Company
Company types
BMC Helix ITSM supports the following company types:
Company type | Description |
|---|---|
Customer | An external company for which you provide services. |
Generic contact | A company that you want to reference on the People form. It is used to track information about people for informational purposes. You cannot select a generic contact from within the BMC Helix ITSM applications. |
Operating company | An internal company or business unit for which you provide services. In a Hub and Spoke environment, companies that are resident on a spoke server and receive IT Management support from a Service Provider on the hub server must be defined as an Operating company. |
Service Provider company | A company that is contracted to provide IT management services to Operating companies. In a Hub and Spoke environment, a Service Provider company resides on the hub server and provides IT management services to the Operating companies on the spoke servers. |
Supplier company | A third-party supplier of products |
Manufacturer | A company that manufactures a product identified in the Product Catalog. Important: People cannot be associated to a Manufacturer type of company. |
Vendor | A third-party vendor that provides services for you |
You can associate support groups (and relate people to those support groups) only for the following company types:
- Customer
- Operating company
- Service Provider company
- Vendor
Only users who are members of support groups can access core BMC Helix ITSM forms, such as the Incident, Change, Problem, and Asset forms. Even for users who are members of a support group, there are certain exceptions based on the company type. For example, a user who is a member of a vendor company cannot create a change or release, but can be assigned to work on the change either as a change or release coordinator or as a change or release manager.
Customers who request support must belong to either a customer company or an operating company.
Companies can be more than one type. After the company has been created, you can add an additional company type by opening the Company form and selecting the additional company type. When you save your changes, the additional company type is appended to the existing company type.
Company types example
Apex Global has an IT department that provides support for all employees of both Apex Global and Company A. Apex Global is the operating company, because some of the employees of Apex Global are support staff.
Because Company A receives support from the IT department, Company A is customer type of company.
A manufacturer company is specified in the Product Catalog and is a company that manufactures software that is used by Apex Global. For example, if Apex Global uses Microsoft Word, Microsoft is the manufacturer.
A company that supplies this product to Apex Global is a supplier company. A company that supplies Microsoft Word licenses to Apex Global is a supplier.
Both the manufacturer and supplier companies are external entities. They do not have access to the BMC Helix ITSM applications being used by Apex Global. The distinction between manufacturer and supplier is crucial for the Software License Management feature provided by BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management.
If Company A requires support for a service that Apex Global obtains from Company C, then Company C is a vendor type of company. Users in support groups for a vendor company can have access to BMC Helix ITSM: Service Desk to report incidents and problems.