Creating a service catalog in the Atrium Core Console

The Service Catalog provides centralized management of business services across BMC products. It enables you to define in BMC CMDB a common list of services that IT provides to the business. You can use CMDB Explorer to dynamically update the infrastructure configuration items (CIs) related to these services by using queries and templates. In the Service Catalog, a service must have at least one service offering and can have one or more request actions. Creating a service catalog is a prerequisite to building a service model. 

Before you begin

Make sure you understand the concepts of service, service catalog, and service modeling from the following content:

• Service and service catalog
• Service modeling

To define options in Service Catalog

Like request actions, options are visible to end users and define the flexibility of your services. An option might be one particular customization, such as an email inbox capacity of 250 MB, where a request action might be a bundle of options, such as storage and backup options. For example, a mobile cell plan can offer a bundle of options, such as unlimited messages, call forwarding, and a data plan, or a user can select each of them as individual options as needed.

In the service catalog, you can use options for the service offerings and request actions. An option has one or more choices, each of which has cost and price information. These options and their choices are used when end-users make a request in a request console, such as BMC Service Request Management. They are managed separately from offerings because they do not rely on a specific offering. You can reuse options across offerings.

1. In the service catalog, click Options Editor.

   Tip

   While editing a service offering or request action, you can also open Options Editor on the Options tab.

   Options Editor
   

2. In the Options area, click New Option.
3. In the New Option window, enter a name and description for the option.
4. For Option Type, select whether the option is for request definition, post-deploy action, or any request.
   • Any Request (the default) — Available as an option for request actions and service offerings.
   • Request Definition — Available as an option for service offerings.
   • Post-Deploy Action — Available as an option for request actions.
5. Click OK.
   The new option is listed, and you can create option choices for it.
6. To allow users to select more than one choice for an option, select the Multi-Select check box.
   By default, Multi-Select is not enabled, and users can select only one choice per option.
7. In the Option Choices area, click New Option Choice.
8. In the New Option Choice window, enter a name and description for the option choice. 
   
   Example of an option choice
   
9. Set the customer price or delivery cost.
   For detailed instructions, see Adding a customer price or delivery cost to an option, service, or request action.
10. In the New Option Choice window, click OK.
    The new option choice is listed.
11. To change the order of the choices, select a choice, and click the move up or down button.
    Customers see the order of choices that you have defined.
12. To make a choice the default, select the Pre-Select check box.
13. Create options and choices as needed.

14. To save changes to the options and choices, in Option Editor, click OK.

To add customer price or delivery cost to an option, a service, or a request action

When defining an option, a service, or a request action, you can use Price Editor to include optional customer prices or Cost Editor to include an optional delivery cost. The fields in Price Editor and Cost Editor are the same. The only difference is their function, as follows:

• Customer Price — Amount charged to the customer for the option choice.
• Delivery Cost — Amount that costs to offer the option choice. This cost can include real cost, notational costs (such as staffing time), and depreciation.

To add customer price or delivery cost, perform the following steps:

1. Click Add new price to open Price Editor (shown in the following figure), or click Add new cost to open Cost Editor. 
   
   Example of Price Editor 
   
2.  Enter a name (for example, Per Instance).
3. From Currency, select a currency type (for example, EUR).
   The default is USD.
4. Click This is my default to override your previous default settings.
5. From Units, select a unit of measure.
   You can select GB (Storage), CPU Count, CPU Seconds, CPU % Utilization, Named User, Concurrent User, or Instance (the default).
6. In Alias, enter an alias to the unit (for example, each).
7. Click This is my default to override your previous default settings.
8. From Period, select a time period.
   You can select Hour, Day, Week, Month (the default), Quarter, Year, a One-Time charge, or Other.
9. In Alias, enter an alias to the unit (for example, every ).
10. Click This is my default to override your previous default settings.
11. Click Show Choices with alias to display the alias in the Base Deployment Price field.
    Or click Show Choices without alias to hide the aliases.
12.  Click Save.
    The settings appear in the Customer Price or Delivery Cost fields.

