Relationship between asset and CI

It is important to manage the relationship between assets and associated CIs. Assets are tracked with the Asset Management application, which focuses on the financial aspects of owning property. Configuration items are stored in the CMDB, which is used to track items and make them available to users.

When an asset has a corresponding configuration item, the asset record and the configuration item record are kept synchronized with two business rules.

• Update CI fields on change (on the Asset [alm_asset] table)
• Update Asset fields on change (on the Configuration Item [cmdb_ci] table)

Asset-CI mapping and synchronization

The State field of asset record and Status field of CI record are synchronized so that changes made on one form trigger the same update on the corresponding form, ensuring consistent reporting.

The following diagram illustrates the concept of Asset-CI mapping and synchronization.

This synchronization and mapping is based on the following factors:

• Asset state and CI status are not mapped on one-to-one basis; rather they are mapped to the most logical counterpart on the other table. For example, for a hardware asset set to state In Stock - Pending disposal, the corresponding CI is set to In Disposition with no substate.
• This synchronization happens between the asset’s State field and the following CI fields:
  • Install Status field: Install Status does not have a sub status and must be used for non-hardware CIs.
  • Hardware Status and Sub status field: Hardware Status is visible only for Hardware CI.

• Drive changes by updating the state on the Asset form. The Asset-CI synchronization can be driven in the following ways:

  • Asset to CI synchronization: Change to the asset’s status updates the logically mapped CI’s Install Status or Hardware Status and sub status.
  • CI to Asset: Change to the CI’s activate Status or Hardware Status updates the logically mapped asset’s states and sub states.
• For a CMDB hardware CI, if both Hardware Status and Install Status is updated, the Hardware Status change is considered for mapping the corresponding state of the asset.
• CI’s Install Status and Hardware Status work independently, so the two fields aren't related. CI’s Hardware Status change does not change CI’s Install Status and vice versa. To avoid confusion, keeping both status for CMDB CI Hardware is not recommended.

List of the fields that get synced between Asset and CI

When modifying any of following fields on the asset or CI record, the same field on the corresponding record is automatically updated (with the exception of the Cost field, which is informational-only on the CI record).

Following is a list of fields that are synched.

• Asset tag
• Assigned
• Assigned to
• Checked in
• Checked out
• Company
• Cost (synchs in only one direction: asset to CI)
• Cost center
• Delivery date
• Department
• Due in
• Due
• GL account
• Install date
• Invoice number
• Justification
• Lease id
• Location
• Managed by
• Model
• Order date
• Order received
• Ordered
• Owned by
• PO number
• Purchase date
• Purchased
• Serial number
• Support group
• Supported by
• Vendor
• Warranty expiration

Asset and CI creation properties

glide.create_alm_asset.async

The system property glide.create_alm_asset.async controls whether assets are created immediately when a configuration item (CI) is created, or are created after a delay. A delay in asset creation allows large numbers of CIs to be created quickly. When this property is set to true, assets are created by the Asset - Create asset delayed sync scheduled job that runs every 15 minutes. View the status of the scheduled job in the Asset Job Log table [asset_job_log]. To view assets waiting to be created and asset creation errors, navigate to Asset > Administration > Asset Creation Queue. To reprocess an error, update the state from Error to Ready. The next time the scheduled job runs, it reattempts to create the asset.

When the glide.create_alm_asset.async property is set to false, assets are created immediately from CIs.

Note:

The default value of this property is false if you upgrade to Washington DC from Orlando or earlier. Before updating this property, review your processes that depend on an asset value present on a CI and make any necessary changes to account for delayed asset creation.

glide.asset.create_ci_with_ire

The system property glide.asset.create_ci_with_ire enables CIs to be created from assets using the ServiceNow® Configuration Management Database (CMDB) Identification and Reconciliation engine (IRE). This property affects CI classes that have an identification rule on serial number and have no dependent relationships with other CI classes.

Note:

CI classes that are extended from the hardware CI class [cmdb_ci_hardware] are also created from assets using the IRE, but are not controlled by this property.

CIs created with the IRE are named using the format Serial number - Model name and the source is SNAssetManagement. The Serial number field is mandatory on assets with model categories that correspond to these CI classes. Asset creation fails if its serial number is present on an existing CI or asset. The Serial number field is also required to receive purchase order line items for model categories that correspond to these CI classes. The Serial number field is not mandatory to create pre-allocated assets, but the serial number must be provided when the asset is allocated.

The default value of this property is false if you upgrade to Washington DC from Orlando or earlier. Before updating this property, review customizations on the Serial number field and any integrations or flows that use an existing serial number to create an asset.