Service Model Foundation overview

Release version: Yokohama

Updated January 30, 2025

2 minutes to read

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Summary of Service Model Foundation overview

Service Model Foundation provides ServiceNow customers with a robust framework to model and manage the operational hierarchy of entities involved in delivering CRM functions such as sales and customer service. It extends the Customer Service Management data model, including the install base, to offer flexibility and security for organizations with multiple business locations, households, customers, and consumers. This framework enables the creation of a comprehensive service organization structure aligned with business needs.

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Key Features

Service Organization Structure: Model both internal and external business locations involved in service delivery, including stores, branches, franchises, dealerships, and offices.
Agent and Customer Relationships: Assign customer service agents to specific business locations and manage their access to cases and customer information within the location hierarchy.
Household Management: Create and manage households by defining members and relationships between consumers, enhancing service for business-to-consumer models.
Roles and Responsibilities: Define job functions and responsibilities for users such as location managers, agents, and relationship managers, enabling tailored access and interactions.
Relationship Modeling: Establish and manage relationships between agents and customers or between consumers, granting appropriate data access and service capabilities.
Extensible Entities: The framework includes entities like service organizations, internal and external business locations, customers (B2B and B2C), employees, roles, responsibilities, and relationships, which can be extended as needed.

Activation and Plugins

ServiceNow system administrators can enable the Service Model Foundation features by activating the following plugins:

Business Location Plugin (com.snc.businesslocation): Supports businesses interacting with customers via physical channels such as stores and dealerships; it also activates the Service Organization plugin.
Customer Service Household Plugin (com.snc.household): Enables household management for customer service, including creating households, defining members, and establishing relationships; it activates the Customer Service Base Extension Entities plugin.

Practical Benefits

By implementing the Service Model Foundation framework, ServiceNow customers can accurately represent complex service organizations, improve agent access control, and enhance customer relationships, including household dynamics. This leads to more efficient customer service management aligned with organizational structure and business processes.

Service Model Foundation provides a framework enabling customers to model and manage their operational hierarchy of the entities involved in offering CRM functions likes sales and customer service in alignment with their business needs.

The Service Model Foundation framework expands the Customer Service Management data model, including the install base model. It provides the flexibility and security needed to support business organizations with internal and external locations, households, customers and consumers, and the relationships that exist between these entities.

Use the Service Model Foundation framework to model the service organization structure that is involved in supporting your end customers. With this framework, you can:

Create a service organization structure that includes both internal and external business locations.
Assign customer service agents to business locations and provide access to the cases and customer information in their business location hierarchy.
Establish relationships between agents and specific customers that enable agents to manage cases and information for those customers.
Establish relationships between consumers, including consumers who are members of the same household.

Entities included with Service Model Foundation

The Service Model Foundation feature includes the following entities.

Table 1. Industry data models entities
Entity	Definition	Examples
Service organizations	The internal and external entities that are involved in providing a service to customers. A service organization provides the base framework that supports the customer service value chain. This includes internal and external service organizations. You can extend the service organization to create new entities as needed.	Financial service organizations with multiple branches Automobile manufacturers with multiple dealerships Government agencies with multiple office locations
Internal business locations	The internal entities that belong to a service organization and are involved in providing goods and services.	Stores Branches Centers
External business locations	The external entities that belong to a service organization and are involved in providing goods and services.	Franchises Dealerships
Customers (B2B)	The external customers in the business-to-business model who use goods and services.	Accounts Contacts
Configuring households	The external customers in the business-to-consumer model who use goods and services.	Consumers Households
Employees and staff members	The people who work at internal and external service organizations and assist customers.	Internal employees External agents External staff
Roles	Job functions that are performed by various users in the service organization.	Location managers Location agents Location consumer agents Location relationship managers Location manager contributors
Responsibility definitions	Definitions of the responsibilities that an agent can perform for a customer or that a consumer can perform for another consumer. Use these responsibilities to create relationships between agents and customers or between consumers.	Location agents Location consumer agents Location contributors Location manager contributors Location manager fulfiller Location relationship manager
Relationships	Relationships that are created between agents and customers or between two consumers, are based on specific responsibilities. Use these relationships to provide additional access to data.	Relationships between an employee or staff member and a customer Relationships between two consumers

Plugins for Service Model Foundation

Users with the system administrator role can activate the following plugins to enable Service Model Foundation features.

Business Location: Activate the Business Location plugin (com.snc.business_location) to enable support for businesses that interact with customers through physical channels such as stores, branches, franchises, and dealerships. This plugin automatically activates the Service Organization plugin (com.snc.service_organization).
Customer Service Household: Activate the Customer Service Household plugin (com.snc.household) to manage customer service for households. This plugin enables you to create households, define the members of a household, and identify relationships between household members. This plugin automatically activates the Customer Service Base Extension Entities plugin (com.snc.cs_base_extension).