Related Lists of CI components

  • Release version: Washingtondc
  • Updated February 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Related Lists of CI Components Extend ServiceNow AI Platform Capabilities

    Related lists in Configuration Item (CI) records enhance visibility by displaying additional components associated with that CI, such as disk drives on servers or rules governing network router behavior. These lists are automatically updated by ServiceNow's Discovery tool, reflecting components found during the latest scan. Components not discovered are marked as absent and do not appear in the list.

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    Key Features

    • Dynamic Updates: Related lists update based on the latest Discovery scan, showcasing only currently active components.
    • Component Types: Includes CIs (e.g., hard disks) and non-CIs (e.g., serial numbers, rules).
    • Custom Filters: Default filters ensure only components that are not marked as absent are displayed.
    • Icons for Status: Various icons indicate active incidents, problems, changes, and outages associated with the CI, providing quick status assessments.
    • Teams Related List: Connects user groups to CIs, enhancing tracking of assigned responsibilities for different group types.

    Key Outcomes

    Utilizing related lists helps ServiceNow customers maintain an accurate and up-to-date view of their CIs and associated components. This functionality supports better management of incidents, changes, and outages, leading to improved service reliability and operational efficiency. It allows teams to quickly identify issues and track responsibilities, ultimately facilitating more effective decision-making.

    Related lists in CI records display additional components contained by that CI, such as disk drives on a server and the rules that control the behavior of a network router.

    When Discovery runs, the Related List is populated with the components that Discovery finds running on the CI. The CI record might show different lists from scan to scan, depending on whether or not Discovery found the component.

    By default, the Related Lists only display those components that are associated with that CI in the CMDB that has been discovered by the last scan. Components that are recorded in the CMDB but are not discovered in a scan, are deemed absent and do not appear in the list.

    There are two types of components that appear in the Related List: components that are CIs themselves (such as hard disks), and components that are not (serial numbers and rules). The default filter condition in the breadcrumbs for components that are CIs is [Status] [!=] [Absent]. The filter condition for components that are not CIs is [Absent] [=] [false].

    For example, a router can have several Related Lists affected by these filter conditions, including routing rules, disk drives, interfaces, and network adapters. Only those components found during the last Discovery appear in these Related Lists.

    Icons in related lists

    Any of the following icons may appear in lists of CI related items.
    Table 1.
    Currently active incidents. For currently active incidents against this configuration item
    Currently active problems. For currently active problems against the configuration item
    Currently active changes. For currently active changes against the configuration item that are not covered in the past, current, pending changes. For example, a request to update the operating system on a server that is currently in progress may display this icon.
    Recently completed changes. For changes that were recently completed against the configuration item. changes with an "Actual_end_date" in the past.
    Planned changes. For changes that are planned soon against the configuration item. changes with an "Actual start date" in the future.
    Currently active changes. For currently active changes against the configuration item that have an "Actual start date"
    Recently completed outages. For outages that were recently completed against the configuration item. outages with an "end" date in the past.
    Planned outages. For outages that are planned soon against the configuration item. outages with a "begin" date in the future.
    Currently active outages. For currently active outages against the configuration item that have a "begin" date in the past and no "end" date
    Issues with downstream CI. This will only show up in the Tree view and indicates that a configuration item that is downstream has at least one of the above issues against it.

    The system looks five calendar days into the past and seven calendar days into the future when looking at recent outages and changes.