CMDB Item Types

All CMDB items in the system must be classified as item types. vFire Core comes with a standard set of item types, but you can add further sub-types in order to classify your CMDB items as specifically as possible.

You can configure up to nine levels of sub-types. The additional types can be configured to inherit the properties of their parents, or have their own custom screen sets. You can also restrict access to specific types and sub types available to analysts through the CMDB tab of their Configuration Management Security Role.

For example, for the Configuration Item Type (provided out of the box), you can define a sub type Hardware, and further sub-types below it for, say, Printer and Server. The Hardware Type can inherit the properties of Configuration Item, or you can configure it to use a custom screen set. When you add a new printer, you select the Printer type and the appropriate Details window is displayed.

vFire Core provides the following CMDB Item Types by default:

Configuration Items

Within this, there are:

Inventory Allow you to categorize and manage the inventory items that you wish to track as assets, that is, items you want to track from purchase to disposal. You can order, purchase, allocate, reserve, transfer ownership, and retire inventory items.

You can configure your other CMDB Item Types as assets if you wish.

Software Products Allow you to categorize and manage your organization’s software products that you wish to track as assets, that is, track from purchase to disposal. You can order, purchase, allocate, reserve, transfer ownership, and retire software products.
Structures

Allow you to classify groups of related CMDB items. For example you can create a Structure “Sales Team – Sydney” to identify a group of configuration items used by a particular department. Structures are flagged as assets by default but you can change this classification when configuring these CMDB Item Types.

This is a deprecated value and may not appear in newly created vFire Core systems and databases.

You can also create sub-types within this such as Hardware, Infrastructure and so on.
Service entities Services, Service Actions, and Service Bundles are used to define and manage the service portfolio of services offered by your organization.

For example, you can define a Service for Email. You can then define and link any number of Service Actions relating to the email service, such as “Set up an email account” or “Back up the email server”. Finally, you can associate Service Actions with a Service Bundle, such as “New Starter”. Allocating Subscriber Groups to a Service Action allows you to define which people in your organization may request each service through the Portal.

 

Besides the CMDB Items described above, you can also create the following entities within your organization’s CMDB:

People to manage your Analysts, Users, and External Contacts
Organizations to manage the external suppliers and companies or departments to which Users or External Contacts belong
Locations to manage the physical addresses of Users and/or Organizations
Contracts to manage warranties, support or maintenance agreements associated with Configuration Items and Services with External Suppliers
Agreements to manage the agreements with Users and external suppliers used to enhance your service delivery
Cost Centers to manage cost centers
Jurisdictions to manage groups of cost centers and assign access to these groupings to analysts
Subscriber Groups to manage people permitted to order service actions and service bundles through the service catalog

Benefits of Multi-level CMDB Item Types

There are numerous benefits to the hierarchical structure of CMDB Item Types.

  • Particular types can be assigned to different analysts through configuration management security roles.
  • You can create a hierarchical tier structure to as many levels as you need and flexibly and accurately model your organization’s assets in the CMDB, creating the types and sub types you need.
  • You can classify the items within your CMDB by configuring your own sub types.
  • Child types can inherit the properties set up for the parent type, including availability, and auditing settings, as well as the image associated with the parent CMDB type. In addition, if a particular screen set has been configured in the Designer for a particular CMDB item type, it will also be inherited by the child types.

You can restrict the Analysts who are responsible for Servers to only modify Server CMDB items, or those responsible for email to modify only the Email Service. You can apply different levels of security to different groups of Analysts in the organization, for example, service desk Analysts can only view and search for certain types of CIs but may not modify them.

You can create a Configuration Item type for Computer, then, for the Computer type, you can create child types for Laptop, Server, and Desktop. Then, you can configure the Computer type so that Analysts are not allowed to use this type, but must choose a specific type of computer. 

