so hi everyone welcome to um the navigating your cmdp session it's a live webinar that we are hosting today um so you know the cdb is the foundation of all we do on the platform uh so its importance and significance is beyond out so we'll be walking through some uh tips and tricks on why we need a cdb and what we can do with it so my name is near and I am joined by my uh friend and colleague here Sam we'll soon introduce ourselves better uh and we'll also look at what we we'll be discussing today but first just a few informational slides um safe hover right the standard slide everything you see here may contain forward looking statements so viously take that with a grain of salt um forward looking statements should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions and then um if you're interested in seeing more of these 360 exchanges you can uh scan this QR code we'll be sharing the slid so don't worry don't no need to uh pull out your phones right now but we will be sharing this and feel free to have a look at our portfolio and and join the sessions that you like a few housekeeping so we have some time at the end for Q&A don't worry about that um and you can also use the KE the Q&A bottom at uh button at the bottom of your screen and Sam has kindly agreed to monitor the Q&A while we're presenting here and also the chat and Sam might also have some additional uh bits of insights in the chat so feel free to also look at that as well um this is recorded and shared on the service now community so uh yeah don't worry about missing anything we will be sharing this uh after the event you will be prompted to fill out a short survey um and we welcome your feedback whether it's constructive or positive or neutral so as I said uh I'm here senior manager and the global item solution leader in Mia uh and I'm I'm based in Mia in Amsterdam I'm also managing the technology workflow implementation team in the emia North Region but also I focus on our iton Solutions globally making sure that uh customers get the right Solutions and right to their business challenges uh I'm joined by my friend and colleague Sam who will say a few words about himself yeah very quickly before I do um are you able to make your slides full screen you're side by side we're seeing a few in in the chat asking if we can bring the slides up um to the front you able to do that um am I sharing the wrong what am I sharing the presenter view or something no no no you're you're you're sharing the slides but um we we see you an equal siiz window compared to the slide deck oh why is that better no [Music] different why am I why am I side by side uh let me re share sorry about that everyone just start the share again hopefully it will be fixed okay that's yeah okay we're here're okay cool fantastic all right um any anyway I'll I'll jump in now um my name is Sam fower so I'm a a principal solution architect uh I specialize in itom I'm here based in the UK so I work out in the field um providing technical consultancy uh to customers directly through engagements either through projects or otherwise and I've worked for service now for coming up to four years now perfect thank you Sam good to have you here all right let's look at yeah very high level agenda but don't worry there is uh plenty of content Behind These topics U we have some introduction into the cdb what it is why we have it what uh what it underpins and then we'll have a quick very high level implementation sequencing uh on like how we see the seem words and how we think it should be implemented and then we look at some implementation guidance we've collected a few I want to say random but um a few tips and tricks for you to get started with some uh common let's say oversights that we see uh of course that's just the tip of the iceberg we've got plenty more and you will see at the end Sam and I are happy to take questions during and after the session as well uh via any medium medium that you feel comfortable with so let's start with a polling question so how would you rate the current state of your cmdb you should see a poll popping up soon uh don't worry this is anonymous so if you're worried about um criticizing yourself don't worry about that just be as candid as you can let's see people are saying all right all right good I see many are saying seem to be fair some um that's kind of um what we were expecting I don't know if you can see the poll on the screen or not but that the results but uh as you not very surprising there's one person who said sdb is excellent I I love that hopefully maybe you can help us a little bit later maybe running a few more sessions like this but um I I love seeing customers that are actually taking um their seem to be to the fullest uh some are saying the seem Tob is good it's well maintained so that's I I think a real realistic place to be uh fair and poor um so I'm glad to have you I'm glad to have everyone on the session but hopefully we can uh help each other and see how we can improve our cdb today all right so introduction into the cmdp now we will have a quick look at what the cdb is I'm hoping you'll find some um not surprises but let's say bits of insight that maybe in the back of your mind but you you you know about them but you kind of like need a reminder so we'll start with the basics but we'll escalate as we go what is the cdb if hopefully we all agree it's a data repository that stores attributes and representations of configuration items Services offerings and the relationships that comprise the infrastructure of the organization uh so far I don't think there are any surprises and to build on that we are now looking at some dependencies of the cmdp right we are and this is not an exhaustive list but asdp is rarely a standalone use case if ever it often supports other critical business functions you know such as security operations risk management customer service management and many many more uh the effectiveness of these Solutions is directly tied to the quality and accuracy of the data in your cmtp right so therefore it's crucial to invest the necessary time and effort to plan and establish it correctly right um so for example if you are using uh business continuity management knowing which applications uh which application Services support your business services and correctly assigning locations to these Services is essential right um without this information and relationships your business continuity plan will be less effective that's okay um so that's one example but of course there are many more and always remember um a sdb sdb is a journey it is not a destination it's not just a Finish Line somewhere where you say okay now we have a sdb it's an evolving living and breathing solution that requires attention okay so um what are the three key