What are CIs?

CI stands for Configuration Item. CIs can be used to tie tickets to the services they pertain to. Incidents and RITMs/Tasks have fields that allow you to choose the affected CI.

Knowledge articles can also be tied to CIs – see Selecting Knowledge Base, Category, and Configuration Item for more information on using CIs in Knowledge Articles.

Why should I enter a CI on a ticket?

1. Choosing the correct CI helps enable accurate, useful reporting. Without an affected CI indicated, it’s very difficult to narrow down which tickets apply to which service.

2. Entering the correct CI also enables auto-routing to the CI support group. For example, if Tier 1 has a ticket for Green Output, if the correct CI is entered, selecting CI Assignment Group on the Incident will automatically assign the ticket to the correct support group for escalation.

3. Finally, using CIs helps lay the groundwork for the future when we begin to use other ServiceNow tools. Once we implement Problem Management, ServiceNow can monitor tickets logged against a particular CI and alert the service owner when a potential widespread issue or outage might be occurring.

Why are there multiple CIs available for the same service?

ServiceNow includes many different classes of CIs. Some of these CI types are used to organize how services are presented on the public self-service website (UTSS). As a result, many common services appear multiple times as different CI types.

For example, UTLogin is available as an Application CI, a Business Service CI, and a Service Offering CI. You can see these distinctions in the dropdown menu when you search the Affected CI field on an Incident or Task.

How do I choose the right CI?

So, with all these different types of CIs for the same service, which should you choose?

As a general rule, you can follow this hierarchy when selecting Affected CI on a ticket:

1. If Service Offering is available, use that.
2. If not, select the Business Service.
3. If neither Service Offering nor Business Service is available, select the Application

Also note that searching from within the CI field only searches the exact name of the CI as they appear in our database. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, try clicking the magnifying glass and doing a keyword search in the popup search. Use an asterisk * before your search term for the best results.

Here’s an example search for Wikis, which are officially listed as University Wiki Service:

Using Affected CI in Incidents

On the Incident Form, the Affected CI field is located in the Incident Classification tab. Begin typing the name of the service that is impacted by the incident, or use the magnifying glass for an advanced search. 

Hover over the info icon   for more information about that CI. Note the top of the popup info window displays the CI type. Please review How Do I Choose the Right CI? section of this article for information on selecting the CIs.

Hover over the exclamation icon  to view other active tasks related to the selected CI. This can be useful information when assessing whether a service is being impacted by an outage.

Using Configuration Item in Requests

On a Request, there is an Affected CI field on the Task form under the assignment information. Some Tasks will auto-fill the correct CI if they originated from the Service Catalog, but most will not.

Begin typing the name of the service the request pertains to, or use the magnifying glass for an advanced search. 

 Hover over the info icon   for more information about that CI. Note the top of the popup info window displays the CI type. Please review How Do I Choose the Right CI? section of this article for information on selecting the CIs.

Hover over the exclamation icon  if you would like to view other active tasks related to the selected CI.