You can create a Service type for IT Services. Within this you can then set up child types for each particular type of service provided by the IT department, such as Email, Installation, Connection, or Maintenance. When analysts add services, they can classify them according to the Service types you have defined.

Creating a CMDB item type

Before you start

You must have CMDB Setup enabled within your General Access security role in order to configure any CMDB administration settings. Depending on if or how your system is partitioned, ensure that you are working in the correct partition.

  1. Select the Menu button , then Admin, and then select System Administration. The System Administration window is displayed . In the Explorer pane, locate the CMDB group , scrolling up or down if necessary. You may need to expand the group to see the options within it.

  2. Select CMDB Item Types to open the window .
  1. Select the type of CMDB entity for which you want to define your own sub type.
  2. Select . The CMDB Item Type Details window is displayed .
  3. Complete the details.

    4. Name Name of the CMDB item type. This is a mandatory field
    Ref Prefix

    Prefix for the CMDB item type. When analysts create CMDB items under this CMDB item type, this prefix will display in the Ref field on the CMDB Item Details window. Similarly, when CMDB items are created automatically, for example through the Federated CMDB, this prefix is added to the Item ID.

    The default prefix is set in the System Titles window.

    Parent Type(s)

    A read only field that displays the parent CMDB item type on which the current CMDB item type is based.

    Allow Creation of CMDB Items This option is useful if, for example, you have defined a CMDB item type “Computer” and below that child CMDB item types for “Laptop”, “Workstation” and “Server”, and want to ensure analysts choose the specific computer type, rather than the more generic parent type. By clearing Allow creation of CMDB Items for the CMDB Type Computer, and selecting the option for the child types, Analysts will have to choose a specific computer type when they add a computer item.

    If you clear Allow Creation of CMDB Items, CMDB items classified under this CMDB item type can still be searched and reported on.
    Display New Menu Item in Wrapper This option is enabled if you select Allow Creation of CMDB Items. Select to allow analysts to create new CMDB items under this CMDB item type straight from the New menu option.
    Turn Audit On

    Select to enable auditing on CMDB items of this CMDB item type. This enables the Audit explorer option on the CMDB Item Details window.

    If this option has already been selected on the parent CMDB item type, it will be pre-selected and disabled on the current CMDB item type.

    Categorize as an Asset Select to flag this CMDB Item as an Asset. This flag enables you to identify those CMDB items you want to track as assets for financial purposes. By default the Software Product, Inventory, and Structure configuration item types are flagged as assets.
    Track Availability Allows Analysts to link outages against CMDB items of this CMDB item type. If you are using availability on your system, analysts can select the Availability explorer option for CMDB items.
    Auto-create Outages

    This is enabled when you select Track Availability.

    Select to automatically select the Create/Link Outages checkbox when a Call or Request is logged for a CMDB item of this CMDB Item Type, allowing the Analyst to create or link an outage from the call or request.

    If Auto-create Outages is already selected on the parent CMDB item type, it will be pre-selected and disabled on the current CMDB item type.

    Description & Images A text box below this heading enables you to provide a description of the CMDB type. If it is HTML enabled, you can format the text, adding tables, hyperlinks and so on.
    Add an Image You can link an image (icon) to the CMDB item type by selecting . Images may be in JPEG, GIF, or BMP format. This image appears to the left of the item type in the CMDB Item Types window.

    If an image has already been added, it is displayed in the window. To remove it, select .
    Portal Submit Button Enter the text to display on the Order button of Service Actions in the Self Service Portal Service Catalog that are created for this CMDB Item Type. Text entered here replaces the default button label "Order".
    Open Designer

    This button allows you to configure the screens associated with this item type in the Designer.

    You must have Designer selected in your General Access Security Role.
    Screens The Screens browse table displays the screens in the screen set associated with this CMDB item type. If you have permission to access the Designer, you can personalize these screens by either modifying the standard screen or adding and configuring your own.
    Select the Ticket Report you wish to associate with this CMDB item type. The ticket report is displayed when selecting Print on the CMDB Item Details window or Ticket Report on the CMDB Item Search window.
    Parent CMDB Type’s ticket report

    Use the parent CMDB item type’s ticket report.

