Roles to maintain ServiceNow

johnnyw · ‎09-02-2015

We are in the process of implementing ServiceNow and I was wondering what types of roles you have in your organization to maintain the applications. For example, I will play the admin role who will do all of the maintenance. There is a business analyst who can assist with the admin duties, and also perform testing and general BA type of work.

We do have a service catalog and am wondering if you have non-technical people administering and creating catalog items? From my limited experience in working on creating catalog items and the related workflows, it is not an easy task and should be handled by someone with technical knowledge as well as scripting knowledge.

Are there any other roles I'm missing?

Regards,

Johnny

JamesEcoStratus · ‎09-03-2015

Johnny,

I'm not sure on the maturity of your organization when it comes to managing a Service Desk, ITSM/ITIL or operational processes needed as supporting cast members, or where you are in your ServiceNow Implementation or Scope.

However, generally speaking as a rule - The organization must ensure the correct number of staff are available at any given time to match the demand placed upon the desk by the business.

Now there are a number items that should be considered here and Im not going to drill down that list here and encourage you read more about ITIL & Service Operation Functions.

From a process perspective If I was in your shoes - (You might done this but I don't know) I'd start by examining my or organizationals strategic planning process or model (Analysis of current state, define future state, determine objectives/strategies, etc) then look at processes in place today that will support strategy or identify gaps that need to be refined or filled by either new or tweaked processes. Then i'd look to see what support mechanisms (people, technology etc) are needed and/or in place today, you get the point.

I'd also set up a list or wheel with tasks/items needed for project success - one side business items and the other project based. Example of this might be Project - Technology, Infrastructure, Deployment etc and Business could be Data readiness, Leadership, Organizational etc. & each would have a business or product owner assigned for accountability.

I'd also have an internal design committee or user group for added support and increased ownership from users and BU's. This committee could meet at cadence desired but would recommend at least twice a month to start. I'd task this group with driving user adoption and feedback on design factors to consider which would ultimate need to be approved by CAB or other internal steering committee on what changes aligned with business objectives and satisfied business risk thresholds.

Without knowing more about your organization etc - I don't have a good answer to your question around "How Many" and "Types" of resources or staff members you'll need However, I would caution you around notion of separate admin and catalog admin or other roles (half work done by catalog admin and rest by admin) that will ultimately require an admin to satisfy requirements. Its simply not a very effective model for success, at least not that I've seen to date. It may be the case that your organization would benefit from a manage service offering to aide in development or "admin" tasks until you or your organization is comfortable with serviceNow and able to take on more responsibility. I'd also recommend that those given admin role attend a formal admin training class and take the certification exam.

Hope this helps and feel to ask if more is needed.

JamesN

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Pradeep Sharma · ‎09-02-2015

Hi Johny,

You can assign the roles to the user based on the req. The below article will give you idea on OOB roles avaialble.

http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Base_System_Roles

To answer your second question, Yes service catalog requires technical knowledge as there are workflows involved.

Most of the time you might need to script as per the requirement.

johnnyw · ‎09-02-2015

Thanks Pradeep.

I am familiar with the actual roles in the system OOB. However, I am looking more for your experience and an idea of what your support structure for ServiceNow at your company looks like.

ie. do you have an admin who does everything? do you have admins specifically for catalogs? do you have admins specific to other areas within SN?

Regards,

Johnny

Pradeep Sharma · ‎09-02-2015

Hi Johny,

With my past experience, we had admin who played the role of administrator/development. However I don't think there will be an admin only meant for catalog development.

Again it depends on the business requirements.

bernyalvarado · ‎09-02-2015

Hi Johnny, that will depend a lot on the company, the company business processes and which modules is it using.

Often what it occurs is that there's some admins to make specific changes to a part of the system. For instance, for catalogs, the admins could be granted the catalog _admin role; for the on-call schedules your could have the rota_admin role, for change requests, incidents, problems, etc... you could create a specific admin role for each that can edit fields which are restricted to normal users; and so on.

Thanks,

Berny