Configuring catalog item designer options

Administrators and catalog administrators can control the options for catalog managers and editors who use the catalog item designer.

Starting with the Utah release, Item Designer is being prepared for future deprecation. It will be hidden and no longer activated on new instances but will continue to be supported. Catalog Builder provides the latest experience for this functionality. For details, see the Deprecation Process [KB0867184] article in the Now Support Knowledge Base.

Configuration includes defining question types, approval types, and task assignment types. You can restrict these options to ensure that items are designed consistently and with few variations, or expand them to enable greater design flexibility.

You can also process category creation requests and view or modify definitions of notifications used by the catalog item designer.

Process Flow

The catalog item designer uses the records in three distinct areas for creating, publishing, and requesting items:

1. Creating: The catalog item designer uses staging records for items that are being created, with staging records for any associated questions, approvals, and tasks. For example, a staging item [sc_ic_item_staging] record can have associated staging approval [sc_ic_aprvl_defn_staging] records. These records are staging only, and are not available to order from the Service Catalog.
2. Publishing: A published item can be requested from the Service Catalog. When item editors publish an item, the following actions occur:
   • Staging items create or update the corresponding catalog items.
   • Questions are copied into variables on that catalog item.
   • Associated approvals and tasks are copied into corresponding published tables. For example, approval [sc_ic_aprvl_defn_staging] records are copied to equivalent approval definition [sc_ic_aprvl_defn] records for the item.
3. Requesting: Requested items and associated records are created when a published catalog item is ordered by a self-service user.
   • A requested item is generated based on the last-published item and the last-published versions of any variables used by that item.
   • Associated approvals and tasks are copied from the published records into equivalent requested item tables. For example, Approval Definition [sc_ic_aprvl_defn] records are copied to equivalent Approval Definition (Requested Item) [sc_ic_req_item_aprvl_defn] records.

• Define question types
  Question types define the options available to catalog editors or catalog managers when they create questions for a catalog item.
• Manage approval types
  Approval types are available to catalog editors or catalog managers when they define approvals for an item. Add and change approval types, publish them, and expire them when they are no longer useful.
• Manage task assignment types
  Task assignment types define the assignment options available to catalog editors and catalog managers when they define tasks for an item. You can add, change, publish, and expire task assignment types.
• Review category requests from self-service users
  The Item Designer Category Request catalog item can be enabled to allow self-service users to request service catalog categories. If the category request is approved, the Item Designer application becomes available for the user to create and manage catalog items in the category.