Business capability form

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Business capability form

    The Business Capability form is a core component within the Enterprise Architecture application, formerly known as Application Portfolio Management. It enables ServiceNow customers to define and manage business capabilities in a hierarchical structure, aiding in organizing and relating capabilities to business units, departments, and applications.

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    Key Features

    • Name: Specifies the business capability's name.
    • Parent: Assigns a parent capability to create child capabilities, forming a hierarchy. If no parent is assigned, the capability is treated as a root (level 0) node. Changing or removing a parent requires running a scheduled job to update capability levels.
    • Level: Indicates the hierarchical level of the capability, with support for up to six levels. This field is system-managed and updated by the Update Business Capability Levels scheduled job.
    • Business Unit and Department: Associates the capability with specific organizational units for clearer ownership and context.
    • Order: Applicable only to root-level capabilities, this integer determines the sequential position among sibling capabilities. The system validates and corrects order values through scheduled jobs.
    • Leaf Node: Indicates whether the capability is a parent or has child capabilities. This is system-managed and cannot be edited by users.
    • Owned by: Identifies the user responsible for the business capability.
    • Hierarchy ID: A system-generated identifier reflecting the capability’s position in the hierarchy. It is automatically updated when the hierarchy changes. Optionally, customers can enable custom editing of this field by changing a system property, allowing override of the default numbering.
    • Description: Provides a brief summary of the business capability.

    Key Outcomes

    Using the Business Capability form, ServiceNow customers can:

    • Establish a clear, multi-level hierarchy of business capabilities for better organizational insight.
    • Ensure data integrity and accurate hierarchy representation by leveraging system-managed fields and scheduled jobs.
    • Associate capabilities with business units and departments for enhanced governance and accountability.
    • Optionally customize the hierarchy ID to suit unique organizational needs.
    • Relate capabilities with applications to support enterprise architecture and portfolio management efforts.

    Business Capability is a common table used within the Enterprise Architecture (formerly Application Portfolio Management) application.

    Business Capability form fields

    Field Description
    Name Name of the business capability.
    Parent The parent capability for the capability that you’re creating.

    Assigning a parent capability renders the business capability as a child capability. If no parent is assigned or if the parent is null, then the level of the capability is at 0 level or root, which means it’s a root node capability. If the parent field is made null, then a message prompts you to run a scheduled job to update the business capability levels.
    Level The level at which the capability is in the hierarchy. If there’s no parent capability, then the level is 0, which indicates that the capability is at the root level.

    Level at which the capability is in the hierarchy. Up to six levels are supported.

    If you add a capability or update it by changing its parent, then run the Update Business Capability Levels job, on demand. The job determines the capability level and updates all the capabilities with the level information.

    Note:
    The system updates the field and the user can’t.
    Business Unit Business unit that is associated with the selected business capability.
    Order Assign any integer value. Applicable only for level-0 capability.

    The number you assign determines the position of the capability in the sequential order of all other business capabilities in that capability hierarchy.

    The Order field is available only for root node or level-0 capabilities. The scheduled job checks for conditions such as order values entered for non-root capabilities, duplicate order values, and null value and eliminates such values. It calculates and sets the level and hierarchy ID for each capability.
    Department Department that is associated with the selected business application.
    Leaf Node This field denotes whether the business capability is a parent of any other capability. If the option is enabled, then it means that it doesn’t have child capability.

    Capabilities follow a parent-child hierarchy. The Leaf node attribute in the capability denotes that it isn’t a parent of any other capability.

    Note:
    The system updates the field and the user can’t.
    Owned by User who owns the business capability.
    Hierarchy ID Hierarchy ID of the business capability. For level 0 capability, a hierarchy ID is generated based on the order. For all non-root capabilities, the hierarchy ID is generated based on the hierarchy ID of its parent. The number is prefixed to the business capability and you can view it in the capability hierarchy map.

    The capabilities are structured vertically according to their hierarchy IDs. Whenever a capability is updated such as if a parent is added or deleted, then the hierarchy ID is automatically updated.

    Note:
    By default, the system updates the field. So, you can’t edit the field.

    However, if you prefer a different number or value for the hierarchy ID from what the system generates, you can reset the system property flag to True. Setting the property to true makes the Hierarchy ID field editable in the Business Capability form and you can enter the value. By this action, the system default logic of generating the hierarchy ID is overridden by your custom hierarchy ID.
    Description A short description of the business capability.