Best Practice for Managing Asset State \ CI Status

[Robin Hearne]

I have a question for all you process experts out there.   Before I begin, this isn't about what you could do, this is about what is the best thing to do from a process and tool perspective.   I always try to be guided by what ServiceNow provides out-the-box and try to understand how the product was intended to be used before making any changes.

We are planning our Asset and Config Management deployment and are trying to make a decision on how to manage Asset state \ CI status.   The primary consideration is how the desktop support techs will update the record(s) to show when the asset\CI is in use, in maintenance, returned to a stock room etc.

The OTB experience is that the Status field isn't even exposed on the CI form, which leads me to think that the intended use is to manage it there and let the mapping feature take care of updating the CI status.   Also, previous ServiceNow documentation states "As a best practice, ServiceNow, Inc. recommends updating status on the asset form" (although this is from 2015 and this doesn't seem to be included in the latest documentation).

However....

This somewhat contradicts ISO\ITIL "best practice" which recommends that IMAC is part of the Configuration Management process, rather than the Asset Management process.   Also, the ITIL role only has read permission to the Asset record, so the desktop support techs would need the 'asset' role, which is arguably inappropriate given that they aren't really involved in the Asset Management process (just Configuration Management).   From a tool perspective, in order to manage IMAC in Configuration Management would require a number of changes on the CI form, such as adding the Status, plus exposing other fields such as Location, Stock rooms etc.   Which whilst simple to do, still suggest to me that this isn't how ServiceNow was intended to be used.

I'm leaning towards managing Asset State and either assign the Asset role or add an ACL to allow ITIL users to update the Asset State, Location etc, but I'd welcome other options before making a decision.

bsweetser - Hoping you might be able to give your opinion on this?

Thanks in advance.

Robin

[lekskr]

Thank you for the ATE session on Assets, Models and CIs, I find it very informative.  Do you have a video session on how to customized the Asset - Ci  field mapping, Assets-CI Install Status mapping and Asset-CI Hardware Status Mapping.

Rattana

[Robin Hearne]

Hi Ben,

Thanks for your very helpful response.   It certainly makes sense to delineate the Config Management process to solely changes in ownership, not in Install Status \ State, and then handle everything else within the Asset Management process.   That also makes it more obvious why the Install Status isn't even exposed on the Configuration Item forms.   That's ultimately what my question was intended to determine i.e., what was the intended process which mirrors the OTB setup of ServiceNow.

I also like the idea of driving updates from UI Actions (rather than expecting people to know which fields to update), however on most occasions some form of input would be required (such as identifying the stock room).   Presumably we would handle this through a UI Page 'pop-up' to capture the information that's pertinent to the UI Action (in a similar way to how the 'Consume' UI action works)?

Regards,

Robin

[Community Alums · Accepted solution]

Hi Robin,

Depending on the approach used to drive the change of State, yes, you could have a pop-up to capture the required information, similar to the Consuming of a Consumable. It really depends on the process you are looking to drive, though. You can always consider other methods to capture the information. For example, if you launch a process to retire a piece of hardware, that process may include a step to return the hardware to a stockroom to be prepared for disposal. Rather than prompting for the Stockroom, you might leverage Location information from the user record to automate the selection of the closest drop off or disposal Stockroom. When you identify how you want to begin the process, consider the information you need and how you can get that information. If it is possible to get that information through some automated means, even better.

Ben

[Fred Jean]

In addition to this, when you have the (paid) HAM plugin, you have Asset actions available on the Affected Cis related lists on  incidents and change request. This will drive the changes on the Assets for actions such as swap or retire.
See https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/washingtondc-it-service-management/page/product/incident-manageme...

[Damhoej]

I found this webinar on youtube.

It really helps to understand and get the feeling on how to do it.

Alcor Webinar- How Is Asset Management Implemented in ServiceNow - YouTube