Creating services

A service offering is represented by a service request definition (SRD). A standard SRD typically includes a description of the service offered, price, required approvals, and user entitlement according to the service level management criteria. It can also include questions for the requester. The requester's responses are passed on to the fulfillment application that is responsible for fulfilling the request. The SRD specifies the automated process to fulfill the request, such as forwarding work orders to the appropriate people to fulfill the service request.

In order to specify the automated process to fulfill a request for the service, you must create the following components contained in the SRD:

1. An application template, such as a work order template, incident template, or change template to generate the fulfillment request. 
2. An application object template (AOT) that defines the application template and the company for which you are creating the SRD. 
3. A process definition template (PDT) that includes one or more AOTs, and defines the process for fulfilling a service request. 

After you have created the components mentioned above, you can create the SRD and associate it with one or more PDTs.

Service request definition life cycle

A service request definition (SRD) has various states to indicate its position in the life cycle. By default, approval is required for certain state transitions, for example, to move the SRD from Request for Approval to Deployed. Notifications can be sent at certain points in the SRD life cycle to alert users that certain events have occurred. 

Generally, an SRD starts in Draft state and becomes visible for selection by service requesters when it is in Deployed state and within the specified effective dates. After the end effective date, the Service Catalog Manager can re-enable the SRD by resetting the effective dates. When an SRD is in a Closed state, it cannot be deployed and is no longer displayed in the Request Entry console. 

The following diagram shows the life cycle of an SRD entry. 

You can use data captured from questions configured in an SRD to drive or route the fulfillment process. You can read directly from the SR Type fields on the service request that are populated using the Question Mappings on the SRD. For more information, see Adding and mapping questions, variables, and service request fields.

Configuring BMC Service Request Management video

This video explains how to configure AOTs, PDTs, and SRDs.

 https://youtu.be/-sUdcQiRjPQ

Where to go from here

• Guidelines for designing services
• Setting Service Catalog Manager Console preferences
• Configuring navigational categories
• Creating application templates and application object templates
• Creating process definition templates
• Creating service request definitions: Basic configuration
• Configuring packages and entitlement
• Creating on-behalf-of definition rules
• Creating service request definitions: Extended configuration
• Adding work information and attachments to SRDs
• Making services available to users
• Using the Service Request Designer to create services