[TBD] Guide to resolving discrepancies between Operational Status and Life Cycle Stage in CMDBGet-well Playbook CIs with Mismatched Operational Status and Life Cycle Stage A step-by-step guide to analyze and remediate CMDB data Table of Contents Summary. 3 Who this playbook is for 3 Problem Overview.. 3 Executive Summary. 5 How this playbook can help you achieve your business outcome. 5 How this playbook is structured. 5 Problem Analysis 6 Downstream consequences 6 What is the Impact to Business Outcome: 6 Engagement Questions: 7 Remediation Plays 8 Summary. 8 Play 1: Analysis 9 Play 2: Fix Play – Update Status Choice Lists 9 Data Governance. 10 Summary Goal for this Playbook To help identify and correct misaligned values between Operational Status and Life Cycle Stage. Author: Scott LemmDate: 03/31/2025Addresses HSD #: HSDApplicable to: Xanadu, YokohamaDuration and Effort: ~1-4 HoursCustomer Applicability: GA Who this playbook is for Configuration Manager or Configuration Management teamServiceNow AdminCI Owner Problem Overview Operational Status is a common status attribute within the CMDB and utilized by various ServiceNow products including but not limited to ITOM. Capabilities within ITOM Visibility may update the Operational Status of a CI to “Operational” if visible on the network. Additional use cases may exist that will set a configuration item’s Operational Status to “Operational”, “Non Operational”, or “Retired”. For example, many customers utilize a business rule to change the Operational Status to “Non Operational” of the configuration item has not been seen on the network for (n) days. The following Operational Status choices exist out-of-box within the ServiceNow CMDB: NOTE: THE CHOICES “REPAIR IN PROGRESS”, “DR STANDBY”, AND “READY” ARE CONSIDERED LEGACY AND NOT RECOMMENDED FOR USE The CSDM Life Cycle Stage / Status attributes are a more end-to-end process method of managing Status on configuration items, assets, and other ServiceNow objects. There are two values that make up the CSDM Life Cycle Stage / Status. These are Life Cycle Stage and Life Cycle Status. The combination of Life Cycle Stage and Status provide the detail of an objects status. The following are examples of CSDM Life Cycle Stages and their Statuses: With the introduction of Product Instance 2.0 (PI2.0) in Xanadu, optional activation of PI 2.0 will eliminate synchronization efforts between legacy configuration item statuses (intall_status, operational_status, hardware_status) with Life Cycle Stage and Status. This synchronization process was problematic and failed to deliver consistent positive user experiences, thus the synchronization was eliminated. With Operational Status and Life Cycle Stage / Status NOT synchronized, there is potential for these values to become misaligned. For example, if a business rule runs after a configuration item has not been seen on the network for (n) days and changes the Operational Status from “Operational” to “Non Operational”, the Life Cycle Stage may still reflect “Operational”. In some scenarios, this differentiation helps identify when organizational processes may not have been followed. This playbook helps you identify where Operational Status values may be misaligned to Life Cycle Stages and helps you correct the misalignment where appropriate. Executive Summary How this playbook can help you achieve your business outcome CI life cycle stage / status objects provide the ability to identify where a configuration item lies within its life cycle process as well as actioning various workflows based on identified status values. Understanding when ITOM Visibility and other discovery mechanisms provide details that are not aligned to life cycle stage / status helps mitigate potential adverse impacts to the business How this playbook is structured This Playbook will guide you through 3 plays. Play 1 (an analysis play) helps you identify misalignment between the configuration item operational status and life cycle stage objects.Play 2 (a fix play) tells you how to align status objects.Play 3 (a Data Governance play) lists the guidelines and processes for management of alignment within configuration item operational status and life cycle stage objects. Use these guidelines to maintain effective data in your CMDB. Problem Analysis Transforms are loading status choices to one and not both operational status and life cycle stage / statusSome admins may have manually updated one status and not the otherSome admins may not realize operational status is being updatedIntegrations to 3rd party solutions may only be updating one statusYou may not be aware that differentiation in operational status and life cycle stage attributes may have an adverse affect on capabilities within the platformProcesses may not exist to identify and review differentiation of status attributes within the CMDB. Note: not all differentiation requires synchronization efforts. Some differentiation is a window into activities that may not follow prescribed processes or may be acceptable risks Downstream consequences Data Consequence Data alignment with Asset may result in inaccurate data in either Asset or CMDBData alignment between status attributes may result in inaccurate data in either Asset or CMDBBusiness decisions made based on incorrect data Operation Consequence Erodes trust in the accuracy of the CMDB. Results in a poor user-experiencePolicies that update status choices may be unaware of differentiation resulting in broken workflowsReporting will lack correct data, unable to associate the correct status of a configuration item Service Management Consequence Configuration items may not reflect appropriate operational status for inclusion / exclusion within various workflowsMMTR may be impacted by configuration items within incorrect status values What is the Impact to Business