---
sourceDocument: Australia ServiceNow AI Platform Capabilities
sourceDocumentLink: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/servicenow-platform

 Release :

    - australia

ft:locale :

    - en-US

ft:publication_title :

    - Australia ServiceNow AI Platform Capabilities

ft:clusterId :

    - platcap

bundleId :

    - platcap

workflow :

    - Platform


---

# Explore

# Exploring CMDB success advisor {#ariaid-title1}

Release version: Australia  
Updated July 22, 2026  
![](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ico-clock) 6 minutes to read
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![AI sparkle icon](https://servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ai-sparkle-icon) Summarized using AI  
This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.  

## Summary of Exploring CMDB success advisor

CMDB Success Advisor is a ServiceNow tool designed to help organizations enhance the accuracy and completeness of their Configuration Management Database (CMDB) data.
It focuses on improving data quality for key Configuration Item (CI) classes related to three primary business outcomes: Data Foundations, Hardware Asset Management (HAM), and Software Asset Management (SAM).
By monitoring critical CI classes, the advisor enables organizations to ensure accurate and complete data, supporting essential IT and asset management processes.
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## Key Features

* **Targeted Data Quality Improvement:** Uses customized CMDB metrics to track and improve data for principal CI classes important to incidents, changes, problems (Data Foundations), hardware models (HAM), and software products (SAM).
* **User Role Support:** Provides tailored dashboards and functionalities based on user roles such as CMDB administrator, CMDB user, and CMDB editor. Administrators can configure and remediate data issues; users and editors can monitor data quality progress.
* **Comprehensive Dashboards:** Consolidated insights and metrics allow visibility into missing attributes, stale or duplicate records, integration coverage, and specific hardware and software asset data quality.
* **Continuous Monitoring and Remediation:** Tracks key performance indicators (KPIs) for CI completeness, duplicates, and attribute accuracy with guided remediation actions directly accessible from dashboards.
* **Configuration and Policy Alignment:** Helps align CMDB Data Manager policies, reconciliation rules, synchronization, asset creation, and status mappings to maintain consistent and accurate CMDB data.
* **Integration Analysis:** Evaluates integration sources and Discovery patterns to ensure appropriate data feeds are populating the CMDB correctly for Data Foundations and HAM.

## Key Outcomes

* **Improved CMDB Data Quality:** Enables focused remediation of data issues such as missing attributes, stale records, duplicates, and incorrect relationships, leading to more reliable CMDB data.
* **Enhanced Asset Management Accuracy:** For HAM, ensures hardware model categories are normalized with accurate serial numbers, locations, and asset states supporting life cycle and financial reporting.
* **Better Software Asset Compliance:** For SAM, improves software install data tracking including edition, version, license coverage, and virtual server-host relationships to support licensing compliance.
* **Increased Visibility and Control:** Empowers CMDB administrators and users with role-specific dashboards to monitor data quality status and progress against business-critical CI classes and asset categories.

## Practical Use for ServiceNow Customers

ServiceNow customers can leverage CMDB Success Advisor to systematically monitor and improve their CMDB data quality aligned to their organizational priorities in IT service management, hardware asset tracking, and software license compliance. By utilizing role-specific dashboards and guided remediation workflows, customers can ensure their CMDB supports accurate incident, change, and problem management as well as asset lifecycle and compliance reporting. The tool also assists administrators in aligning CMDB configuration settings and data integrations to maintain ongoing data accuracy and completeness.  
Learn about CMDB success advisor and review the benefits it can provide for different users in your organization.

## CMDB success advisor overview {#cmdb-sa-explore__cf-exploring-parent-overview}

Review CMDB Data Manager policies and Configuration Management Database (CMDB) settings through CMDB success advisor to identify improvement areas. The advisor supports the following business outcomes: Data Foundations, Hardware Asset Management (HAM) and Software Asset Management (SAM). The advisor uses customized CMDB metrics to improve data quality for targeted configuration item (CI) classes. It identifies and monitors the CI classes most critical to your organizational processes to enable complete and accurate data in Data Foundations, tracking hardware model categories for HAM, and tracking software products for SAM.

