Today’s customers demand more personal, customized experiences. To meet this need, companies are integrating multiple software systems to create a seamless customer experience across channels and touchpoints. But these digital connections also make it easier for customers to switch suppliers or demand new features from their existing suppliers. This shift has created an emphasis on speed to market and reducing the time it takes to bring new products or services to market. Companies are looking for ways they can streamline the creation of new products and services while reducing the time spent on maintenance and support of those offerings. If your organization is working toward similar goals, you may find these nine tips helpful when using ServiceNow configuration management for improved business results.
When it comes to managing an organizations CMDB, talent is the most-critical aspect of maintaining a proper and healthy ServiceNow configuration managment database. At Edison & Black, ServiceNow CMDB recruiting is one of the most common roles of which our clients are searching for.
Be Transparent & Provide Visibility to Your Business
Before you begin configuration management and governance efforts, ask yourself whether your organization is transparent. Do you have the right visibility into your business processes and flow? How do you know whether your team members are completing their work tasks? What metrics are you using to measure the effectiveness of your organization and its processes? If you don’t have the right visibility into your business processes, you won’t be able to effectively employ configuration management. You’ll have no way of knowing where your software assets are located or which items need updates. If you want to start with configuration management, but you don’t have the right visibility into your business, you’d be more effective by resolving that problem first. Find out where your current business processes are broken and why. Stay away from configuration management until you’ve got a handle on how your business works. Then, you can start with configuration management.
Enable Real-time Collaboration & Communication
Configuration database management by its nature, is an activity that fosters communication. As people create and update assets, they must communicate with others who have access to the same systems. This communication helps identify gaps, bottlenecks, and other issues that can cause inefficiencies. But if your team members are working in silos, they may not have the opportunity to discuss issues and find solutions. For example, the IT team might have created an asset in ServiceNow to store all of their access credentials, like their database login information. But if your business users don’t know that asset exists, they won’t be able to access and utilize that data. Communication helps to identify these types of issues before they can cause problems for your organization. Other communication benefits you can experience when using configuration management include real-time collaboration and visibility into how people are using data. When committing to an asset, team members can communicate with each other to decide how that data should be configured. They can discuss factors like how that data should be presented to end users. They can also decide whether that asset should be used in multiple locations.
Define Service Standards on Day One
Once you begin configuration management, you should start to develop standards for services and data. You’ll also want to identify the tools and systems you’re going to use to store that data. You may decide that you want to store all of your customer data in ServiceNow. Or you may decide that you want to use ServiceNow to store your asset data and another system for your customer data. Once you’ve decided what systems you want to use, you should create a service standard. The service standard should describe the purpose of the service, who should own it, how it should be maintained, and other relevant details. You can also use your configuration management software to track the history of changes made to the service. This information can help you identify trends in the use of the service. For example, if you see that your team members are frequently changing the price of a product, you can use the history to see what prompted that change. You can determine whether it’s due to normal business fluctuations or if there are potential issues requiring attention.
Streamline Incorporation and Configuration of New Apps
One way to streamline the incorporation and configuration of new apps is by using common data stores. For example, you may be incorporating a new marketing automation tool. You can use configuration management to ensure that the necessary data is available in the system. If you want to incorporate a new marketing automation tool and you’ve decided to use ServiceNow for configuration management, you can create an asset in ServiceNow that includes all the necessary data. That data can include information about the marketing automation tool. It can include things like the names of the app’s buttons, where that data should be stored, and what format the data should be in. The system can also include rules that determine how the data should be used. For example, you may want to create a rule that directs all marketing emails to be sent through an approval process. You can use configuration management to ensure that all of the data necessary to implement the app is available in your system.
Utilize Dynamic Groups to Provide Visibility Into the Organization’s Stored Data
When you’re storing data and configuring systems, it’s important to know who has access to that information. You should also know who created that data. This visibility into your stored data can help you mitigate security threats and malicious activity. When you’re configuring systems and creating assets, you can specify that certain users have access to that data. Or you can specify that certain users can add or modify that data. You can also specify that certain users can view that data. But once you’ve completed those tasks, how do you know who has access to what? How do you know what users created what information? You can use dynamic groups to provide this visibility into your organization’s stored data. You can use these groups to track who has access to what data. You can also track who created data for added visibility.
