What's the purpose of the Service, Service Offering, and Configuration Item fields in an Incident?

[Smith Johnson]

Hello all,

I would like your expert input on the following topic.
I am trying to understand the purpose of the Service, Service Offering, and Configuration Item fields in an Incident form.

I have read docs but does not help really. For example, for the Service field is mentioned that it displays the affected business service, if applicable. But what does it mean a business service? So, the explanation in the docs does not help me really, and I would like your expert opinion to define the purpose of each of these fields.

In addition, I see that if I select something in the Service field, then I can also select it in the CI field, as shown below. In this case, why I need to have a Service field, considering that in any case I can select it the affected service in the CI field? 

Your assistance would be much appreciated, because it's getting confusing for me.

Thank you in advance,
Smith.

[Sandeep Rajput]

@Smith Johnson Please go through this documentation and see if it clears your doubts https://www.servicenow.com/content/dam/servicenow-assets/public/en-us/doc-type/success/quick-answer/...

[Community Alums]

Hi @Smith Johnson ,

Service	Affected business service, if applicable. Note: If you select a business service as the configuration item and if that business service is also listed as the configuration item in any other active task, then the active tasks icon ( ) appears. Click the icon to view the list of all the other active tasks that are affecting the business service. You can view the BSM map (dependency view) of the selected business service by clicking the dependency icon
Service Offering	Service offering consists of one or more service commitments that uniquely define the level of service in terms of availability, scope, pricing, and packaging options. This field enables you to receive different features and their levels of performance for a given service.
Configuration item	Affected CI, if applicable. After a CI is selected, you can click the open dependency views icon ( next to the field to see how the CI maps into the infrastructure. The dependency view shows you what is impacted and whether other CIs or services are experiencing issues. To capture information on the affected CIs, refer to Capture information on affected configuration items in an incident.

 A way that I've always used to approach this...that I think works really well once users get used to it...is to restrict the Configuration item field just to service offerings.  These service offerings end up being like your categorization for an incident and guarantee that you can trigger the appropriate SLAs and record outages, etc.  Then I have users list the specific CI(s) that are being impacted in the 'Affected CIs' related list at the bottom of the form.  Adding a message on the from field to indicate how this works goes a long way to helping users figure out what to do.

[Dr Atul G- LNG · Accepted solution]

Hi @Smith Johnson 

experts are already on it, will try to add my thoughts.

These 3 fields has a very specific purpose on Incident. Before CSDM there was no concept of Service and due to this it is tough to visualize that how an incident or break on working of a CI can impact overall system.

CSDM bring the concept of Service and Service Offering.

Service mean, something you as provider provide to customer. Like Email as service , Messaging as Service.

Service offering means, provide that service on some common parameter like on location basis/ availability

CI - The last component which support to provide that Service.

OOTB there is no restriction to select an value in either in CI or Service.

Let's take simple example:

A seller who cell ice cream and to make that ice cream he / she use the Fridge ( we called it CI

If  that fridge is not work for him/her that can impact on his Service - Ice cream sell 

Also ice cream not available for longer time that is SO.

So now by these 3 fields you can see , how the who system is getting impacted / affected. You can see the dependency map as well for that CI or Service.

Hope i am able to clear your doubt.