Manage the Technology Reference Model in Enterprise Architecture Workspace

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Manage the Technology Reference Model in Enterprise Architecture Workspace

    The Technology Reference Model (TRM) in the Enterprise Architecture Workspace helps ServiceNow customers define and enforce standards for approved software and hardware products within their organization. By managing the TRM, customers can minimize risks related to security, delivery, and legal compliance that arise from using unapproved technology. The TRM module enables visibility into technology usage and governance by tracking software products and their approval status across business applications.

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    Key Features

    • TRM Product Management: View, request, create, approve, or reject TRM products and their lifecycle phases.
    • Lifecycle Tracking: Each TRM product is associated with lifecycle phases such as approved, unapproved, evaluation, and divest, with defined start and end dates to monitor product status.
    • Governance and Accountability: Assign owners to TRM categories to maintain compliance standards and ensure governance.
    • Integration with Software Asset Management (SAM): Import or select software products and versions via SAM plugin; alternatively, define custom software products without SAM integration.
    • Technical Debt Management: Identify and manage technical debt arising from unapproved software usage, with detailed tracking of affected business applications and reasons for non-compliance.
    • Wildcard Lifecycle Updates: Use wildcards in TRM lifecycles to update multiple software versions simultaneously, simplifying lifecycle management.
    • Gantt Chart Visualization: Visualize TRM and TLM lifecycle timelines for easier review and decision-making.

    Key Outcomes

    • Improved security posture by enforcing approved software standards.
    • Better risk mitigation through clear identification and management of unapproved technology usage.
    • Enhanced governance with accountable owners for TRM categories ensuring consistent compliance.
    • Reduced technical debt and associated costs by proactively managing software lifecycle and approvals.
    • Streamlined technology management with integration options and lifecycle visualization tools.

    You can use the Technology Reference Model (TRM) feature in Enterprise Architecture Workspace to define the standards for your software and hardware products and manage unapproved products in your organization.

    Overview and benefits of a TRM

    In your business enterprise, using an unapproved software can create a risk to the organization. The risks can include the following:
    • Security risks: The software might be exposed to security issues.
    • Delivery risks: There might not be sufficient knowledge on how to support the software.
    • Legal risks: A business application might use the software in illegal ways.

    You must define the standards for the software that is to be used and the software versions that are permitted for use in your organization. Also, you need a way to explore when a non-permitted software is being used within the organization and in which business applications.

    You can use the TRM module in the Enterprise Architecture Workspace to perform the following:
    • View a list of all available TRM products. You can also view the list of TRM products grouped by product category.
    • Request a TRM product
    • Request a TRM product lifecycle
    • Create a TRM product
    • Create a TRM product lifecycle
    • Approve or reject TRM product and product lifecycle requests.

    Using the TRM module, you can manage the standards of the technology and set the right guardrail for technology usage. Setting the standards can improve the technical debt, security posture and save costs for the organization.

    You can also assign an owner to a TRM category, to ensure clear accountability and improved governance standards. The owner is responsible for maintaining consistent technology compliance standards for that TRM category.

    TRM Product Lifecycle

    Each product in the TRM library is associated with a set of life-cycle phases with a start and end date. The life-cycle phases could be approved, unapproved, approved with constraints, Divest, and evaluation.

    The TLM home page fetches all the business applications that are being used in your organization. It helps to review the status of the software that is being used. You can understand if any business application is using the software that is not part of the TRM or a software version that is not approved for production. For more information, see TRM lifecycle timelines on Gantt chart.

    The TRM module uses a similar module to TLM to search in the TRM library. You can view the software that is part of the TRM library, and initiate a request to add the software or software version to the TRM library.

    You can also use the TRM with the Software Asset Management (SAM) plugin. This plugin helps you to fetch or select the products and versions for the TRM library. You can also define your own software products when the Software Asset Management integration module isn’t available for your instance.