Product Catalog Hardware Model - best practice guide

[wy-pyn-01]

I am looking for recommendations on hardware model management, specifically on how model names and descriptions should be defined. Hardware models from leading manufacturers can be complex, as a single model family may contain multiple model numbers, making model tracking and governance challenging.

I am seeking ServiceNow document or industry best practices for defining hardware models. In particular, I would like to understand how organizations map model names to model numbers and how they maintain the short description field.

How these four core fields to be defined:

1. Display name
2. Name
3. Short description
4. Model number

My goal is to standardize the model names used in dashboards and reporting. I have reviewed the Normalized Model approach; however, it appears to lose details such as the hardware generation.

Which field is recommended for storing generation information: Name, Short Description, or Model Number? I would prefer to avoid creating a custom field solely for generation information.

e.g., all below are for ThinkPad T14 G5

ThinkPad T14 21MMSF6U00

ThinkPad T14 21MMSF6U0S

ThinkPad T14 21MMSF6W00

ThinkPad T14 21MMSF6W08

ThinkPad T14 21MMSF6W0S

Your recommendations or references will be appreciated.

[pr8172510]

Hi Vipin,

For OOB Hardware Model management

• Display name: Generated display value based on the model information; use it for user-facing display/reporting.
  
  
• Name: Hardware product/model name, for example ThinkPad T14 Gen 5.
  
  
• Short description: General description of the hardware model. I would not use this field to store structured model or generation information.
  
  
• Model number: The manufacturer/internal identifier, for example 21MMSF6U00. ServiceNow uses Manufacturer, Name, and Model Number as key inputs for hardware model normalization.

For your example, the different Lenovo part numbers can remain separate model records while using the same model naming convention:
Name: ThinkPad T14 Gen 5
Model Number: 21MMSF6U00

Name: ThinkPad T14 Gen 5
Model Number: 21MMSF6U0S

and similarly for the other variants.

For generation, if Gen 5 is part of the actual product/model name, keeping it in Name is reasonable.

I would not put it in Short Description or modify the manufacturer's Model Number just to represent the generation.

The important point is to keep the manufacturer/model number in their proper fields because those values are used by Hardware Model Normalization.

 entering Manufacturer, Name, and Model Number into their respective attributes.

If the requirement is to report/filter Generation as an independent attribute, then a separate field would be the cleaner data model.
Otherwise, including Gen 5 in the model Name is sufficient.

[wy-pyn-01]

Can I interpret the fields as follows?

• Display Name: Concatenation of the manufacturer name and the full model name.
• Name: Full model name without the manufacturer name, including the generation.
• Short Name: Standard model name without generation information.
• Model Number: Manufacturer-assigned model number.

Is it an acceptable practice to include the manufacturer name in the Short Name?

For reporting purposes, I would like to know how many Lenovo ThinkPad T14 devices I have without distinguishing between generations. However, if I do not include the manufacturer name in the Short Name, the only field containing the manufacturer name is the Display Name, which also includes generation details. As a result, it becomes difficult to consolidate and report on the model family across generations.

e.g.,

Display Name: Hewlett-Packard EliteOne 800 G2 23" Touch AiO 

Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard

Name: EliteOne 800 G2 23" Touch AiO

Short description: EliteOne 800 OR Hewlett-Packard EliteOne 800

Model Name: Y4Z35US

another family:

Display Name = Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 4

Manufacturer: Lenovo

Name = ThinkPad T14 Gen 4

Short Description = ThinkPad T14 OR Lenovo ThinkPad T14

Model Number = 21HD