Best practices for routing ITSM service requests to demands in SPM

[F_Fairley]

Occasionally we get Service Requests that really should be entered as Demands as part of SPM.

What are the best practices for getting service requests out of the operational queue and into the demand queue?

Thanks

Francis

[Namita Mishra · Accepted solution]

Hello @F_Fairley ,

Thanks for raising this point in the community. I am sure other users may also have this point in their minds at some point in their SPM journey.

Moving service requests from the operational queue (usually associated with day-to-day entities raised by users like incidents, changes, and service requests) to the demand queue (associated with strategic planning, demand management, and project intake) requires careful consideration, especially to ensure alignment with business goals and governance processes.

I agree with the comment of @AndersBGS that it should align with internal company process. In my experience, here are the best practices for transitioning service requests into the Demand Management process:

Process and Governance: This is the first area based on which you need to identify the candidates for transitioning. For example:

           Establish thresholds to determine when a service request should be treated as demand (e.g., cost, effort, impact). Example criteria could be:

• Requests requiring significant funding or capital investment

• Requests needing cross-functional coordination

• Requests that result in new capabilities or services (vs. maintaining existing ones)

• Requests that impact multiple business capabilities \ business applications

Now Assist and Integration:

• ITSM and SPM Integration: To make this transition, the first and foremost is that ITSM and SPM are integrated. Due to one platform - one underlying database concept, this is already in place.
• AI Agents: Use AI agents to

  • Auto-identify qualifying service requests

  • Trigger notifications to the right team \ persona and auto-create a demand

  • Escalate complex operational tasks to strategic planning

Team Enablement: This is a critical pillar in successfully transitioning service requests into the demand management process. Without it, even the best-designed processes and tools can break down hence:

• Train service desk, support, and operational staff to recognize strategic vs. operational work.

• Provide guidelines, checklists, or decision trees to aid judgment.

• Make it intuitive and user friendly by enhancing the request forms to include fields for:
  • Business impact
  • Strategic goals alignment
  • Benefits and outcomes
  • Impact if not considered
  • Effort estimation

Hope this helps and if it does, please mark this as a correct answer to help me and others in the community.

Happy SPM Journey & Have a Great Sunday!

Thank You!

Namita Mishra

[F_Fairley]

@Namita Mishra extremely helpful response! I especially appreciate the best practices points that you outlined. 

Question, if the request forms are modified to include the 5 fields you listed the values entered into those fields by the user could then be evaluated by the AI agent to determine whether to escalate or route the service request as a potential demand, correct?

Additionally, AI agent capability is only available with SPM Pro Plus, correct? We have the SPM Pro subscription.

Thank you very much for your help. I would suggest that your post to my question be considered and packaged as a more formal article in the ITSM and SPM documentation.

Thanks,

Francis

[Namita Mishra · Accepted solution]

Hello @F_Fairley ,

At the outset THANK YOU for the kind words and glad that it was helpful.

Response below:

"Question, if the request forms are modified to include the 5 fields you listed the values entered into those fields by the user could then be evaluated by the AI agent to determine whether to escalate or route the service request as a potential demand, correct?" - Yes. This is correct understanding and for this configuration will be required.

"Additionally, AI agent capability is only available with SPM Pro Plus, correct?" - Yes. This is also correct. With SPM Pro (your current subscription) AI agent capability is not available.

With SPM pro, try using the flow designer to configure the similar experience. With AI agent it would certainly be a better experience.

Please mark the earlier response as correct response to be considered by others in the community.

Have a Great Sunday!

Thank You!!

Namita Mishra

[danesh]

Hi Francis,
I encountered the exact same use case from our Demand Manager, and here’s how I mapped the process:

1. Centralized Review by Business Support Team
   All service requests are initially reviewed by the business support team, who are trained to identify strategic work. This team acts as the gatekeeper for routing requests to demands, ensuring consistency and governance.
2. Simplified Request Forms for End Users
   End users submit standard ITSM service requests without strategic assessment fields (e.g., business impact, alignment, risk). These strategic attributes are not visible or editable by the requester.
3. Internal Assessment Workflow
   The business support team uses a review dashboard or workbench to assess incoming requests. They apply predefined criteria to determine if a request qualifies as a demand, such as:

• Strategic alignment
• Cross-functional impact
• Capital investment
• New capability creation

1. Flow Designer for Routing
   Qualified requests are routed using Flow Designer logic, which flags potential candidates and moves them to the Demand table.
2. Governance and Feedback Loop
   We maintain a feedback loop between the business support team and demand managers to refine routing criteria. Tracking conversion rates and false positives helps improve accuracy over time.

[danesh]

Hi @F_Fairley 
I encountered the exact same use case from our Demand Manager, and here’s how I mapped the process:

1. Centralized Review by Business Support Team
   All service requests are initially reviewed by the business support team, who are trained to identify strategic work. This team acts as the gatekeeper for routing requests to demands, ensuring consistency and governance.
2. Simplified Request Forms for End Users
   End users submit standard ITSM service requests without strategic assessment fields (e.g., business impact, alignment, risk). These strategic attributes are not visible or editable by the requester.
3. Internal Assessment Workflow
   The business support team uses a review dashboard or workbench to assess incoming requests. They apply predefined criteria to determine if a request qualifies as a demand, such as:

• Strategic alignment
• Cross-functional impact
• Capital investment
• New capability creation

1. Flow Designer for Routing
   Qualified requests are routed using Flow Designer logic, which flags potential candidates and moves them to the Demand table.
2. Governance and Feedback Loop
   We maintain a feedback loop between the business support team and demand managers to refine routing criteria. Tracking conversion rates and false positives helps improve accuracy over time.