cmdb pillars that we see today U there are three foundational ones one is ingestion so how are we populating the cdb cmdbs can ingest uh data from multiple concurrent SES as we know can be Discovery service graph connectors uh all the various third party Integrations uh all incoming data flows through our robust uh transform engine which takes advantage of the IR we'll talk about that a little bit more uh to ensure data accuracy uh to avoid duplicates and maintain consistency across all data that you have in your cmdb the next pillar is management so how do you ensure your CTB remains current and relevant effective management involves keeping the data up to date and align with the real world U environments so this is critical for supporting the Coe use cases um and like change management risk management and audit so it requires processes for continuous updates validation monitoring to ensure the cmdb can reliably serve the business the last pillar here is insights um so what kind of insight are you getting so actionable actionable things that you can derive from your CNB right uh by maintaining this well structured and accurate cdb you can gain valuable insights into your it environment including understanding Service dependencies uh risk assessing risk optimizing resources uses yeah usage Etc but all of this can only be done correctly if you really invest time in planning so alongside this pillar this is another important uh Foundation that is often forgotten the planning phase is super important and we will discuss this uh at length the cmdb requires careful planning it requires executive sponsorship and its goals must be agreed upon and aligned with all stakeholders otherwise we you have people pushing in different directions uh and different priorities so you really have to make sure you plan it correctly U what do you think Sam do you agree that planning is important here yeah planning is essential without the planning step being executed appropriately these pillars uh will crumble U you you won't be successful so absolutely yeah good so uh on the next slides we'll break down this planning components that you see at the bottom so um one by one all right so first one was configuration management plan so a configuration management plan is a formal guide created for maintaining consistency accuracy reliability of it infrastructure by managing uh CIS throughout their life cycle right super important its key goals align business and it initiatives with the CI data ensure CI Integrity maintain High data quality identify essential CIS and understand their purpose and measure their integrity super important a key component of our cmdb planning and on top of that we have the configuration control board uh I talk to many many customers who kind of avoid having uh this control board sometimes U on purpose I highly recommend from my experience to have this in place um what is it it's a body that manages configuration efforts to align it infrastructure with corporate goals uh what it does provide leadership oversight for configuration management uh they ensure that board ensures that the configuration management plan aligns with the it and business initiatives review approve and prioritize changes that and resource optimizations and promote interactions with other processes or better coordination that was the second tile on our foundation the third one would be the people process technology and measure right so what we're seeing here on this slide is those pillars and each of these components is critical and key uh and and they they all interact sorry they all interrelate to ensure that our cdb delivers the maximum value uh people uh the success of any cdb initiatives initiative starts with the people right um includes everyone from the cmdb administrators to the stakeholders that use the data without the right skill sets without the right roles accountability uh even the doesn't matter which tool you use everything will crumble pay very close attention to which people need to be involved the process another key thing is about how we manage and maintain the cdb this includes the workflows for uh CI updates change management governance a well-defined process ensures that the data remains accurate and up to dat it's the only way to do it um and then we've got technology which what are we using in this case uh I hope service now um so that platform you're using allows you to automate Discovery manage data and integrate the cmdp with other it systems other processes but technology alone obviously is not enough it must be configured maintained according to your needs and the process that you've set yourself and then we've added measure into this measure is also important it involves the continuous evaluation of your cdb performance uh and these answer questions like are you tracking the right Matrix is the data accurate are you achieving your business and it objectives so you constantly and continuously have to measure how you're doing right so in conclusion to to the third TI of the foundation um I would say the three four pillows must work together right a failure in any one of those might impact the effectiveness of the CNB as a whole okay so the measurement aspect is also often forgotten so pay keep that in mind okay cdb Health sometimes our if you're using service now cdb Health feature is sometimes not used um and then measuring if measuring your cdb using those tools uh helps accommodate the everchanging needs of of the business and answers questions like are are the data we are tracking still needed are we is it still valid do we need to track anything else so that is super important and then the F the fourth one is the configuration management system these are tools uh that help they're built on top of the service now platform and they help you manage your cmdb and achieve the right outcomes so essentially helping you with the process and the measuring and you know the tool that helps you to do that uh you know Sam what's your experience with customers who are using these tools do you see any difference yeah so I find I find when I've I've been looking over customer environments where perhaps they're not taking advantage of cmdb health or um have configured it once maybe as part of initial project deployment but haven't kept on top of it over the lifetime of their cmdp um that's certainly there are consistencies with their CI data and and attributes over time which maybe the configuration management team have lost sight of but then when you look up and actually speak to the consumers of this data they they they lack trust because the data is inconsistent and they can't use it and sometimes they even look elsewhere uh to get the answers that they should rely on our cmdb for um same with like the data manager right um