Create and publish product specifications

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated April 2, 2026
  • 5 minutes to read

    • Create and publish a base version of a product specification. A product specification defines all the product options that apply to a customer-facing product you sell, and designates how to fulfill these options. It contains information such as the product description, pricing, eligibility, and product options.

    Before you begin

    Role required: sn_prd_pm.product_catalog_manager

    About this task

    A product specification defines a product that you sell to your customers. It captures the various characteristics of a product, and includes:
    • All the specification characteristic options that are available for a product, and how they should be fulfilled.
    • Various categories of information, such as the brand, cost, terms and conditions, and product-related materials, which include product visuals. Product specifications are customer-facing and are added to product offerings.
    • Its relationship to other product, service, and resource specifications, and how a customer order of a product offering is delivered.

    Procedure

    1. In the CSM Configurable Workspace, select the List view.
    2. Navigate to Specifications > Product Specifications and select New.
    3. On the Details tab, fill in the fields.
      Table 1. Create Product Specification
      Field Description
      Number Auto-generated ID for the product specification.
      Name Name of the product specification.
      Version Version number that is assigned to a specification:
      • When you create the initial version, 1 appears in this field, and can't be changed.
      • When you create subsequent versions of the specification, the next incremental number appears in this field after you select Create New Version. For example, 4 appears in this field if 3 was the previous version number.
      Display name Name that appears for the specification in the ServiceNow AI Platform when this version of the specification is in effect.
      • When you create the initial, or base version of the specification (for example, version 1), you must enter free-form text, which is usually the name of the specification, into the field.
      • When you create versions of the specification, a system-assigned concatenation of the specification name and its current version number appears but can be overwritten.
      Category Specification category that the product specification belongs to.
      Type Type of product specification. Select a type:
      • Goods:Product specification for the type of goods that you sell.
      • Network: Product specification of a network.
      • Service: Product specification of a service that you sell or provide to your customer.
      Start date Date that the specification is valid from. You can use this field when you create a version to indicate when it takes effect. However, it is informational only and isn’t used for actual processing.
      End date Date through which the specification is valid. You can use this field when you create a version to indicate when it is no longer in effect. However, it is informational only and isn’t used for actual processing.
      Owner Name of the person who is responsible for maintaining this specification. Select the search icon to choose the person.
      Description Description for this product specification.
      State State of the product specification.
      • Draft: Unpublished draft product specification that is assigned when you first create the specification record.
      • Published: Published product specification that is assigned when you formally publish it for use in a product offering.
      • Retired: Product specification that is retired and can no longer be used to create another specification version.
      • Archived: Product specification that is no longer used in the ordering or fulfillment process.
      External code Product code of the specification.
      Line Product line of the specification.
      Cost to company Cost to the company for this product specification. This field is for profit-calculation purposes only.
      Composite Option indicating that the product specification is a complex enterprise product specification. A composite product is typically comprised of a parent or umbrella specification, and multiple child specifications, each with their own characteristics. When bundled together, they constitute a single complex product.
      Installation required Option indicating that someone must install the product on site.
      Location specific Option indicating that this product specification requires that you enter the location details into a customer order for fulfillment and installation.
      Transient Option that indicates the product for this product specification is for one-time use.
      Note:
      If you select this option, the sold product or product inventory record for the transient product is set to an Inactive state when the order is completed. Move, Add, Change, Disconnect (MACD) actions can’t be performed on the sold product or product inventory records of a transient product.
      Initial version Name of the base version of the specification that appears but can't be changed.
      Previous version Name of the previous version of the specification. For example:
      • When you create the initial version of the specification (for example, version 1), this field is empty.
      • When you create a version (version 2) with a slightly different name, the name of the specification at its initial creation appears here.
      • When you create a subsequent version (version 3), the name of the specification as it was at version 2 appears here
      You can't change this field.
    4. Select Save.
      The product specification is created. The following tabs open for viewing or defining information related to your product specification.
      Table 2. Product specification tabs
      Tab Description
      Catalog Hierarchy View the complete hierarchy of a product offering and any associated specifications. Use the Show specification toggle to view the hierarchy of specifications.
      Specification Characteristics Associate the characteristics and characteristic options with your specification.
      Specification Relationships Create specification relationships, quantity mapping, and decomposition rules for Sales CRM for Telecommunications
      Product Offerings Create a product offering from the specification. For details, see Create product offerings.
      Attribute Mappings .
      Versions Create another version of the specification.
      Compatibility Rules Configure compatibility rules for horizontal relationships between the specifications of multiple products, services, or resources.
    5. When you are finished creating the specification version, do one of the following actions.
      ActionDescription
      Publish Publish the draft specification so that you can use it in a product offering.
      • When you publish it, its state changes from Draft to Published.
      • After you publish a specification, you can't change or delete it, unless you create a version for it.
      Update Update the specification with the new data that you added, but do not publish it for use in a product offering.
      Copy Copy the data in this specification so that you can create a specification from it.