Problem Management use case

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Problem Management use case

    Problem Management in ServiceNow is designed to prevent problems and the recurrence of related incidents. It helps eliminate recurring incidents and minimize the impact of incidents that cannot be prevented. This use case enables you to capture detailed information about affected configuration items (CIs), such as assets, within problem records. Tracking these assets allows you to identify their location, usage, and lifecycle changes like updates, repairs, swaps, or retirements. Problem Management also supports monitoring and managing assets systematically, including analyzing CI dependencies to understand the broader impact of problems on related CIs.

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    Key Features

    • Integration with CMDB and CSDM Framework: The Common Service Data Model (CSDM) enhances Problem Management by providing a structured way to understand the impact of problems on services and offerings.
    • Impact Analysis and Routing: Problems can be dynamically routed based on identified impacted services, enabling efficient resolution workflows.
    • Use of CSDM Data Elements:
      • Subscriptions: Lists related to service offerings identify users, groups, departments, companies, and locations that might be impacted by an outage.
      • Business Service Offerings: Help identify business approvers and assess business criticality for problems.
      • Technology Management Offerings: Facilitate assignment to technical approvers and groups for problem resolution.
      • Service Instances: Differentiate production and non-production environments (e.g., DEV, QA, UAT) to focus problem management efforts appropriately.
      • Environment Attribute: Recommended over the legacy usedfor attribute to specify the environment context of service offerings.

    What to Expect

    By leveraging the CSDM framework within Problem Management, you gain contextual insights into which configuration items are involved in a problem. This supports more accurate impact analysis and root cause identification. Practical steps include:

    • Populating the Configuration Item field on the Problem form with the affected CI or service.
    • Optionally using the Service and Service Offering fields on the Problem form to narrow the selection of CIs, noting that this requires additional configuration beyond the base system.
    • Using the Affected CI related list to identify other CIs potentially causing or impacted by the problem.

    This structured approach helps ServiceNow customers systematically manage problems, understand their impact on services and assets, and streamline remediation efforts.

    The Problem Management use case is described in this section.

    Problem Management is used to prevent problems and the occurrence of resulting incidents. It also aims at eliminating recurring incidents and minimizing the impact of incidents that cannot be prevented. With Problem Management, you can capture information on affected configuration items (CIs), with type as asset, in a problem to keep a record of the updated, repaired, swapped, or retired configuration items. By keeping track of the assets, you can identify the location of the assets, their usage and when the assets were changed. Using Problem Management, you to monitor and manage the assets in your company using a systematic approach.

    If a configuration item (CI) has resulted in a problem, use the dependency view to identify other configuration items (CIs) affected by the CI that caused the problem. You can then associate affected configuration items (CIs) with a problem record to find out how the problem affects other CIs with dependent relationships.

    Key features of the Problem Management use case

    The CMDB, when used by the CSDM framework, provides value to Problem Management in the following ways:
    • Understand the impact of the problem on services and service offerings.​
    • Dynamically route problems.
    • Identify one or more impacted services to address the problem.​

    CSDM data elements available for use by Problem Management.

    The CSDM data elements used in Problem Management are:

    1. Subscription: Related lists on service offerings that identify who has access to the offering and thus might be impacted in an outage. A problem can identify impact using the subscribed by tables. The related lists are as follows:
      • Service Subscriptions by Company [service_subscribe_company]
      • Service Subscriptions by Department [service_subscribe_department]
      • Service Subscriptions by Group [service_subscribe_sys_user_grp]
      • Service Subscriptions by Location [service_subscribe_location]
      • Service Subscriptions by User [service_subscribe_sys_user]
    2. Business service offering might be used by problems to provide the business approver based on approval_group and business_criticality. A business service may have multiple offerings, each with a different criticality.
    3. Technology management offerings might be used by problems to provide the technical approver approval_group and technical assignment group on the attribute assignment_group.
    4. Service instance may be used to provide prod and non-prod (DEV, QA, UAT, and so on) environments. Non-prod environments may be filtered out if desired. The legacy used_for attribute maps to the environment attribute. You should use the environment attribute.
      Note:
      Some service offerings may identify the environment of the offering as well.

    Results of the Problem Management use case

    The CSDM framework provides Problem Management context for problems on what CIs may be involved.

    To determine the impact and root cause, compete the following steps:
    1. Populate the Configuration Item attribute on the Problem form, configuration_item, with the CI item or service affected.
    2. (Optional) Use the Service and Service Offering attributes on the Problem form to help narrow down the list of configuration items to choose from. This feature is not available with the base system and needs additional configuration.
    3. (Optional) Use the Affected CI related list to identify the CIs that may have caused the problem.