## CMDB success advisor users {#cmdb-sa-explore__cf-exploring-parent-users}

{#cmdb-sa-explore__table_xml_sv3_ybc__entry__3}

| User | Description | Additional roles required |
|-|-|-|
| CMDB administrator | Users with the sn_cmdb_admin role can configure and improve CMDB data accuracy based on specific business use cases. With targeted CI tracking, practical data integration suggestions, and application-specific dashboards, the CMDB success advisor enables CMDB administrators to improve CMDB data accuracy and achieve key business outcomes. For Data Foundations, administrators can select and manage principal classes, monitor data quality across the CI classes most critical to incidents, changes, and problems, and use integration coverage analysis to make sure the right data sources are keeping the CMDB accurate and complete. For Hardware Asset Management, administrators can focus on critical hardware model categories to improve normalization rates, asset life cycle tracking, and data accuracy for business outcomes like HAM. For Software Asset Management, administrators (sam_admin or sn_cmdb_admin) can select software products to track and monitor software install completeness, cloud license coverage, and virtual server-to-host CI relationship accuracy for licensing compliance. | cmdb_inst_admin :   Required to manage Service Graph Connector connections in SGC Central through CMDB success advisor. pd_user :   Required to view Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns through CMDB success advisor with read-only access. pd_admin :   Required to modify Discovery patterns through CMDB success advisor with write access. |
| CMDB user | Users with the sn_cmdb_user role can view CMDB success advisor dashboards in read-only mode from the Insights view in Service Graph Workspace. With Dashboard tab access only, CMDB users can monitor data quality metrics and remediation progress across principal classes and hardware model categories. The Settings and Integrations tabs aren't available to these users. For Data Foundations, CMDB users can view CI data quality metrics by principal CI class, including missing attributes, stale records, duplicate CIs, and discovery source breakdown. For Hardware Asset Management, CMDB users can view hardware asset metrics by model category and integration source, including missing model ID, serial number, location, duplicates, and asset state. For Software Asset Management, CMDB users can view software install data quality metrics, including missing edition, version, cloud license, environment, and CPU attributes, duplicate installs, and virtual server-to-host relationship accuracy. | None |
| CMDB editor | Users with the sn_cmdb_editor role can view CMDB success advisor dashboards from the Insights view in Service Graph Workspace, with write access on CMDB records outside the application. With Dashboard tab access only in CMDB success advisor, CMDB editors can monitor data quality metrics and remediation progress across principal classes and hardware model categories. The Settings and Integrations tabs aren't available to these users. For Data Foundations, CMDB editors can view CI data quality metrics by principal CI class, including missing attributes, stale records, duplicate CIs, and discovery source breakdown. For Hardware Asset Management, CMDB editors can view hardware asset metrics by model category and integration source, including missing model ID, serial number, location, duplicates, and asset state. For Software Asset Management, CMDB editors can view software install data quality metrics, including missing edition, version, cloud license, environment, and CPU attributes, duplicate installs, and virtual server-to-host relationship accuracy. | None |
[Table 1. Users]

{#cmdb-sa-explore__table_xml_sv3_ybc}

## CMDB success advisor benefits {#cmdb-sa-explore__cf-exploring-parent-benefits}

The following benefits are available to CMDB administrators across Data Foundations, HAM, and Software Asset Management (SAM).
{#cmdb-sa-explore__cf-exploring-parent-benefits__entry__3}

