ITOM - Impacted Services

[Bkanagaraj]

Hi Team,

If i tag a "Mapped Application services" and run "Refresh Impacted Services" in the change module, I see related application services are updated and not servers and DB's. 

However if i tag a "Server" or "Database" which is mapped to a "Application services" - it bring all the application services tagged to the servers or DB's. 

How do i bring from all the infra CI (Servers/DB's) through Application services, when i execute "Impacted Services" in the change module. 

Regards,

Benjamin 

[AJ-TechTrek]

HI @Bkanagaraj ,

Lets discuss Why it happens (background):

When you use the “Impacted Services” feature in the Change module:
* The platform looks upward in the CMDB relationship hierarchy:
* From the tagged CI → find Business Services or Application Services that depend on this CI.
* When you tag an Application Service:
* The system considers that service as the impact, but doesn’t expand down to the infra CIs (servers, DBs, etc).
* When you tag a Server or Database:
* It looks up to find what Application Services depend on it, and adds those to impacted services.
So the direction matters:
* Tagging infra → goes up → find services
* Tagging services → doesn’t go down to infra
This is by design to focus on service-level impact to users/customers.

1. Use “Include children” option
* In the “Impacted Services” UI action, there is sometimes an option or can be configured to include child CIs.
* This will pull in infra CIs (servers, DBs) related to the Application Services.

2.Customize “Refresh Impacted Services” logic
* The OOB script uses:
GlideImpactUtil().calculateImpact(change_sys_id);
* Customize to:
* Not only look up to services.
* Also look down from the Application Service to get the child infra CIs.
This might involve:
* Creating a custom Business Rule or Script Action that:
* Finds all child CIs of the tagged Application Service.
* Adds them to the Change Request → Affected CIs related list.

3.Use CI Class Manager → Impact Rules
* Define additional Impact rules:
* For example: when Application Service is impacted → automatically consider its dependent servers, DBs as impacted.
* This way, when the engine calculates impact, it will include infra.

4. Use a Discovery / Service Mapping pattern
* Ensure that your Application Services are properly mapped and have downstream relationships.
* Service Mapping shows:
* Application Service → runs on → Server
* Application Service → depends on → Database
* With these, impact calculations have more complete data.

5. Custom Flow Designer flow
* Build a flow on change request:
* On tagging an Application Service:
* Query all downstream CIs.
* Add them as impacted to the change.
This is low-code, easier to maintain.

Please appreciate the efforts of community contributors by marking appropriate response as Mark my Answer Helpful or Accept Solution this may help other community users to follow correct solution in future.
 
Thank You
AJ - TechTrek with AJ
LinkedIn:- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajay-kumar-66a91385/
YouTube:- https://www.youtube.com/@learnitomwithaj
ServiceNow Community MVP 2025