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

[Mary Vanatta1 · Accepted solution]

Please check out all our resources found in Now Create:
The CMDB Workshop deck covers leading practice recommendations, what attributes to use where.  Let me know if you have any other questions!  Here is a slide from that workshop deck.

Click the thumbs up if this was helpful and solved your question! 
Links and Resources

CMDB - Process Guide

CSDM Overview
CSDM Whitepaper

CMDB Governance
Configuration Control Board Charter
Configuration Management Roles and Responsibilities
CMDB - Process Workshop
CMDB - Customer Workshop Preparation

CMDB - Starter Stories
CSDM Getting Started Workshop

Article: CMDB - 3 Pillars to Successful Data Foundations
Article: 5 Steps to Monitor CMDB Health Proactively
CMDB Data Manager
CMDB Data Certification
CMDB Health Configuration
Video – Data Foundations and CMDB Health Dashboard Review
Video - CMDB Best Practices
 CMDB Product Documentation

[Jon Miller1]

Awesome. Thanks Mary. I'm pretty sure what I'm looking for will be in this somewhere.

Jon

[Jon Miller1]

@Mary Vanatta1, as I work through the content, it's very helpful. But I'm confused by something... the slide you provided states that for "CIs that are managed by a Technical Service Offering, the Managed by Group field is first synchronized with its dynamic CI group". But in my PDI, the Technical Service Offering form has a Managed By (person) field, not a Managed by Group.

Would I be right to assume that Managed by Group is populated based on the CI Class Manager but that Managed By is populated based on the Technical Service Offering?

This is why I'm struggling with some of this because I go down one path based on what I see in the system but then find something documented that suggests something different.

[Doug C_]

I (alone...gulp!) am currently reconfiguring & un-customizing our CMDB in our instance.  I have implemented Discovery (soon Cloud Discovery too!) and unfortunately have to go through the different views in each CI type in order to find the customized fields, so I can get them back closer to OOTB standards.  These links you have provided are awesome, thank you @Mary Vanatta1 !

[Mary Vanatta1]

Hi Jon, 

Great question. Managed by is more of a legacy field and still used by many. This relates only to 1 person that is responsible for updating the record, which is a bit of risk if that person leaves and the record is not updated.   In the system, due to legacy customers, this attribute may still be on the form.  Sometime around the New York version, we added the "Managed by Group"  to use instead.  You can simply add the Managed by Group to the OOB form by adding the attribute via Configure> Form Layout and removing any oob attributes that you are not using.  

Here is an example of a form that I recommended attributes to start with, as found in the CMDB Workshop deck.  To explain the "Populated by Technical Service with a contained Dynamic CI Group." We can synchronize the data for the Support and Approval groups, to each CI in a class by creating a Dynamic CI Group and adding it to a Tech Service Offering.  For the Managed by Group we can also use the CI Class Manager.