| Benefit | Feature | Users |
|-|-|-|
| Focused CMDB setup for specific business outcomes For Data Foundations, advisor dashboard scope is built from principal classes recommended based on incident, problem, and change (IPC) activity. If IPC data is unavailable, classes are ranked by how widely they are used across your CMDB. For new instances with no historical data, a set of default classes is suggested. For HAM, advisor dashboard scope is defined by hardware model categories. For SAM, advisor dashboard scope is defined by software products. | Use-case-driven CMDB configuration. To learn more, see [CMDB success advisor for Data Foundations setup](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/FZoWEYZ2~5Gdp1JOyrjuBg "The Data Foundations advisor dashboard provides tools to define your principal class scope, monitor CI data quality, and drive targeted improvements."), [CMDB success advisor for HAM setup](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=cmdb-sa-ham-config-settings&version=australia&pubname=australia-it-asset-management&ft:locale=en-US), and [CMDB success advisor for SAM setup](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=cmdb-sa-sam-config-settings&version=australia&pubname=australia-it-asset-management&ft:locale=en-US) | CMDB administrator |
| Improved visibility For Data Foundations, view CI data quality metrics by principal CI class, including missing attributes, stale records, duplicate CIs, and discovery source breakdown. For HAM, view hardware asset metrics by model category and integration source. For SAM, view software install data quality metrics by software product, publisher, and CI class. | Dashboard with consolidated insights and metrics To learn more, see [Monitoring CMDB data quality using dashboard metrics in CMDB success advisor for Data Foundations](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/0LfgpANAVJFFuKuyyr1l_g "The CMDB success advisor for Data Foundations dashboard enables CMDB administrators to identify and address data quality issues specific to principal classes in the Configuration Management Database (CMDB)."), [Monitoring CMDB data quality using dashboard metrics in CMDB success advisor for HAM](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=cmdb-sa-ham-dashboard&version=australia&pubname=australia-it-asset-management&ft:locale=en-US), and [Monitoring CMDB data quality using dashboard metrics in CMDB success advisor for SAM](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=cmdb-sa-sam-dashboard&version=australia&pubname=australia-it-asset-management&ft:locale=en-US) | * CMDB administrator * CMDB user * CMDB editor {#cmdb-sa-explore__ul_w3r_d2h_njc} |
| Continuous data quality improvement For Data Foundations, track KPIs for CI completeness, stale records, duplicates, and integration coverage across principal classes. For HAM, track KPIs for missing model ID, serial number, location, duplicates, and asset state. For SAM, track KPIs for missing edition, version, cloud license, environment, and CPU attributes, duplicate installs, and virtual server-to-host relationship accuracy. | KPI details access from the dashboard for metric monitoring, remediation tracking, and guided resolution steps To learn more, see [Monitoring CMDB data quality using dashboard metrics in CMDB success advisor for Data Foundations](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/0LfgpANAVJFFuKuyyr1l_g "The CMDB success advisor for Data Foundations dashboard enables CMDB administrators to identify and address data quality issues specific to principal classes in the Configuration Management Database (CMDB)."), [Monitoring CMDB data quality using dashboard metrics in CMDB success advisor for HAM](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=cmdb-sa-ham-dashboard&version=australia&pubname=australia-it-asset-management&ft:locale=en-US), and [Monitoring CMDB data quality using dashboard metrics in CMDB success advisor for SAM](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=cmdb-sa-sam-dashboard&version=australia&pubname=australia-it-asset-management&ft:locale=en-US) | * CMDB administrator * CMDB user * CMDB editor {#cmdb-sa-explore__ul_kjq_f2h_njc} |
| Data quality improvement suggestions For Data Foundations, target principal class issues such as stale CIs and duplicate records. For HAM, address hardware issues such as missing serial numbers and asset/CI mismatches. For SAM, address stale CIs and installs on duplicate CIs. | Remediation actions panel available for a chart in the dashboard To learn more, see [Improving CMDB data quality for Data Foundations](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/hae5WCTTYRMMF2XXN_2ckA "The Remediation actions panel available for a chart in the CMDB success advisor dashboard for Data Foundations displays suggestions for targeted actions to address Data Foundations data quality issues and improve the overall quality of your Configuration Management Database (CMDB). Select the Ask Otto action on a KPI card to start an agent conversation without waiting for the next scheduled agent run."), [Improving CMDB data quality for HAM](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=cmdb-sa-ham-remediation&version=australia&pubname=australia-it-asset-management&ft:locale=en-US), and [Improving CMDB data quality for SAM](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=cmdb-sa-sam-remediation&version=australia&pubname=australia-it-asset-management&ft:locale=en-US) | * CMDB administrator * CMDB user * CMDB editor {#cmdb-sa-explore__ul_ts3_g2h_njc} |
| Better alignment of CMDB rules and policies For Data Foundations, align CMDB Data Manager ownership policies and reconciliation rules for principal classes. For HAM, configure synchronization rules, asset creation rules, and status mappings. | Settings summary for gap analysis and configuration guidance To learn more, see [Analyze CMDB settings for Data Foundations](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/GzrcsuqbRWpwYJof~MqMxw "Monitor and optimize Configuration Management Database (CMDB) settings that support configuration item (CI) data quality, Common Service Data Model (CSDM) alignment, and Data Foundations outcomes.") and [Analyzing CMDB settings for HAM](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=cmdb-sa-ham-analyze-settings&version=australia&pubname=australia-it-asset-management&ft:locale=en-US) | CMDB administrator |
| Improved CMDB data coverage and accuracy For Data Foundations, evaluate integration sources with attribute-level coverage analysis across principal classes. For HAM, review SGC and Discovery pattern rankings for hardware model categories. | Data integrations summary for reviewing and evaluating integration sources To learn more, see [Analyzing data integrations for improving Data Foundations](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/pX7zw1yxdQTS24P085d7eQ "Improve Data Foundations coverage by analyzing existing and suggested data integrations, including Discovery patterns and Service Graph Connectors.") and [Analyzing data integrations for improving HAM data coverage](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=cmdb-sa-ham-data-integrations&version=australia&pubname=australia-it-asset-management&ft:locale=en-US) | CMDB administrator |
[ ]

