BEST Practice to follow for Incidents and REQ/CATALOG TASKS for contact_type field.

[Khyati Panchal1]

Hello Experts,
My Team is looking to configure Service Channel (contact_type) field on the Service Catalog Request. Is it a good practice to configure?

Scenario: Currently, I've an incident where Service Channel (contact_type) field is configured for Service Desk to track down the no of incidents recorded through different Service Channels i.e: Phone, Email, Self Service, etc. as shown in screenshot.

My Team is looking to bring same Channel field on the Service Catalog, Currently my Service Catalog looks something like this.

Please help with the following:

1. Is it advisable to get this Channel field on Service Catalog? If yes, why?
   OR
   If No, please support with explanations.
2.  Is it advisable to configure same fields for Incident form and Catalog?
   
   Thank you.

[Mark Manders]

You could do it if they are used by your agents to log catalog items for others, but your agents should be sending your end users there to do it themselves. A catalog item is always creating a 'self service' channel ticket (or it should, at least). The goal of portal should be to enhance the use of self service.

If for some reason that's not the case, you could add the field and to only show it when the user is creating it for someone else (or even only if he's a service desk agent). Don't put it on there for everyone to see, because it doesn't make sense. You only use it for reporting purposes.