Manually Merge Duplicate CIs

Jon Collins2
Kilo Sage

Hey Folks, 

I have a few CI's (Servers) that are duplicates, but are not being recognized as such in my environment. Is there a manual way to trigger de-duplication without scripting? 

Thanks in advance. 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Jon, 

Typically, if you have duplicates that aren't flagged as such, it's either a.) because of a gap in your identification rules or b.) Data sources writing to the CMDB without using the IRE.

If you have the latter problem and you just have a few, you can use the Identification Simulator (https://[instance name].service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=%2F$generatePayload.do) to run a matching payload through.  Even though it's a simulator, it will result in duplicate CIs getting flagged as such.  No scripting is necessary, as the payload builder lets you select attributes and plug in a value.  If your Identification Rules don't catch the duplicate, then it will tell you that the attributes didn't result in a match.  In such a case, you can add the appropriate rules and try again.

As an alternative to do the same in bulk, you could write a fix script to iterate over all your records and run them through the IdentifyCI API.

Overall, the ideal solution would be to figure out where the duplicate data is coming from, and update the source to use the IRE.  If it's a transform map, you would want to make sure you're calling the IRE from an onBefore script rather than specifying a coalesce field.

I hope that helps!

View solution in original post

3 REPLIES 3

Sohail Khilji
Kilo Patron
Kilo Patron

Hi @Jon Collins 

 

You can configure de-duplication task for the condition.

 

The de-duplication task will have two or more ci in the related list [duplicate audit result]

oldest ci's discovery source is marked as ServiceNow 

Newest ci's discovery source is marked as duplicate

Click on Remediate and choose which one is correct ci and follow the on-screen instructions to delete the duplicate or change is attributes. 

 

 

Please go through below links that might be helpful.

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_question&sys_id=bc070ae6dbd91c904819fb243996...

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_question&sys_id=9258a979dbf01f00852c7a9e0f96...

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_question&sys_id=91016a94dba818105129a851ca96...

 

Kindly mark the answer correct or Helpful if it addresses your concern...


☑️ Please mark responses as HELPFUL or ACCEPT SOLUTION to assist future users in finding the right solution....

LinkedIn - Lets Connect

Jon Collins2
Kilo Sage

I see there is a "Duplicate of" field that I can add to the form/list. If I add that and tie the duplicate to the original CI, will that trigger de-duplication? 

Jon, 

Typically, if you have duplicates that aren't flagged as such, it's either a.) because of a gap in your identification rules or b.) Data sources writing to the CMDB without using the IRE.

If you have the latter problem and you just have a few, you can use the Identification Simulator (https://[instance name].service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=%2F$generatePayload.do) to run a matching payload through.  Even though it's a simulator, it will result in duplicate CIs getting flagged as such.  No scripting is necessary, as the payload builder lets you select attributes and plug in a value.  If your Identification Rules don't catch the duplicate, then it will tell you that the attributes didn't result in a match.  In such a case, you can add the appropriate rules and try again.

As an alternative to do the same in bulk, you could write a fix script to iterate over all your records and run them through the IdentifyCI API.

Overall, the ideal solution would be to figure out where the duplicate data is coming from, and update the source to use the IRE.  If it's a transform map, you would want to make sure you're calling the IRE from an onBefore script rather than specifying a coalesce field.

I hope that helps!