A task that is not an incident, problem, change, request, or project

[Eric K3]

We have a sizable number of groups/departments/users who need to use SN tasks in an unorthodox manner. For example, some itil users create an incident to document that they verify weekly/monthly backups on their systems. Other groups create incidents for doing routine maintenance. Still other departments use an incident to note that they performed routine observation/support on a device.

The problem is these groups/users are keeping these incidents open, sometimes for weeks, months, even indefinitely. They do this so that they can set a date in the followup field and sort their task lists to see what incident they have to work on on that particular day/week. They use the same incident to document that they performed the backup/maintenance/support. This, of course, is not what an incident is supposed to be and this greatly skews our performance metrics. It is even problematic in trying to implement SLAs that are meaningful.

My question is: What have others done to solve a problem like this? Do I simply create a new application by extending the task table and call it "Routine Tasks?" I am thinking a new application that extends [task] is the way to go so that tasks from this new application will show up on the My Work and My Groups Work modules.

Also, if there is a need to perform a daily/weekly task, how could I make SN create and assign a task on a regular basis? For example, can SN create a task every Monday morning with a short description of "Verify weekly backup on System XYZ" and assign it to the backup group?

[Uncle Rob]

There are dozens of permutations of contracts out there.   Think of how much the license model has changed since even 2013.   For each of those changes there were new customers signing on in 1 - 5 year contract intervals.   Then you have the wheeling and dealing deviations that come with negotiations at strategic accounts.   Its dangerous to go anywhere else but one's sales rep for hypothesizing license models.

[Uncle Rob]

Respectfully disagree with Mr. Tilton on the use of Tickets.  

- First, its been deprecated

- Second, SN can always change its mind and recycle it for some purpose

- Third, it won't make a difference on pricing as ServiceNow factors *intent* into their contracts.     If you're going to be billed for your intent to create a custom module anyway, you might as well make it from scratch exactly how you want it.

[Brad Tilton]

Ideally you'd want to create a custom app for this, but I think you're pretty safe just using the ticket table. Just my opinion.

[Community Alums]

There are a few different ways to approach this as others suggest. From your description, though, it sounds like these tasks do not necessarily need to be centrally tracked and that people are just using incident as a convenient place to track these things. If that is, in fact, the case, have you considered looking at Personal Tasks (Personal Tasks - ServiceNow Wiki )? This would allow them to create and track these different items on their own.

[Eric K3]

I have looked into Personal Tasks, which a few users use, but we really do need to extend the [Task] table so that these "new" type of tasks show up under the My Work and My Groups Work modules, as well as have the easy ability to run reports, use performance metrics, SLAs, etc.