Manage Service Catalog

This article contains the following topics:

The Service Catalog contains catalog items that can be used for submitting fulfillment requests. These catalog items have relevant, prepopulated information, which enables ease of use for the requester and allows for routing the request to the correct support group for action and fulfillment. The Service Catalog can be used to provide users with access to items that are frequently requested. We recommend that you use an item from the Service Catalog to log new requests as this helps more effective routing of tickets to a relevant support group. The ability to access these templates is managed through permissions. 

The Administrator configures items to be made available to different users in the Service Catalog. The application administrator can configure these items by clicking Manage> ADMINISTRATION> Tools, and then from the Tools list, click Service Catalog Configuration. This includes identifying the type of requests that are often logged by users, categorizing the request to effectively group the items, and creating the items with the required information.

Service catalog is configured by creating a catalog item with defined attributes. Selected fields can be marked as required fields, to ensure that essential details are filled in. Logging tickets using a template ensures that all essential information is filled in before the ticket is logged, reducing the need for repeated follow-up with the requester. Catalog items can be made available in the Service Catalog. The Administrator manages access to the Service catalog by granting permissions to contacts, support groups, or roles. The administrator can also make a catalog item inactive and create new items as needed.

How You Manage Catalog Items

Support organizations have frequently raised service requests that can be easily predicted. The administrator can configure catalog items for such requests to accelerate the ticket submission process. Logging tickets using a catalog item helps to ensure that all essential information is filled in before the ticket is logged, thus reducing the need for repeated follow-up with the requester. For example, a ticket template to report a hardware failure can include fields to capture the information that is related to device.

Some of the actions you can take from the Service Catalog Configuration form are:

• View available catalog items using filters to manage list.

• Create new catalog items specifying template name and associated with ticket type.

• Modify or update existing catalog item to change the set fields or values associated with the template.

• Define routing rules for the catalog item, and specify whether this should override other auto-routes. 

• Identify Attributes Values to be automatically available when the catalog item is accessed.

• Add an image to the catalog item.

• Manage (grant or revoke) permissions to access the catalog item to contacts, support groups, and roles.
• Export a single catalog item or multiple catalog items

Here are a few of the benefits of using a service catalog:

• The effort that is required to log the request is simplified because you can prepopulate all of the essential fields the catalog item.

• The request formation is standardized and ensures that all essential information is captured before ticket submission.

• The ticket handling process is expedited.

Prerequisites for Creating Catalog Items

Before you create catalog items, verify that the following prerequisites are in place:

• To assign permissions, verify that the roles, support groups, and contacts are configured.

• To assign automatic workflow actions, verify that the workflow actions are configured.

• To set the value of a custom field through the catalog item, verify that the custom fields are configured.

Considerations for Using Catalog Items

Administrators should consider the following points for using catalog items:

• You can relate a catalog item to one ticket type.

• The users can access only those catalog items for which they are authorized.

• You can configure a catalog item to perform the following actions:
  • Override an auto route.
  • Automatically assign a workflow action when a task ticket is created.
  • Automatically assign values to selected ticket fields.
• Categories are used to filter the list of templates available in the Service Catalog workspace for analysts and end users.

• You can modify existing templates by adding or removing Set Fields on the template or by deleting the template. You can also create a new catalog item using the Service Catalog Configuration form.

• When you modify an existing catalog item, the changes apply to all new transactions using the catalog item. Older records, however, remain unchanged.

• You can delete catalog items only when the catalog item has no dependent data.

Export Catalog Items

The purpose of introducing export is to have the ability to export catalogs between different environments. Consider a catalog "Emergency Change Request".This can be initially created and tested in the Testing or Staging environment and then exported to an XML file and imported into the Production environment.

To initiate the Export process, follow the below steps :

• Navigate to Manage> ADMINISTRATION> Tools> Service Catalog Configuration.
• Select the required catalog items you wish to export.
• Click on Bulk actions and choose either "Export All" or "Export Selected".Click on "Export All" to export all the available Service catalogs.
• An XML file gets generated and downloaded. All the entities related to the selected catalogs such as users, groups, role, custom fields, organization, communication template, etc. are also available in the XML file.

The XML file downloaded can now be imported to the target environment.

Import Catalog Items

To import a service catalog in the target tenant, follow the below steps:

• Navigate to Manage> ADMINISTRATION> Tools> Bulk Process Data.
• In the Step 1: Process file, Browse the XML file to be imported and click on the Upload button.
• You can now, move to Step 5: Process Execution tab to check the upload status and logs for any errors.

Predefined Catalog Items

The following predefined catalog items are supported in Intelligent Service Management:

Create Catalog Items

You can create catalog items to populate the Service Catalog. You can create a catalog item for the following ticket types:

• Service Request
• Incident
• Problem
• Change Request
• Task Ticket

Follow these steps:

1. Log in to the application as an Administrator or Service Owner.
2. Navigate to Manage> ADMINISTRATION> Tools, and from the list of Tools click Service Catalog Configuration.
   A list of active catalog item displays in the list. You can modify an existing catalog item or can configure a new catalog item.
3. Click New Catalog.
   The Quick Wizard to create a new catalog item displays.
4. Specify the Basic Properties for the service:
   1. Click Browse to add an image to the catalog item.
   2. Specify the Catalog Name.
   3. Describe Your Catalog.
   4. Select the Ticket Type. You can create catalog items for Service Requests, Incidents, Problems, Change Requests, and Task Tickets.
   5. Select the Catalog Category. The catalog categories appear on the Service Catalog workspace and allow you to filter the catalog items that are based on a specific category.
      The following categories are available:
      • General
      • Employee Services
      • IT Services
        Note: You can also create a new category. The new category is available under Service Catalog workspace. 
   6. Click Proceed To Next Step.
5. Define the Ticket Attribute, assign default values to the ticket attributes. The Define Attributes Section on the ticket template lets you select fields on a ticket form and prepopulate it with relevant information. You can set either the standard ticket fields or custom fields on the ticket.
   Note: For information about the attributes that correspond with each ticket type, see Define the Attributes.
6. Click Save & Proceed To Next Step.
7. Provide the user permission in Viewers section. The viewers field governs who can use this catalog to create the ticket. You can provide permissions to:
   • Users: For example, Analysts, Administrators.
   • Groups: For example, the incident management support group
   • Roles: For example, KB Analysts
     Note: Only the administrator has the permission to provide or revoke these permissions.
8. Click Proceed To Next Step.
9. Attach a Process, select a process that you want to attach to this catalog item. You can also create a new process to attach to this catalog item. You can attach only one Process to a catalog item.
   Note: While attaching a process that is already defined and published ensure that the process matches the ticket type of the catalog Item.  For more information, see Design a Process Workflow.
10. Click Save & Exit.

Define the Attributes

The Define Attributes section on the catalog item lets you specify fields on a Create Ticket form and prepopulate them with relevant information. You can set the standard ticket fields or the custom fields on the ticket. You can select a relevant field for the ticket from the drop-down list in the Define Attributes. All fields on a ticket are listed in the drop-down list. The standard fields on the ticket are listed at the top; followed by the custom fields. You can select appropriate standard fields like Status, Reason Code, Phase, Impact, Priority, Urgency, Description, and set values for these fields. The following table lists the allowed attributes that are available on the Create Ticket form.