Task Table Best Practice

[chriscorbett]

Hello All --

I am looking for some guidance regarding the task table. I have been asked to build a custom System Access Request application for my company. Whom the request gets assigned to of course depends on Company Name and system. I intend to have a table that holds the requests, and a table holding Company Name, System Name and System Owner which is a reference to the user table.

I am thinking then I would want to use workflow to determine whom the request should be assigned to. But my confusion lies in the usage of the task table within a custom application. Is it considered best practice to use the OOB task table in the ITIL Help Desk implementation? Our techs would then see them in the My Tasks section in ITIL. Or is it acceptable to create a table in my application that extends the task table and have the techs access the requests there?

I am in a somewhat unique situation where some custom applications were needed before the OOB Help Desk functionality. So we are using two custom applications now, while I am developing more. And the OOB Help Desk functionality will be implemented within the next few months.

I would appreciate any guidance the Community can provide.

Thanks!

Chris

[Brad Tilton]

Hi Chris,

It's pretty standard practice to extend the task table if you're having to do any sort service management, so I don't think that should be an issue for you. Many do accommodate an access management process through the catalog request process, but I have seen custom tables for it as well.

[Chuck Tomasi]

Hi Chris,

I'm not clear what the difference is between your two options. You are still extending the task table either way. Is your question about where the techs should go to find their work? Are you trying to segregate the custom app tasks from the rest of the IT tasks?

Based on what you've written, here are my thoughts...

Extend the task table if you have work to assign. Don't worry about who looks in what list. "My Work" should include all tasks assigned to you, and My Groups Work should be all tasks assigned to the team (and assigned to is empty.) That's it. Don't worry about whether it is a custom app or not. Security will take care of who can see what. If you start breaking things in to "My work for this app" and "My work for that app", people will become frustrated. Take advantage of the single source of record.

Reference section 2.1.2 here. Modifying the Application Design - ServiceNow Wiki

[chriscorbett]

Thanks guys for your responses. I think that is the root of my question, yes - which table the tasks should be written to and where they should go to find them - especially if we are not yet using the OOB Help Desk functionality.

[Chuck Tomasi]

Hi Chris,

Glad you found the information helpful. Don't forget to mark it helpful (or correct) so others can find the information easily in the future. Thanks.