if you're not taking a consistent policy driven approach to maintaining data across its life cycle or even archiving it you're you're going to you're going to have the same sort of outcomes right lack of consistency lack of trust and ultimately lack of value totally agree all right thanks for that Sam so now let's bring it all together we've talked about the three pillars we've talked about the foundation how does it all look together um so the configuration control board uh meets regularly to discuss change requests see that here from this uh simplified view uh and so they discuss change requests and the configuration management management needs of the business right it also might review customizations and Muse on questions such as uh are the senior Executives that are setting the strategy still happy right is are there any improvements that we can potentially leverage that's the job of that configuration control board it's the bra you know not the brain but a key component of of your cdb process and then we've got also the configuration management team um which maintains and configures the cdb to ensure the business needs are met so they are governed by the configuration management plan that's the master document we talked about that outlines everything they need to do right this is their mandate mandate their compelling guide that they must use and then you'll find sometimes that people are better at adding entities to the cdb but they don't invest enough time removing unnecessary data so that's also thing that is often missed um in that process Okay so we've got another poll question for you in your view what do you think is the most common reason see be implementations fail to meet expectations see what people think about this all of this might happen but not not at the same frequency so no wrong answers mhm yeah that's some good answers here so race between two of the answers interesting ah very interesting so you you can see we are divided somewhat but lack of clear ownership and accountability W slightly by a slight percentage uh I I tend to agree with this Sam what do you think no I I I tend to agree I think there are no immediate wrong answers here right um but I think lack lack of clear ownership and accountability is is causal and perhaps the the other answers are more symptomatic of of of that causal option right there there are lots of others that we can name and and call out but I I would certainly select lack of clear ownership and accountability as I totally agree so luckily this is uh what we're kind of discussing here today so good thing all right let's see now we'll pivot a little bit uh to and this is a short section just a one slide for high level implementation sequencing so how should you structure your SC Tob implementation um it's not a drill down we have a lot of content around this just feel free to contact Sam or me on the matter and we'll be happy to provide you more drill down uh insight into the cdb implementations both of us have been on many so hopefully we know what we're talking about so how a typical project is implemented first of all set your direction I think this is this comes as no surprise as we said planning is very important start with clear goals actionable objectives and measurable business outcomes and also don't boil the ocean don't start okay let's create the you know track everything Implement every use case on the planet um try and phase it okay build a team and a governance model right you config you need your configuration management team governance structure your um your CCB all of these things need to be there okay uh as we talked in the previous slides uh also build your service data model decide what classes attributes you need and the foundation data they you depend on and the services and offerings they support super important do not skip that step ever because you if you start collecting U CIS classes attributes that support nothing then you get clutter nobody likes clutter um operationalize and M right establish processes and guardes to keep the cdb up toate and accurate valuable document the the process uh that support and all depend on your CDP data and the usage that's very high level just because this is an one hour session uh again I want to uh exclaim one more time we are here to provide you support we want you um to have all the information you need before or or during or after uh your scdb is in place so feel free to contact us anytime to get even more insight now let's see some implementation guidance there are some technical ideas here and some non-technical uh but again that's the kind of tip of the iceberg uh and it's just to kind of tease you a little bit and then hopefully spark some interest and you will be able to get uh just a little bit more quisitive about it and ask and look for more information about how to set up a cdb right so get the right bind of course before you start uh engage with stakehold old stakeholders as early as possible to make sure everyone is align because early early buying helps navigate challenges in the initial stage of the project right um You need to create an escalation point I guess that's true for everything but in cmdb which is a very procedural topic I would say an es escalation uh an escalation model is super important right and then this is my motto to be honest uh this is like if you ask me what's the one thing I would take away less is more in in cmdb okay you don't need to bloat your cmdb with junk you just need to make sure you've got what you need so plan carefully populate cdb classes attributes and relationships that directly U support your objectives okay nothing more uh avoid unnecessary data right so C Ci or attributes that don't support a key objective don't get that in there you don't need the color of the power cable most people don't it's nice to have but probably doesn't support anything right uh treat custom attributes as mandatory so in your completeness compliance reporting um you know plan make sure that you set those attributes as mandatory so you can measure them okay and then the last and very important measure or remove if you're not measuring it it doesn't belong in the CDP okay that's super important all right now uh we've got some seemly big correctness ideas for you to think about uh the IR from a technical perspective the IR is your best friend you have most most customers have multiple sources ingesting data CIS into cmdb and the IRA is that funnel that help make decisions about updates creations of CIS and other entities as well don't skip it do yourself a favor um this is your One-Stop shop for avoiding duplicate and just nasty data in your CDP also don't customize it if you don't need to or extend it make sure you understand the purpose of this extension and customization