To create new services for the service catalog

A service is the utility that an organization provides and is defined by its service offerings, request actions, and service level targets. For example, the Calbro IT organization offers an email service, which includes gold and silver service offerings that have service level targets based on response times.

In the service catalog, a service must have at least one service offering and can have one or more request actions. 

When you create a service, it is saved to BMC.ASSET dataset.

1. In the service catalog, click Create a new service.  
   
2. Enter the service name.
3. From Type, select a service type.
   • Business service — Services that customers use and represents services from a customer's point of view, such as email or online store.
   • Technical service — Supporting IT and infrastructure resources required to support business services that are not visible to customers, such as servers, applications, and network CIs.
4. Enter a description of the service.
5. Click Save to create the service.

After creating a service, define a service offering. 

For technical services, you can use the Map IT Resources to use queries to associate CIs with technical services. For more information, see Creating service models by using Dynamic Service Modeling.

Service offerings overview

You can define service offerings based on how you want to manage your services. For example, if managing your services by location is important to your business, you might create the service offerings for Email-US, Email-Europe, and Email-Asia. If you want to manage services by organizations and their resource demands, you might have service offerings for Finance-Small, Finance-Medium, Finance-Large, Support-Medium, and Support-Large to customize for the different storage requirements for each organization. 

In the service catalog, you can further define a service offering:

• Associate a service offering with a technical service.
• Add options to the service offering for end users to select.

All technical and business services must have at least one service offering and can have more than one.

When you create a service level target in the service catalog, it does not create a record in or retrieve data from BMC Service Level Management. 

After you create services, you can define service offerings based on how you want to manage your services.

To create a service offering in the service catalog

A service offering defines a level of service for a price: it combines the service (utility) and a service level target (warranty) to bring value to the customer. 

For example, the Calbro IT organization offers different service offerings, or levels, for an email service based on response times. Each service offering costs a different amount based on the service level targets.

To create a service offering, perform the following steps:

1. Open Service Catalog.
   
   
2. In the service catalog, click the Create a new service and its default request button.
   
   On the Service Offering tab, a default service offering is available, which you can edit. 
3. Select the New Service Offering tab.
   
   

4. To add a new offering to the service, click Create a New Service Offering.

5. On the General Information tab, define the parameters described in the following table:

    Service offering parameters

   Parameter	Description
   Default Service Offering	Enable this option to make the selected service offering the default for the service. Unless users select a different service offering, the default service offering is used.
   Name	A short, descriptive name for the service offering.
   Description	This description is optional but a more detailed description of the service offering can help users decide which offering to select.
   Lifecycle Stage	Set the service offering to one of the following ITIL stages: Requirements — The business or IT organization has submitted a set of outline requirements for a new or changed service. Defined — The requirements for a new service are being assessed, defined and documented, and the Service Level Requirements (SLRs) are being produced. Analyzed — The requirements for a new service are being analyzed and prioritized. Approved — The requirements for a new service are being finalized and authorized. Chartered — The new service requirements are being communicated, and resources and budget are being allocated. Designed — the new service and its constituent components are being designed and procured as required Developed — The service and its constituent components are being developed or collected as required. Built — The service and its constituent components are being built. Tested — The service and its constituent components are being tested. Released — The service and its constituent components are being released Operational — The service and its constituent components are operational within the live environment. Closed — The service and its constituent components that were released are not available but not retired. Retired — The service and its constituent components are being retired because the business no longer needs them, other services have superseded them, or they are no longer cost-effective.

6. Set Base Customer Price to define the amount charged to the customer for the service offering.
   You can enter multiple customer prices per service. For information, see To add a customer price.
   The settings appear in the Base Customer Cost fields.
7. Set Base Delivery Cost to define the amount that it costs to provide the service offering.
   The Cost Editor appears. You can enter only one customer price per service. 
   The settings appear in the Base Delivery Cost fields.
8. Click Apply to activate the Options tab, and then click the Options tab. 
   
   
9. On the Options tab, add options to the service offering.
   • You can only select options whose Type is set to Any Request or Request Definition.
   • The choices for the selected option appear in the Option Choice table.
   • To create an option or option choice, click Options Editor.
10. To create categories for options, follow these steps:
    1. In the Selected Options view, select an option that you have added to the service offering.
    2. In the Category field, type a name for a new category. 
       
