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ServiceNow – CMDB – Class Manager

Example to create a new class of infrastructure. In this example, an intelligent smart charger for electric cars for a fictitious tech company.

  • Go to your ServiceNow developer instance.

Go to the “CI Class Manager” page.

  • Select [All]
  • In the search box type “ci class“
  • Then click on “CI Class Manager“
  • The “CI Class Manager” page will appear.
  • The CI Class Manager is a centralised interface for managing all CMDB tables and class hierarchy.
  • Click on [Hierarchy]. This will show all the different forms of classes.
  • For our example we want to use the “Hardware” class
  • The full hierarchy of class types will be shown.
  • In the search box type “hardware” and press [Enter].
  • Click [Hardware].
  • The “Hardware > Basic Info” pages shows all the attributes of the “Hardware” class.
  • Click on [Add Child Class] to continue.
  • The “Create Class” page will appear in the “Provide Basic Info” Tab.
  • Now we can enter data in the blank fields.
    • In the “Display Name” field, enter “Smart EV Charge Station“
    • In the “Description” field, enter “Tracks location, status and firmware of smart EV charging stations installed at company sites“
    • In “Managed By Group” field, search for, and select “Hardware“
    • Click in the “Icon” field and locate the “Fuel” icon.
    • Leave “Extensible” unchecked. This allows this class to have child classes beneath it
    • Leave “Principal Class” unchecked. ” This defines the base behaviour, attributes, and relationships your new class will get automatically
  • Click “Next” to continue.
  • The “Add Attributes” page will appear.
    • Start by double clicking in the “Column Field” and enter the new attributes names needed for our EV charger. Click the Tick symbol to complete
    • Modify the Type columns from String to Decimal when required,
    • Set “Identification Rule” to true to prevent duplicate entries. For example, “Serial Number” should have no duplicates. New CI’s created under this class will force unique serial number.
  • Click [Next] to continue.
  • The “Set Identification Rule” page will appear.
  • This page specifies how ServiceNow will uniquely identify CI’s created in this class.
  • A default entry was automatically created using the “Serial Number” as the unique identifier.
  • Click [Next] to continue
  • The “Reconciliation Rules” page will appear. This tell ServiceNow which sources of Discovery can populate the CMDB and what are the priorities of these sources.
  • Click [Add] to create a rule.
  • The “Create Reconciliation Rule” (Add Discovery Sources & Prioritise) Page will appear.
    • Use the pull downs from “*Discovery Source” and select “Manual Entry“
    • Set “* Priority” to [100] and click [Next]
    • Click “Add” again and include the following:
    • “OpenView” = “200“
    • “Alteris” = “300“
  • Then click [Next]
  • The “Create Reconciliation Rule” (Select Attributes)
  • Move “Serial Number” from the “Available” Column to the “Selected” Column
  • Click [Save] to continue
  • The “Reconciliation Rules” page will return
  • Add a new Data Refresh Rule by clicking [Add]
    • The “Create Data Refresh Rules” dialog box will appear.
      • Select the [Discovery Source] and set to “OpenView“
      • Select the [Effective Duration] and set to “10” days, “5” hours
      • Select the [Active] tick
      • Then click [Save]
    • The previous screen will appear with the “Data Refresh Rules” populated with the discovery source populated.
    • Click [Next] to continue
    • The final step is the “Add Suggested Relationships” tab
    • Click [New] to continue.
    • The “Add Suggested Relationship” dialog box will appear
      • Populate the [Smart EV Charge Station].
      • Set “Relationship” to “Depends on“
      • Set “Target Class” to “Network Adapter“
      • Click [Save] to continue
    • A visual diagram of the relationship is shown. New / additional relationships can be added by clicking [New] again.
    • Click [Done] to continue.
    • The process of creating a new class may take 30 seconds to process
    • You’ll see a screen similar to below
    • The new CI is now created
    • To view the in the ServiceNow table navigator
      • Copy the table name from the “Table Name” field.
      • In this example “u_cmdb_ci_smart_ev_charge_station“
      • Select [All] from the top menu and paste “table_name.list” into the navigator. e.g: “u_cmdb_ci_smart_ev_charge_station.list“
      • Hit [Enter] in the navigator to continue

    The “Smart EV Charge Stations” table page will a appear.

    Click [New] to create CI record for this class.

    • New CI can be created in this page but only the default fields are presented.
      • Add new fields to the page by righ clicking in the grey tool bar.
      • Select [Explore] and [Form Layout]
    • Move required fields from Available to Selected by highlighting and click [Save]
    • In this example I’ve added:
      • Firmware Version
      • Maunufacturer
      • Charge Capacity (KW)
    • The new form will appear with the new fields.
    • Enter data into the required fields and click [Submit]
    • The new record can be seen here

    EOF