Outcome: Differentiation in an operational status choice and life cycle stage may affect the following areas of your business A poor User Experience (internal & external) making Work harder than it needs to be.Erosion of CMDB trust accompanied with a general lack of adoption & enthusiasm.Reduced MMTR when depending on operational values within status choicesAudit compliance - Unable to properly reflect life cycle management of configuration items Engagement Questions: Consider answers to these questions: What are the major sources of status data in your repository?Which CMDB status attributes do you utilize on configuration items: Install Status, Operational Status, Hardware Status, Hardware Substatus, Life Cycle Stage / Status?Are differentiations of operational status and life cycle stage acceptable? Note: not all differentiation requires synchronization efforts. Some differentiation is a window into activities that may not follow prescribed processes or may be acceptable risksAre 3rd party integrations populating your statuses?Are configuration items you expect to be visible/invisible not reflected properly when searching from Incident and/or Change?Do you import data manually? If so, what process do you use? Does your process include populating status on configuration items? Which status attributes are updated by your processes? Remediation Plays Summary Play Play 1: Analysis What is this play about Identify differentiation of operational status and life cycle stage on a configuration item Play Steps Run report to help identify target configuration items Play 2: Fix Existing Data What is this play about Mitigate misalignment Play Steps Correct differentiation in operational status and life cycle stage where appropriate Play 3: Data Governance What is this play about Helps you establish standard operating procedures, as well as periodic data management Play Steps Provides detailed advice, best practices and data audit instructions Play 1: Analysis What this Play is about Identify which configuration items have mismatched operational status and life cycle stage Required tasks Install CMDB and CSDM Data Foundations Dashboard 4.1 or greater from the ServiceNow App Store.Navigate to the CSDM Data Foundations Dashboard module in the left navigation menu.Select the Crawl tab.Locate the CIs with Mismatched Operational Status and Life Cycle Status report to view a list of configuration items with mismatched values You may select a configuration item from the list to view and modify their details if desired How are the mismatched CIs determined ServiceNow looks at the three Operational Status values: Operational, Non-Operational, and Retired. We then compare these 3 values to the list of Life Cycle Stages with the following desired outcomes: Operational Status Life Cycle Stage Operational Operational Retired End of Life Non-Operational (any Life Cycle Stage value NOT Operational or End of Life) If a configuration item has Operational Status and Life Cycle Stage values that are mismatched to the above list, then they will be flagged in the CIs with Mismatched Operational Status and Life Cycle Status report Play 2: Fix Play – Update Status Choice Lists What this Play is about This play tells you how to correct configuration items with mismatched operational status and life cycle stage where appropriate Required tasks Open a configuration item from the CIs with Mismatched Operational Status and Life Cycle Stage report. The configuration item details are then displayed. NOTE: Please ensure the Operational Status and the Life Cycle Stage and Stage Status attributes are visible on the configuration item form. Compare the Mismatched Operational Status and Life Cycle Stage values. The expected desired match between Operational Status and Life Cycle Stage are shown below: Operational Status Life Cycle Stage Operational OperationalRetired End of LifeNon-Operational (any Life Cycle Stage value NOT Operational or End of Life) Why don’t we care about Life Cycle Stage Status? The Life Cycle Stage Status is a status detail within a Life Cycle Stage. The Operational Status object does not identify status details beyond “Operational”, “Non-Operational”, and “Retired”. Any further values may be ignored. Identify which of your configuration item Mismatched Operational Status with Life Cycle Stage values need to be corrected, if any. It is important to consider the following: A VALID Mismatch – some mismatched values may be correct and reflect an anomaly in an organizations process. For example, a laptop may have been End of Life and Sold to an employee. That employee may then place the laptop back on the organizational network. Discovery may see that laptop and update a previously known configuration item’s Operational Status from Retired to Operational. But the Asset/CI Life Cycle Stage and Stage Status values are End of Life : Sold. Source of Mismatch – modifying either values in Operational Status or Life Cycle Stage and Stage Status without understanding the source of the mismatch may result in this configuration item returning to the mismatch report. Investigate how the mismatch occurred and if there are extenuating circumstances that may need to be resolved first. Correct Mismatched values as necessary. Play 3: Data Governance What this Play is about This play lists the best practices and processes for managing differentiations within configuration item operational status and life cycle stage Required tasks Periodically review the CSDM Data Foundation dashboard report to see if there are any differentiations between operational status and life cycle stage on configuration items.Establish a system oversight that encourages regular 3rd party integration reviews while enabling Data Stewards to ensure data integrity for core data. Congratulations on successfully completing this Playbook.