Getting advice from ServiceNow Otto on CMDB governance

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Getting advice from ServiceNow Otto on CMDB governance

    ServiceNow Otto provides an agentic workflow designed to assist data administrators and owners in improving the accuracy, completeness, and health of Configuration Management Database (CMDB) data. This workflow supports governance efforts to ensure that CMDB data is trustworthy and effectively maintained, which is critical for reliable IT asset and service management within your organization.

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    The workflow evaluates Configuration Items (CIs) updated within the last 90 days and offers ongoing guidance as data models and integrations evolve. Using this structured approach helps enhance incident resolution speed, compliance, and reduces risks related to service disruptions.

    Key AI Agents and Their Roles

    • CMDB Principal Class Manager AI Agent: Helps determine and set principal CI classes, simplifying the display and management of commonly used CI classes in ServiceNow AI Platform products.
    • CMDB Life Cycle Manager AI Agent: Assists administrators in confirming that life-cycle policies are applied to principal or specified CI classes, ensuring proper governance throughout the CI life cycle.
    • CMDB Data Certification and Attestation Manager AI Agent: Retrieves and can create data certification and attestation policies for CI classes, supporting compliance and data quality standards.
    • CMDB Health Metrics Manager AI Agent: Displays health dashboard jobs, metrics status, and health scores, offering setup guidance if health jobs are not configured to maintain CMDB integrity.
    • CMDB Data Ownership Manager AI Agent: Evaluates the quality of ownership data for CI classes, validating user and group references to ensure active and accurate ownership records. It classifies ownership quality as Poor, Average, or Healthy based on configurable thresholds.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    By leveraging the Provide advice on CMDB governance workflow and its associated AI agents, ServiceNow customers can:

    • Systematically improve CMDB data quality and trustworthiness.
    • Streamline governance by focusing on principal CI classes and life-cycle policies.
    • Enhance compliance through data certification and attestation management.
    • Monitor CMDB health proactively using metrics and dashboard insights.
    • Maintain accurate CI ownership data, essential for accountability and process alignment.

    This workflow empowers admins and data owners to maintain a high-performing CMDB that supports better decision-making and operational efficiency within the ServiceNow platform.

    Data governance can be an overwhelming task. The Provide advice on CMDB governance agentic workflow supports data admins and owners by methodically working through the many-faceted process of improving CMDB data accuracy, completeness, and health. The objective is to help users to trust the data that they use for their work.

    Access the workflow

    See Get advice on CMDB governance from ServiceNow Otto for information on accessing the workflow.

    Descriptions of AI agents

    This topic includes overviews of the actions of AI agents.

    There might be AI agents installed on your instance that are not used in agentic workflows. To learn how to see all agents that are available to you, see Find AI agents.

    Provide advice on CMDB governance agentic workflow

    The Configuration Management Database (CMDB) is the central repository of your organization's IT assets, services, and their relationships. The Provide advice on CMDB governance agentic workflow helps to promote CMDB accuracy, completeness, and integrity to maximize the value and performance of your ServiceNow AI Platform products. The results are faster incident resolution, enhanced conformance, and a reduced risk of service disruption. The agentic workflow evaluates CIs updated in the last 90 days.

    The Provide advice on CMDB governance agentic workflow supports admins and owners with information on data health and ongoing guidance for governance as data models and integrations grow. The workflow calls on the following AI agents:

    AI agents used by the CMDB principal class manager AI agent

    AI agents

    This section presents overviews of the actions of the AI agents that the CMDB governance agentic workflow uses.

    There might be AI agents installed on your instance that are not used in agentic workflows. To learn how to see all agents that are available to you, see Find AI agents.

    CMDB principal class manager AI agent

    The CMDB principal class manager AI agent determines whether you can set Cl classes as principal, suggests principal classes, and can set or unset a class as principal. Setting a class as a principal class is a practical way to save time because you can configure ServiceNow AI Platform products to display only principal classes in list views. The workflow helps you to decide which CIs you're most likely to work with day-to-day and then provides a link to enable you to set the associated classes as principal classes. For more information, see Update the list of classes in the Principal Class filter.

    CMDB life cycle manager AI agent

    The CMDB life cycle manager AI agent helps admins to confirm that CMDB life-cycle policies are in place for principal classes or for specified classes. For more information, see Working with CMDB Data Manager.

    CMDB data certification and attestation manager AI agent

    The CMDB data certification and attestation manager AI agent retrieves the data certification and attestation policies for a CI class and for similar classes. It can also create a data certification and an attestation policy. For more information, see Data Certification.

    CMDB health metrics manager AI agent

    The CMDB health metrics manager AI agent displays information on CMDB Health Dashboard jobs, health metrics status, and health scores. If the jobs aren't configured, the workflow provides a link to the setup instructions. For more information, see CMDB Health.

    CMDB data ownership manager AI agent
    The CMDB data ownership manager AI agent helps you to assess the quality of CI ownership data for a CI class to determine ownership, validate ownership, and evaluate ownership quality. You can validate fields that reference sys_user or sys_user_group like Assigned To, Managed by Group (default), Support Group, and so on. The agent answers the following questions:
    • Is CI ownership specified? Is the Managed by group attribute value set for the CI? Does it indicate an active and correctly configured record? The value of the system property for ownership is a default field for the evaluation. For the Managed by group CI attribute, you can specify the percentage values that classify the result as Poor, Average, or Healthy. For more information, see Property settings for ServiceNow Otto for CMDB.
    • If you provide a user referencing value: Does the User Referencing value indicate an active record? This evaluation identifies CIs that have inactive users and CIs with no User value.
    • If you provide a user referencing value: Does the Group Referencing value indicate an active record? This evaluation identifies CIs that have inactive groups, empty groups (no users), and CIs with no Group value.