What is the difference b/w Service Offering and Sold Product table .

[SonaliS13486069]

Want to understand what the difference b/w "Service Offering" and "Sold Product" Table . What is the data which should be stored in Service Offering and What is the data which should get stored in Sold Product table .

[Mark Manders]

Service Offerings are the actual services provided (tied to the Service Portfolio). This defines what can be requested or consumed (like 'vpn access', 'standard laptop support', etc).

Sold Products are the records of what is actually sold to a user/consumer. These are individual instances of a product or service.

The difference is that the service offerings are what CAN be sold/requested and the sold products ARE sold (the specific support a client is paying for). The Sold Product for customer X tells you the date it was purchased, expiry date, license key/serial number, etc. 

Within CSM it really helps to see what is available for a customer. You can just say 'we have 35 customers with Gold Support on Service X' where Gold Support is the Service Offering, but then you don't know when it will end for the 10th customer. The Sold Product is the instance of the offering, specifically for that customer.