Business impact analysis (BIA) templates

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
    • Summarize
    Summarized using AI
    This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.

    Summary of Business impact analysis (BIA) templates

    The Business Continuity Management (BCM) application in ServiceNow provides pre-configured Business Impact Analysis (BIA) templates that streamline and standardize the process of conducting business impact analyses. These templates are designed for BCM or BIA administrators and can be accessed and managed via the BIA Templates module.

    Show full answer Show less

    Key Features

    • Pre-configured Templates: Templates come with pre-populated impact categories, dependency groups, and primary object types to simplify creation of BIAs.
    • Customizable Elements: Administrators with the snbcm.admin role can configure template details such as name, description, primary elements assessed (e.g., business processes or CI services), specific impact categories (financial, legal, etc.), dependency assessments, and inclusion of CIA (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability) data.
    • Automatic Dependency Group Population: Dependency groups like Applications, Hardware, Software, Vendors, and Workplaces are automatically included in the BIA based on the selected template, allowing easy addition or removal of items within each group.
    • Role-Based Access: Only users with the appropriate administrative role can view and configure these templates.

    Key Outcomes

    • Efficiency and Consistency: Using BIA templates saves time and resources by pre-populating relevant fields and standardizing impact assessments across the organization.
    • Improved Accuracy: Templates help ensure all necessary impact categories and dependencies are considered, including critical data confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
    • Tailored Analysis: Templates can be customized to fit specific organizational needs, enabling targeted assessments such as technical impact analysis of IT applications or financial and legal impact evaluations.

    The Business Continuity Management application provides pre-configured business impact analysis (BIA) templates for creating a business impact analysis. If you are the BCM or BIA administrator, you can use the BIA Templates module in the Business Continuity Management application. You can then select the type of the template, elements, impact categories, and so on, for the business impact analysis.

    Advantages of using a BIA template

    The BIA templates store information such as the impact categories and dependency groups that a business process depends on. Using a BIA template offers the following advantages:
    • Simplifies the process of creating a business impact analysis.
    • Saves time and resources by pre-populating the templates.
    • Helps you to define the primary object type that you can use the BIA template for. For example, you can use the Application technical impact analysis template to perform a technical impact analysis of an IT application.
    • Populates the dependency groups automatically in the BIA.
    • Helps you to select the impact categories that are relevant to your organization.

    BIA templates in BCM

    If you have the sn_bcm.admin role, you can view the BIA templates that are installed with demo data when you install the application or configure a BIA template in the BIA Templates module. The following example shows the BIA templates that are installed with demo data in the Business Continuity Management application.

    BIA templates that are installed with demo data.

    BIA template configuration

    With the sn_bcm.admin role, you can configure the following details in the BIA template:
    Name and Description
    Use the Name and Description fields to search for the name and select an appropriate template for your business impact analysis.
    Primary Element Assessed
    Select the type of the elements that you plan to assess such as Business processes or CI service.
    Impact Categories
    Assess specific impact categories during the business impact analysis. For example, you plan to assess the financial impact and legal impact of a downtime.
    Dependency Assessments
    Identify the dependencies for your business impact analysis.
    Include CIA
    Include CIA (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability) information in your business impact analysis if the primary element being analyzed has critical data.

    The following example shows the sample configuration of a BIA template in an instance.

    Configuration of a BIA template.

    Configuring a BIA template

    For more information on how to configure a BIA template with the sn_bcm.admin role, see Configure BIA templates with legacy assessment.

    Impact dependency groups

    The BIA template used for creating a business impact analysis has dependency groups associated to it. When conducting an assessment, the dependency groups are automatically populated in the BIA. You can view them as Applications, Hardware, Software, Vendors, Workplaces, and others, each in its own container depending on how many of these groups are associated to the template.

    Dependency groups.

    Each of them is a dependency group and you can add or remove items that belong to each group within its container.