Definitions or recommendations for using CI user and group fields

[Jon Miller1]

We're in the process of reimplementing our CMDB after 5+ years of an ungoverned free-for-all! I need some help in making sure we make good decisions now that will put us in a good place for the future.

Can anybody provide any thoughts, recommendations, definitions, lessons-learnt, etc. on the correct usage of the following CI fields: Approval group, Assigned to, Change Group, Managed By Group, Managed by, Owned by, Support group and Supported by? I'm not getting a clear answer from our implementation partner and haven't found any ServiceNow documentation on this topic.

I'm fairly clear on Change Group (used to assign Change Requests) and Support Group (used to assign Incidents). But I'm getting conflicting information about whether Approval Group or Managed By Group is used by the CMDB Data Manager and, if it uses one of them, what is the other one for?

I understand Assigned To when it comes to personal devices (PCs, laptops, etc.) but are folks using it for servers? I'm thinking of using it for who requests a server build and who the server is "delivered to" for deployment after it is built by the server team. Is that appropriate?

I'm thinking of using "Owned By" to define the "data owner" of the CI in the CMDB (i.e. the person responsible for data quality) rather than the "owner" of the physical asset. The idea that somebody "owns" a server is troublesome (I'm OK with a server being assigned to someone or being managed by someone but not being "owned"). Is that a good idea?

That leaves Managed By. Is that intended to be a single-point-of-contact (SPOC) within the Managed By Group? Or are they unrelated and serve different purposes? Is Managed By associated with CMDB Data Manager or Technical Services? That's not real clear to me yet.

Thanks in advance,

Jon

[emir]

these attributes are defined in the CSDM. Since you are rebuilding the CMDB you should look into the Common Service Data Model. Your partner should know this!

[Jon Miller1]

I agree that the partners should know it, Emir. But I'm finding most will revert to their experience with prior implementations over the latest version of the CSDM.

I've just scanned through the v4 CSDM paper and I don't see any definitions of the users and groups that I called out. It would be great if they were there but, unless I missed them, they are not. Have you seen them somewhere?

[Jon Miller1]

I agree that the partners SHOULD know this, Emir, but my experience with multiple partners is that they're more familiar with what they've done in the past than the latest CSDM!

Our CMDB reimplementation is 100% aligned to the CSDM but I'm not seeing any definition of the user/group fields in the v4 paper that I have. Where do you see it?

[Smitty]

My understanding is that the Managed by Group is who is responsible for the CI data, but it could also be who owns the item as well IMO.  There are an awful lot of options for these things but I think in most cases, it's best to stay as simple as possible.  I try to avoid labeling individual users for CI's where possible (these aren't asset records).