Legacy CI relationship builder
Summarize
Summary of Legacy CI relationship builder
The Legacy CI Relationship Builder is a manual tool for defining Configuration Item (CI) relationships within ServiceNow’s Configuration Management Database (CMDB). It offers a more advanced interface compared to the standard list collector, enabling precise control over CI relationships. This legacy tool is accessed via the CI relationship builder icon in the legacy CI relations formatter and provides an alternative to the newer CI relationship editor.
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Key Features
- Select CI Relationship Type: The top section allows users to choose the specific type of CI relationship they want to manage, ensuring that relationship types are relevant to the selected CI.
- Filter Relationship Types: Users can filter the list of available relationships using checkboxes, such as hiding relationships between CIs, users, or groups. Users with the itiladmin role can access an option to show all relationships regardless of default suggestions.
- Select CI Relationship Targets: The interface presents two lists—one for potential CIs to link and one for already linked CIs—allowing users to easily link or unlink CIs by moving items between lists.
- Pending Changes Management: Any changes made to relationships appear as pending until the user saves or cancels, providing control to review before committing.
Practical Use and Outcomes
ServiceNow customers can use the Legacy CI Relationship Builder to manually define and manage relationships between CIs, users, and groups in the CMDB with granular control. This tool is particularly useful when the suggested relationships need to be adjusted or customized. Changes made here impact the visibility and accuracy of relationships crucial for CMDB integrity and downstream processes like impact analysis and service mapping.
After making adjustments, saving changes commits them and returns users to the prior context (such as the CI record or Business Service Map). Cancelling changes exits without saving, ensuring no unintended modifications occur.
Used to define CI relationships manually, this page is a sophisticated version of the standard list collector. In the legacy CI relations formatter, click the CI relationship builder icon (
) to display the legacy Define Relationships
page.
For information about the latest CI relationship editor, see CI relationship editor.
Select a CI relationship type
The top half of the legacy relationship editor contains a large option box that allows you to select which type of relationship you want to manipulate. Click the particular type of relationship you are interested in working with.
Filter the list of CI relationships
In the legacy relationship editor, the check boxes along the right hand edge of the select box provide a quick way to filter down the list of available relationships.
By default, the system displays a list of all suggested relationships for the type of CI you selected. For example, if you selected a Database instance, a relationship of "Runs on" makes sense, but a relationship of "Provides HVAC for" does not. The default filter is stored in the user preferences ci_manage_relationships_filter_hint.cmdb_cici_manage_relationships_filter_hint.sys_user, and ci_manage_relationships_filter_hint.sys_user_group.
- Hide CI relationship -- Hides any relationships between this CI and another CI (e.g. "Receives data from").
- Hide user relationships -- Hides any relationships between this CI and a user (e.g. "Logs reviewed by").
- Hide group relationships -- Hides any relationships between this CI and a group (e.g. "Backups done by").
- Show all relationships -- If you have the appropriate role (out of the box this is itil_admin) you will have an additional check box labeled "Show all relationships." If you click that check box, the system will let you choose any relationship defined in the system, regardless of where it is on the "suggested" list for this type of CI.
Select CI relationship targets
In the legacy relationship editor, users can link or unlink CIs for a relationship type.
As soon as you pick a relationship type, the system will fill in the two select boxes at the bottom of the screen with CI's that are appropriate for the relationship you suggested. The left hand select box will contain a list of CI's that might reasonably be linked via this relationship, while the right hand box contains a list of those CI's which are already linked.
- Link or unlink items.
Link new items Move that CI from the left hand box to the right hand box. Unlink existing items Move them from the right hand box to the left. When you make either type of change, a message appears indicating that you have pending changes.
- Apply or cancel your changes.
Click the Save button. This will save your set of changes, and go back to the previous screen (either a CI or the BSM map depending on how you got here). Click the Cancel button. This causes you to exit without saving your changes.