       
    3. Click Add category.
       The selected option appears in the new category.
    4. To move choices among categories, select an option, and use the arrows to move it up or down in the list.
       If a category is empty, it is deleted.
    5. To delete a category, select it, and click Remove category.
       The category is removed, and options in that category are moved to the Default Category.
11. To complete the remaining steps, click Show Advanced Features.
    The Link Request Actions, Supporting Technical Services, and Service Level Targets tabs appear.
12.  On the Request Actions tab, select the request actions that are currently associated with the global service. 
    
    
    
    These request actions are created in BMC Service Request Management. By default, they are associated with the global service. When you select them on the Request Actions tab, they are then associated with the current service offering. If you clear a request action, it is no longer associated with the current service offering and is linked to the service offering in the global service.
13. On the Supporting Technical Services tab, link the service offering to technical services. 
    
    
    
    1. In the Available Technical Services area, search for a technical service.
    2. Select a technical service.
    3. Click Add.
    4. In the Selected Technical Services table, select the technical service.
       The service offerings for the technical service appear in the Service Offerings table.

    5. Select a service offering.

       Note

       You cannot select more than one technical service offering.

14. In the Service Level Targets tab, create and modify service level targets for the selected service offering. 
    
    
    

    1. Define the parameters described:

        Service level target parameters

       Parameter	Description
       Name	A short, descriptive name for the service level target.
       Description	(Optional) A detailed description of the service offering. You can use the description to add more information about the service level target requirement.
       Type	Select the type of service level target from the following list: Measurement Policy Other
       Classification	Select the classification of the service level target from the following list: Incident Response Availability Capacity SR Turn Around Time

    2. To add the target to the service offering, click New Service Level Target.
    3. To modify a target, select one, and click Edit selected Service Level Target.
    4. Modify the target parameters.
    5. Click Save to Selected Service Level Target.
15. Click Save.

After creating a service offering, you can define a request action. 

Request actions overview

A request action is part of a service that end users can see and request. A request action enables end user to request a service offering. Like a service offering, it combines a service (utility) and a service level target (warranty). But unlike with a service offering, end users can select a request action.

For example, the Calbro IT organization creates the following request actions for its email service:

• Create a new account.
• Reset an account password.
• Increase the inbox size limit.
• Back up and restore email.

The Calbro Finance group has the silver email service offering. However, an end user like Patrick Paycheck cannot see or select a service offering, such as gold or silver, but he can select from the request actions. He already has an account, but because he handles budget requests from several other groups, he needs a higher quota on his inbox size.

In the service catalog, services do not require a request action, but can include one or more request actions. You can also associate options with a request action. 

To create a request action for a service offering

1. From the service catalog, edit or create a service.
2. Select a service offering.
3. From the pulldown list for Create a New Service Offering, select New Request Action. 
   
   
4. On the General Information tab, enter a name and description for the request action. 
   
   
5. To set the One-time Price and Base Delivery Cost, select a monetary unit and amount, and then select the charge type and interval.
   • The One-time Price is the amount charged to the customer for the request action. You can include multiple one-time prices.
   • The Base Delivery Cost is the amount that it costs to provide the request action.
     For detailed instructions, see Creating a service catalog in the Atrium Core Console.
6. On the Options tab, add options to the service offering.
   • You can only select options whose Type is set to Any Request or Post-Deploy Action.
   • The choices for the selected option appear in the Available Options table.
   • To create an option or option choice, click Options Editor.
7. To create categories for options, follow these steps:
   1. In the Selected Options view, select an option that you have added to the service offering.
   2. In the Category field, type a name for the new category.
      
   3. Click Add Category.
      The selected option appears in the new category.
   4. To move choices among categories, select an option, and use the arrows to move it up or down in the list.
      If a category is empty, it is deleted.
   5. To delete a category, select it, and click Remove Category.
      The category is removed, and options in that category are moved to the Default Category.
8. Click Save.
9. Click the Link Request Actions tab on the service to view all the request actions that are currently associated with the global service.