The Configuration Items table holds records containing information about your company's Configuration Items (assets). It may include CI's that are in inventory and not in service, as well as all assets that are in service.

Use Case

Configuration Item Creation

Staff may add a Configuration Item manually to the system by creating a new record, or integrated Discovery systems may create CI records automatically with specified attributes.

Configuration Items have type-specific attribute fields (Manufacturer, Model, Serial Number, etc.) and relationships to other CIs, Service Requests, Problems, and Change Requests.

Related Service Requests, Problems, and Change Requests are displayed as lists of records within a CI, so the history of a given CI is readily available.

Configuration Items may also be related to other CI's in an upstream and downstream embedded table.

Record Creation

Configuration Items may be created independently or when selecting Configuration Items in Change Request and Contract records. Configuration Item Name and Configuration Item Type are required fields.

Configuration Item Fields

Details Tab

Configuration Item Processing

Knowledge Articles

Knowledge articles related to a configuration item can be searched for and selected in the Relevant Knowledge Articles table by clicking on the lookup icon.

Ownership

Configuration Item ownership is defined as the user whose Login matches the User Login field in the Configuration Item record.

Processing of Records

Configuration Items follow a lifecycle workflow from ordering through retirement. There are no business rules associated with the Configuration Item table.

Configuration Items are created in the state of Installed by default (see Workflow diagram below). Configuration Items that are requested but not immediately available might be created in a state of On Order, moved to In Stock when the Configuration Item is received, Pending Install while Operations is tasked with installing the Configuration Item, and finally Installed. Installed Configuration Items can change to In Maintenance for repairs and Retired or Stolen when the Configuration Item is no longer in use.

Workflow

Integration with CMS and CMDBs

All Service Requests, Change Requests, Incidents, and Problems are fully integrated with the Configuration Management Database (CMDB). Every Configuration Item displays a related table for each request type, showing all of the Requests that the Configuration Item was included in. With the appropriate permissions, a user can easily open the Configuration Item from any of the Requests related to it, and view other related Requests to help identify, investigate, diagnose, and eliminate problems/issues more easily.

Each Configuration Item is also linked to a parent Catalog Item, which serves as a container record for the Configuration Item, and displaying all of the other Configuration Items for the Catalog Item in the Configuration Management System (CMS).

Charts and Reports

The Configuration Items table has the following pre-built charts and reports:

• All Configuration Items by Status, sorted by count
• CI's purchased in the past 12 months with cost
• CIs with Change Logs in last 90 days
• CIs with change requests in last 90 days
• Configuration Items by CI Subtype
• Configuration Items by CI Type
• Maintenance Report -CI's With Problems or Maintenance Time
• Number of In Stock CIs by CI Type then subtype
• Number of Installed CIs by CI Type then subtype
• Service Due within next 3 Months

Example Report:  Number of In Stock CIs by CI Type and then Subtype

As an example, here is the chart component and a subset of the report component for the Number of In Stock CIs by CI Type and then Subtype report:

Fields

The Configuration Item fields are described in the Configuration Item Fields Table in the Appendix.