Implementing CMDB in ServiceNow to Ensure Security and Compliance
Keeping track of changes made to your system and testing those changes is known as configuration management. Implementation of configuration management ensures that you can go back to a previous version if something goes wrong. This reduces the risk of any operational disruptions and helps with disaster recovery. Operational efficiency, maintenance, and security are some of the benefits of implementing effective configuration management in your organization. Moreover, it also helps you reduce costs by managing software licenses better and cut down on support time by automating routine tasks.
Why is Configuration Management Important?
Configuration management is important because it is a crucial part of organizational security. A lack of configuration management can leave your system vulnerable to security issues, compliance violations, and outages. The best way to address these issues is by implementing configuration management in your organization. This involves creating and maintaining documentation for all the software components used in your system. This documentation should include information about the version of the software, release date, type of license, configuration details, and more.
Types of Configuration Management in ServiceNow
There are two types of configuration management in ServiceNow. They are as follows: - Baselines - A baseline is a configuration that is created based on the configuration of a specific software version. It is recommended that you create a baseline before making any changes to your system. This helps you revert back to the original settings if there is an issue. - CMDB - The CMDB is an inventory of all the software components in your system. It provides details about the configuration, state, and other attributes for each item. This ensures that you are aware of what is installed and where it is installed.
The Importance of Strong Baselines in Configuration Management
Because a baseline is based on a specific software version, it is a recommended best practice to create a baseline before making any changes to your system. This helps you revert back to the original settings if there is an issue. A baseline is a snapshot that you can use as a reference point to maintain the configuration and changes to your system. It also helps with compliance. If there is any requirement to go back to the original configuration, you can do so by creating a new baseline. If you want to make changes to your system, it is important to know what the configuration of your system is before making the changes. This makes it easier to revert back to the original configuration if there is an issue. Moreover, if there is any regulatory compliance requirement that you need to adhere to, you can use baselines to meet those requirements.
Automate Repetitive Tasks using Scripts in CM
If you perform certain tasks repeatedly, you can automate those tasks by creating scripts. This helps you save time and money by making repetitive tasks less error-prone. The ServiceNow platform has a built-in script editor, which allows you to create scripts for different use cases. This includes maintenance tasks like checking the status of a component, preventing unauthorized access, and documenting software licenses. If you have developed a custom application or have integrated a third-party application, you can use the script editor to create scripts for those components as well. You can also create scripts for the components provided by ServiceNow.
The Importance of Strong Baselines in CM
Because a baseline is based on a specific software version, it is a recommended best practice to create a baseline before making any changes to your system. This helps you revert back to the original settings if there is an issue. A baseline is a snapshot that you can use as a reference point to maintain the configuration and changes to your system. It also helps with compliance. If there is any requirement to go back to the original configuration, you can do so by creating a new baseline. If you want to make changes to your system, it is important to know what the configuration of your system is before making the changes. This makes it easier to revert back to the original configuration if there is an issue. Moreover, if there is any regulatory compliance requirement that you need to adhere to, you can use baselines to meet those requirements.
Maintain a Security-Only Trainable Using Blueprints
When you configure a security-only trainable in ServiceNow, the changes are written to a table in the database. This table can grow over time, which becomes a burden to keep track of. To avoid this, you can use a blueprint to maintain the security-only trainable. A blueprint is a single table that is used to define any changes made to a given object. This makes it easier to keep track of changes made to the object. You can create a blueprint for any of the tables in ServiceNow that contain only security-related fields (for example, security-only trainable table). This ensures that you can track only changes made to the security of the object.
The bottom line is that configuration management is a crucial part of organizational security. A lack of configuration management can leave your system vulnerable to security issues, compliance violations, and outages. There are two types of configuration management in ServiceNow: - Baselines - A baseline is a configuration that is created based on the configuration of a specific software version. It is recommended that you create a baseline before making any changes to your system. This helps you revert back to the original settings if there is an issue. - CMDB - The CMDB is an inventory of all the software components in your system. It provides details about the configuration, state, and other attributes for each item. This ensures that you are aware of what is installed and where it is installed. The best way to address these issues is by implementing configuration management in your organization. This involves creating and maintaining documentation for all the software components used in your system. This documentation should include information about the version of the software, release date, type of license, configuration details, and more. To learn more regarding how your organization can find and retain the very best in ServiceNow CMDB, contact our team below.