Exploring CMDB success advisor

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated May 25, 2026
  • 5 minutes to read
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    Summary of Exploring CMDB Success Advisor

    The CMDB Success Advisor application helps ServiceNow customers enhance the accuracy and completeness of their Configuration Management Database (CMDB) data. It reviews CMDB Data Manager policies and settings, focusing on improving Data Foundations and Hardware Asset Management (HAM) by monitoring key configuration item (CI) classes and hardware model categories. This targeted approach supports critical organizational processes by enabling better data quality and lifecycle tracking.

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    Key Features

    • Targeted CI Tracking: Focus on principal CI classes relevant to incidents, changes, and problems, or hardware model categories for HAM.
    • Role-Based Access:
      • CMDB Administrators: Can configure and improve CMDB accuracy, manage principal classes, analyze integration coverage, and update Discovery patterns.
      • CMDB Users: Have read-only access to dashboards showing data quality metrics and remediation progress.
      • CMDB Editors: Can view dashboards with write access to CMDB records outside the advisor.
    • Dashboards and Metrics: Consolidated views for monitoring data quality, including missing attributes, stale or duplicate records, and integration source coverage.
    • Guided Remediation: Playbooks and remediation panels for resolving data quality issues such as stale CIs, duplicates, missing serial numbers, and asset mismatches.
    • Policy Alignment: Tools to align ownership policies, reconciliation rules, synchronization rules, and status mappings for improved CMDB governance.
    • Integration Analysis: Attribute-level coverage analysis of data sources and evaluation of Discovery patterns to improve data completeness.

    Benefits

    • Business-Driven Configuration: Dashboards and metrics tailored to critical classes and hardware categories that impact business processes.
    • Improved Visibility: Enables monitoring of CI data quality and hardware asset accuracy across the organization.
    • Continuous Improvement: Supports ongoing tracking of key performance indicators (KPIs) related to data completeness and accuracy.
    • Data Quality Enhancement: Provides actionable suggestions and guided steps to resolve issues, enhancing confidence in CMDB data.
    • Better Governance: Helps align CMDB rules and policies for consistent and reliable data management.
    • Enhanced Data Coverage: Assists in evaluating and optimizing data integrations to maintain a complete and accurate CMDB.

    Use Cases

    • Data Foundations: Improve data quality for principal CI classes supporting incident, change, and problem management by monitoring completeness, duplicates, staleness, and integration sources.
    • Hardware Asset Management (HAM): Enhance hardware data quality across model categories like computers and printers by addressing missing identifiers, duplicate records, and asset lifecycle tracking.

    Next Steps

    ServiceNow customers are encouraged to configure and use CMDB Success Advisor to align with their specific business outcomes. Detailed guidance is available for setting up and monitoring both Data Foundations and HAM to maximize CMDB data accuracy and operational effectiveness.

    Learn about CMDB success advisor and review the benefits it can provide for different users in your organization.

    CMDB success advisor overview

    With the CMDB success advisor application, you can review CMDB Data Manager policies and Configuration Management Database (CMDB) settings to identify areas where improvements can be made in Data Foundations and the Hardware Asset Management (HAM) application. The advisor uses customized CMDB metrics to improve data quality for targeted configuration item (CI) classes, identifying and monitoring the CI classes most critical to your organizational processes to enable complete and accurate data in Data Foundations, and tracking hardware model categories for HAM.

    CMDB success advisor users

    Table 1. Users
    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.
    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.

    		 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.

    		 None

    CMDB success advisor benefits

    The following benefits are available to CMDB administrators across both Data Foundations and HAM.

    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.

    		 Use-case-driven CMDB configuration.

    To learn more, see: CMDB success advisor for Data Foundations setup and Set up CMDB success advisor for HAM

    		 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.

    		 Dashboard with consolidated insights and metrics

    To learn more, see: Monitoring CMDB data quality using dashboard metrics in CMDB success advisor for Data Foundations and Monitoring CMDB data quality using dashboard metrics in CMDB success advisor for HAM
    • CMDB administrator
    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.

    		 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 and Monitoring CMDB data quality using dashboard metrics in CMDB success advisor for HAM
    • CMDB administrator
    Data quality improvement suggestions

    For Data Foundations, playbooks target principal class issues such as stale CIs and duplicate records.

    For HAM, guided playbooks address hardware issues such as missing serial numbers and asset/CI mismatches.

    		 Remediation actions panel available for a chart in the dashboard

    To learn more, see: Improving CMDB data quality for Data Foundations and Improving CMDB data quality for HAM
    • CMDB administrator
    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 and Analyze CMDB settings for HAM

    		 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 and Analyzing data integrations for improving HAM data coverage

    		 CMDB administrator

    Use cases

    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.
    • HAM: Improve hardware data quality across model categories such as computers, servers, and printers. Identify and fix 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.

    What to explore next

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