Getting advice from Now Assist on CMDB governance

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated December 2, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Getting advice from Now Assist on CMDB governance

    Data governance, especially for the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), can be complex. The Provide advice on CMDB governance agentic workflow in ServiceNow supports data administrators and owners in methodically improving CMDB data accuracy, completeness, and overall health. This workflow encourages trust in the CMDB data, which is crucial for effective IT asset and service management.

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    The workflow specifically evaluates Configuration Items (CIs) updated within the last 90 days and provides ongoing governance guidance as data models and integrations evolve.

    Key Features

    • Agentic Workflow: Guides users through improving CMDB data quality to enhance incident resolution speed, compliance, and reduce service disruption risk.
    • AI Agents: Several specialized AI agents support the governance tasks within the workflow:
      • CMDB Principal Class Manager AI Agent: Helps identify and set principal CI classes to simplify list views and focus on frequently used classes.
      • CMDB Life Cycle Manager AI Agent: Assists in enforcing CMDB life-cycle policies for principal or specified classes.
      • CMDB Data Certification and Attestation Manager AI Agent: Retrieves or creates data certification and attestation policies for CI classes.
      • CMDB Health Metrics Manager AI Agent: Provides data on CMDB Health Dashboard jobs, metrics status, and health scores, including setup guidance if needed.
      • CMDB Data Ownership Manager AI Agent: Evaluates the quality and validity of CI ownership data by assessing fields referencing users and groups, helping to maintain accurate ownership attribution.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    By leveraging this workflow and its AI agents, ServiceNow customers can systematically improve the governance of their CMDB data. This leads to:

    • Improved trust and reliability of CMDB data for daily operations.
    • Faster incident resolution through accurate and complete asset and service information.
    • Enhanced compliance with data governance policies.
    • Reduced risk of service disruptions due to better data health and ownership clarity.

    Accessing and using this workflow enables admins and data owners to manage the CMDB proactively as their IT environment evolves.

    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 promote that users can trust the data that they use for their work.

    Access the workflow

    See Get advice on CMDB governance from Now Assist for information on accessing the workflow.

    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 compliance, 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 AI agents.

    AI agents

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

    Looking for an AI agent?
    • There might be AI agents installed with the Now Assist application that are not used in agentic workflows. To learn how to see all agents that are available on your instance, see Find AI agents.
    • To find agents that might not be installed on your instance, visit the AI Agent Marketplace on the ServiceNow Store.
    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 class list in the Principal Class filter.

    CMDB life cycle manager AI agent

    The CMDB life cycle manager AI agent helps admins to promote 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 are not 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 Now Assist 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.