before you do that contact your service now representative if you need to um for advice but make sure you understand the repercussions of customizing it right uh the reconciliation also make sure that that you have data sources and you know sometimes they update the MCI so make sure you regularly you view uh and update identification rules or rather I would say reconciliation rules as well or more importantly even because identification rules uh out of box should work pretty well I know there are challenges but um reconciliation is also important another one on correctness archive and cleanup stale CIS um I see I've seen in my life uh customers who don't invest in that a lot and over time the cdb can accumulate uh stale obsolete CIS that bloats your cmdb makes it hard to navigate remember the title of the session is navigate your cmdb here is um the one liner here make sure it's clean okay set up retirement policies archive delete right use the S stainless detection feature in the cdb health dashbo to identify CI that have not been updated indicating that they might not be relevant anymore super important and then we've got um the something on completeness the CI class manager so traditionally You' go to the CI class manager to get uh to set recommended Fields uh on on Class by class basis right I'm sure everybody who's who's using service now as cdb have used this CI class manager but you might lose context if you do it from there so um so we actually recommend another method that might help you it is the cmdb recommended Fields view so if you go to the table level um you can see all the recommendations that you've set in one place and you can also modify them uh this is a Time Saver and feel free to look into other other functionalities that are better in table view there might be some and of course provide us feedback if there's something you think can be simplified we are a you know a feedback driven team so we'd like to hear the feedback from you the cmdb workspace um so the cmdb workspace you should get familiar with it um because we moving a lot of functionality some functionality is already moved there but it's very quickly becoming the single pane of glass um the data manager is moving there seem to be Health tasks 3 60 seem to be a lot of it is going to be uh in in in that view okay it's a very powerful tool for you to use and we highly recommend using that all right one more uh is intelligent search this feature uses um natural language language queries so you can use this to search for things in your cmdb it's pretty capable um I'm the reason it's here and also the workspace is because I talk to many uh colleagues customers Partners who are not aware of this or they just knew it was there but they haven't really tried using those tools the workspace and and the intelligence search I hope that you know if you haven't seen these tools you will look into them so those are very powerful tools to use all right we have one more whole question for you all right what is the one action based on what you've seen so far and this is that was the last slide on the content what's the one thing you've learned or learned if you're in Europe sure the concept is the same mhm very split crowd here nice I'm very happy that no one answered we already we already do all of this so no worries I'm very glad nobody answered that uh but as you can see this is there's no right or wrong answers this is this comes from where you think you're you can do something different right so I think create the configuration management plan is also the most common thing I I I I would say I see in the field I think some do you agree or do you see different things yeah ve very rarely when I've gone to do assessments and work with with cmdbs and I've asked if there's a configuration management plan am I met with an answer that isn't no um it's it's very rare and even if I do see one often very very much out of date and don't reflect current operations which is um just as bad if if not worse um in some cases yeah I totally agree this is this been has been a hot topic for many years but again there are no wrong answers here I think it comes from where you think you should do something different so those are good answers um the Trap was don't answer number five so no wor all right so uh we have a few resources for you to use are now create uh you can look out for there's so many U you know we at some point many of us seem to be experts let's say uh we sat together around the campfire and came up with a lot of really good guidance from what we've seen in the field and it's all public um so cmdb governance maintain a healthy cmdb cmdb process guide it's all there for you to use and I highly recommend um using those uh using those resources there's one thing I wanted to draw your attention to here can see we've got cmdb Amplified here so if you are not familiar with cmdb Amplified cdb Amplified is a fixed fee offering let's not worry about the uh Logistics but the purpose of this offering is to help you review and assess your cdb from a technical inside out right from a technical perspective from a process perspective where you customizations extensions uh where you probably need to tweak something maybe there is you know you customized something three releases ago that now service now supports out of the box seem to be Amplified helps expose those things and help you create a plan to remediate those things right um and you know off the back of that assessment you can contract you can do it yourself you can contract Serv now to do it your partner favorite partner whatever it is um so feel free to use it Sam has run uh many of those himself and I think overwhelmingly we've we've Reed really good feedback from customers on this so I highly recommend using that we also have a CS csdm amplify which does something very similar but for the csdm framework where you could do better um maybe you've customized something maybe you're using the wrong relationships somewhere we can maybe pop that in there when we share it as well and we also have csdm align csdm align is for customers who are just getting started with either csdm or service now um it's mainly for Greenfield uh we assign an expert to work with you uh interview your you know business owners your application owners and map together with you I think three services just to get you started to get you to understand how you should use the csdm um model um most correctly and then we highly encourage you to contact directly uh if you have any questions we will try and do our best to answer all your questions uh otherwise if we can't you know we we have a whole team behind us uh to help product managers seem to be experts that have more you know experience in other areas feel free to contact us anytime