nandy