Service Portfolio Management · Topic 1 of 1
Service Portfolio Management
ServiceNow Service Portfolio Management for CIS-ITSM: portfolios, taxonomy nodes, services and offerings, life cycle stages, commitments and roles.
- 5 min
- SPM Core is active by default with ITSM; SPM Foundation is the main plugin, activated by an administrator where needed.
- Standard structure: portfolio, taxonomy node levels, then services and offerings; legacy adds taxonomy layers.
- Life cycle stages are service pipeline, service catalog and retired services.
What it is
Service Portfolio Management (SPM) documents, organizes and manages the services an organization provides, their service offerings and the portfolios that hold them. It gives service owners and IT leaders one standard structure to judge the value and cost of their services.
For an ITSM implementer, SPM matters because the services and offerings it manages are the same CSDM records that incidents, changes and catalog requests point to. A clean portfolio makes routing, impact and reporting in the other processes work.
How it works
Plugins
| Plugin | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| Service Portfolio Management Core | Active by default for ITSM licensed customers |
| Service Portfolio Management Foundation | The main plugin, activated by an administrator where it is not already active; it also activates Core and lets you document portfolios, taxonomies, services and service offerings |
Portfolio structure
A service portfolio sits at the top. Below it, taxonomy nodes build a hierarchy from general to specific, and nodes can have parent and child nodes, so a portfolio can be nested several levels deep. Services and their service offerings sit below the nodes.
An organization can create several portfolios, and each portfolio can have its own taxonomy. There is no fixed limit on the number of taxonomy nodes.
| Structure | How it is built | Who has it |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | Portfolio, then one or more node levels, then services and offerings | New customers by default |
| Legacy | Portfolio with taxonomy layers; each layer holds taxonomy nodes or leaf nodes, with services below | Customers from before the Utah release, who can upgrade to the standard structure |
The upgrade is done by the portfolio_admin from the Service Portfolio Management administration menu, and only existing customers see that option.
Service life cycle stages
| Stage | Contains |
|---|---|
| Service pipeline | Proposed or in review services that are not yet operational |
| Service catalog | Operational services available for use, including those in design and development; these are the ones usually offered in a request catalog |
| Retired services | Services no longer operational or available, kept for their historical information |
Services and service offerings
A service offering derives from its parent service and refines it for a specific business need or level of performance, such as Gold and Silver email. Administrators create offerings.
Service editors can then add commitments to an offering, assign several support teams and subscribe users. SPM can also log outages, which adjust the availability of a business or technical service commitment, and show availability and SLA commitment results, including in automated reports.
Link to CSDM and ITSM
SPM uses the Common Service Data Model (CSDM) to bring service data into one view. Business services and technology management services are CMDB classes, and their offerings use the service_offering table. Incidents, changes and requests that reference those services and offerings inherit the portfolio's structure for routing and reporting.
Service Builder
Service Builder is the application portfolio admins use to create and edit services and service offerings. Portfolio viewers and service viewers can also use it to view portfolios, services and offerings.
In the standard structure, Digital Portfolio Management uses KPI groups to report on the performance of portfolios, nodes and services.
Roles
| Role | Can do |
|---|---|
| Portfolio admin | Set up, create, edit and delete services and portfolios; manage commitments and availability; update taxonomy nodes and offerings; reparent services |
| Portfolio editor | Edit and delete services and portfolios; update taxonomy nodes and offerings; reparent services |
| Portfolio viewer | View portfolios, taxonomy nodes, services and offerings |
| Service admin | Set up, create, edit and delete services and service offerings |
| Service editor | Edit services and offerings they own or are delegates for; log outages and review commitment results |
| Service viewer | View all portfolios, services and offerings |
The split is between the portfolio (structure and taxonomy) and the service (individual services and their offerings).
How the exam asks about this
- "Leadership wants to see proposed services that are not live yet." They are in the service pipeline stage.
- "A service owner needs to record an outage and review commitment results for the service they own, without managing the whole portfolio." Give them the service editor role.
- "Email support must be offered at two levels with different commitments." Create two service offerings under the email service.
What to remember for the exam
- SPM Core is active by default with ITSM; SPM Foundation is the main plugin, activated by an administrator where needed.
- Standard structure: portfolio, taxonomy node levels, then services and offerings; legacy adds taxonomy layers.
- Life cycle stages are service pipeline, service catalog and retired services.
- Offerings refine a service for a need or performance level and carry commitments.
- Service Builder creates and edits services and offerings.
- Portfolio roles manage structure; service roles manage individual services.
Retiring a service does not delete its history. Retired services stay in the portfolio so past records and reports still make sense.
Common mistakes
Treating taxonomy nodes as CIs. Nodes are portfolio groupings for decisions and reporting. Tickets point to services and offerings, not to nodes.
Giving every service owner portfolio admin. A service owner who maintains only their own services needs the service editor role, not control of the whole portfolio.
Confusing the service catalog stage with the Service Catalog application. The stage holds operational services in the portfolio. Catalog items, order guides and record producers live in the Service Catalog application.
Check yourself
Which stage holds services that are proposed but not yet operational?
The service pipeline. Operational services are in the service catalog stage and retired ones in retired services.
What is the difference between a service and a service offering?
A service offering derives from its parent service and refines it for a specific business need or performance level, and it carries the commitments.
Which application do portfolio admins use to create and edit services and service offerings?
Service Builder, which viewers can also use to see portfolios, services and offerings.
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