Setting up specifications and product offerings

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
    • Summarize
    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 Setting up specifications and product offerings

    As a product catalog manager in ServiceNow, you are responsible for setting up and publishing versioned product offerings and specifications within a technical product catalog. This enables customers to order the most current versions of products or services tailored to their needs. Product offerings include descriptions, pricing, eligibility, and options, and are grouped in catalogs for easy customer access. Only published offerings can be added to customer contracts, ensuring accurate and up-to-date ordering.

    Show full answer Show less

    The fulfillment of a product offering depends on the relationship between the offering and its associated product, service, and resource specifications.

    Key Components

    • Product Specification: Defines product details such as characteristic options, brand, cost, terms and conditions, and customer-facing materials like visuals. It guides how the product is fulfilled and is included within product offerings.
    • Service Specification: Defines the technical and operational details of a service, including characteristic options, cost, terms, and materials like implementation guides and visuals. Service specifications can be customer-facing or resource-facing.
    • Resource Specification: Details technical information for resources (e.g., manufacture, model, brand, activation guides). These are not customer-facing but are essential for enabling product and service delivery.

    Managing Specification Versions

    Enterprises often create and update multiple versions of product and service specifications to reflect changes in business, marketing, manufacturing, or operations. It is critical to update these specifications in ServiceNow to avoid issues during order fulfillment, especially for Modify, Add, Change, Delete (MACD) operations.

    Practical Application for ServiceNow Customers

    By effectively setting up and managing specifications and product offerings, you ensure that customers can order accurate, up-to-date products and services. Keeping specifications current supports smooth order fulfillment and operational efficiency, minimizing errors during changes or updates in customer orders. This capability helps align your product catalog with evolving business needs and customer expectations.

    By creating and publishing versioned specifications and product offerings in a technical product catalog, your customers can order up-to-date versions of the products or services that they require. Your product catalog manager can create versions of the published specifications and product offerings with the required enhancements to support your customer's business, marketing, manufacturing, or operational changes.

    Overview of product offerings with specifications

    As a product catalog manager, you set up product offerings in a technical product catalog. A product offering contains the product description, pricing, eligibility, and product options. You use a product catalog to group your product offerings so that your customers can order the products or services that they want. Only published product offerings can be added to customer contracts.

    The relationship between product offerings and the product, service, and resource specification determine how a product is fulfilled. Each product offering has the following components:
    Product specification
    A product specification defines the various aspects of a product including the following:
    • All the specification characteristic options that are available for a product, and how they should be fulfilled.
    • Various categories of information, such as the brand, cost, terms and conditions, and product-related materials, which include product visuals. Product specifications are customer-facing and are added to product offerings.
    • Its relationship to other product, service, and resource specifications, and how a customer order of a product offering is delivered.
    To learn more, see .
    Service specification
    A service specification defines a service, and the technical information of that service, including the following:
    • All the specification characteristic options that are available for a service, and how they should be fulfilled.
    • Various categories of information, including the cost, terms and conditions, and service-related materials. These resources include the service-related visuals and implementation guides. Service specifications can be customer-facing or resource-facing.
    • Its relationship to other product, service, and resource specifications.

    To learn more, see .

    Resource specification
    A resource specification defines the technical information for a resource, including the following:
    • All the specification characteristic options that are available for a resource, and how they should be fulfilled.
    • Various categories of information, such as the manufacture, model, and brand-related information about a resource, including the resource visuals and activation guides. Resource specifications are not customer-facing.
    • Its relationship to other product, service, and resource specifications. You can enable the product and service delivery by using the required resource.

    To learn more, see .