    The report is highlighted in the table below the buttons, and all of the other tables are grayed out.
    Custom ticket report

    Use a custom ticket report. (You may need to scroll down to see this option and the browse table below it.)

    Highlight a report in the browse table and select the button.

  4. Select to save the changes and close the window. Provide the Change Reasons if prompted to do so. You may need to scroll back up to see the button.

Updating a CMDB Item Type

Before you start

You must have CMDB Setup enabled within your General Access security role in order to configure any CMDB administration settings. Depending on if or how your system is partitioned, ensure that you are working in the correct partition.

  1. Select the Menu button , then Admin, and then select System Administration. The System Administration window is displayed . In the Explorer pane, locate the CMDB group , scrolling up or down if necessary. You may need to expand the group to see the options within it.

  2. Select CMDB Item Types to open the window .
  1. Select the CMDB item type you wish to update.
  2. Select .
  3. In the CMDB Item Type Details window, edit the details of the CMDB item type.
  4. Select to save the changes and close the window. Provide the Change Reasons if prompted to do so. You may need to scroll back up to see the button.

Renaming a CMDB item type

Before you start

You must have CMDB Setup enabled within your General Access security role in order to configure any CMDB administration settings. Depending on if or how your system is partitioned, ensure that you are working in the correct partition.

You may wish to change the name of a CMDB item type to personalize the vFire Core system for your organization.

  1. Select the Menu button , then Admin, and then select System Administration. The System Administration window is displayed . In the Explorer pane, locate the CMDB group , scrolling up or down if necessary. You may need to expand the group to see the options within it.

  2. Select CMDB Item Types to open the window .
  1. Select the required type in the CMDB item types list and select .
  2. In the CMDB Type Details window, type the name you want to assign to the selected entity type in the Name field.

    3. If you rename the default CMDB item types then the original name for the CMDB item type will display in the Original Name field.

  3. Select to save the changes and close the window. Provide the Change Reasons if prompted to do so. The items are redisplayed, in alphabetical order.

Deleting a CMDB item type

Before you start

You must have CMDB Setup enabled within your General Access security role in order to configure any CMDB administration settings.

You cannot delete a default CMDB item type. The delete button is grayed out on the CMDB Item Types window for default CMDB item types.

If you delete a CMDB Item Type, any existing CMDB items that use this CMDB item type still retain that CMDB item type which will be displayed with an asterisk beside the name to indicate it is deleted.

  1. Select the Menu button , then Admin, and then select System Administration. The System Administration window is displayed . In the Explorer pane, locate the CMDB group , scrolling up or down if necessary. You may need to expand the group to see the options within it.

  2. Select CMDB Item Types to open the window .
  1. Select the CMDB Type you want to delete.
  2. Select .

    3. If you want to see the details before you delete the item, open it first by double clicking or selecting . Then select from the details window.

Restoring a Deleted CMDB Item Type

Before you start

You must have CMDB Setup enabled within your General Access security role in order to configure any CMDB administration settings. Depending on if or how your system is partitioned, ensure that you are working in the correct partition.

  1. Select the Menu button , then Admin, and then select System Administration. The System Administration window is displayed . In the Explorer pane, locate the CMDB group , scrolling up or down if necessary. You may need to expand the group to see the options within it.

  2. Select CMDB Item Types to open the window .
  1. Select the Show Deleted checkbox to include deleted CMDB item types in the listing. The deleted items are indicated by a red circle icon .
  2. Highlight the item you want to restore and select . Provide Change Reasons if prompted to do so. After a moment, the display refreshes and the red circle is removed from the item, indicating that it has been restored. If you wish, you can deselect the Show Deleted checkbox to see that the item is displayed among the active items.