Learning about BMC Service Request Management

BMC Service Request Management provides an online catalog of requestable services from which your users and support staff can view and request services. Each requestable service in the catalog is defined and generated through a service request definition (SRD).

The IT and other business departments within a company can define offered services, publish those services in the service catalog, and automate the fulfillment of those services for their users. Service Request Management provides self-help support for the end users to reduce the number of incoming requests for the service desk. Service Request Management also supports automated tools to submit requests from the catalog. 

Service Request Management integrates with the BMC Helix ITSM for backend fulfillment of the requests, such as incidents and change requests. 

Service Request Management leverages the foundational elements of the BMC Helix ITSM and Action Request System, for example, workflow, approvals, task management, notification, and email. Service Request Management also captures the relationships between catalog items and business service definitions and service level agreements through its integration with the BMC Helix CMDB Service Catalog and BMC Service Level Management.

Additionally, you can integrate Service Request Management with other third-party applications. For more information, see Integrating.

Process overview

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.

Any user with the service catalog manager role can create SRDs by using the Service Catalog Manager console or the Service Request Designer console. Once the SRD is approved and deployed, a corresponding request becomes available in the online catalog of available requestable services on the Request Entry console. The Request Entry console facilitates the management of requests as the requests progress through their life cycle. For information about user roles and features, see User goals and features and Roles and permissions in BMC Service Request Management.

An SRD expires when it reaches 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.

Although service requests inherit characteristics from the SRD on which they are based, the service requests go through various states to indicate their position in the life cycle.

The following diagram provides an overview of the process:

To learn more about SRDs and service requests, see Service Request Definitions and Overview of service requests.

How service request definitions are related to the CMDB Service Catalog

When you create an SRD in Service Request Management, it is translated into a requestable offering in the CMDB Service Catalog. This makes the SRD information and its relationship to services and service offerings available to other consumers. Users can browse the entire service catalog in one location.

A requestable offering is part of a service offering that defines a specific agreement between a service provider and a customer for a service. Each service offering defines a level of service for a price: it combines the service (utility), a service level target (warranty), add-on options, and requestable offerings.

All technical and business services must have at least one service offering. For example, an IT organization offers different service offerings, or levels, for a database server (Gold, Silver, and Bronze) based on response times. Each service offering also costs a different amount based on the service level target. A customer selects among the different database and operating system options for the service and then selects the Silver offering, which has a service level target of a 10-minute response.

Each service offering can have one or more requestable offerings. Like a service offering, an requestable offering defines a specific agreement between the provider and customer that combines the service (utility) and a service level target (warranty) at a specified price or cost. The requestable offering defines what requests and transactions can be submitted about a service offering. These might be requests to deliver or implement an instance of the service offering, or they might be requests for changes, requests for fixing issues, and so on.

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Do you want to learn more?

When you're ready to get started, see Managing service requests.