## Use cases {#cmdb-sa-explore__section_bqd_g32_5fc}

You can use CMDB success advisor for the following business outcomes:

* Data Foundations: Improve data quality across the principal classes your organization relies on for incidents, changes, and problems. Monitor attribute completeness, detect stale and duplicate records, and evaluate integration coverage to verify the right data sources are populating your CMDB. For more information, see [Using CMDB success advisor for Data Foundations](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/EtY0dOPANh5kJfyGfBOQ6Q "As a CMDB administrator, you can use the Data Foundations dashboard in CMDB success advisor to improve data quality for the most critical CI classes. Use Data Foundations to keep your CI data accurate, complete, and reliable across the CI classes your organization relies on for incidents, problems, and changes.").
* HAM: Improve hardware data quality across model categories such as computers, servers, and printers. Identify and resolve missing model IDs, serial numbers, and locations, eliminate duplicate CIs and align asset and CI states to support accurate life cycle tracking and financial reporting. For more information, see [Using CMDB success advisor for HAM](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=cmdb-sa-ham-use&version=australia&pubname=australia-it-asset-management&ft:locale=en-US).
* Software Asset Management (SAM): Improve software install data quality across selected software products. Identify and resolve installs missing edition, version, or cloud license details, eliminate installs on duplicate CIs, and verify virtual server-to-host CI relationships to support licensing compliance. For more information, see [Using CMDB success advisor for SAM](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=cmdb-sa-sam-use&version=australia&pubname=australia-it-asset-management&ft:locale=en-US).

## What to explore next {#cmdb-sa-explore__cf-exploring-parent-links}

To learn more about configuring and using CMDB success advisor for supported business outcomes, see:

* [Configuring CMDB success advisor](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/_VWYSN_mcHgsidK0RX431g "Complete the configuration tasks to start using the CMDB success advisor.")
* [Supported business outcomes](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/33_gl2HTDoCc38e4zucbOg "CMDB success advisor helps improve CMDB data quality by aligning data quality efforts with specific business outcomes. Identify the areas most relevant to your organization and start with the outcomes to achieve.")
* [CMDB success advisor reference](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/Zwri1_PzT5Spw2dXVkphdw "Reference topics provide additional information about CMDB success advisor components, configuration reviews, and data integration checklists.")
{#cmdb-sa-explore__ul_bnl_sv3_ybc}