CSDM implementation stages — Walk

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 5, 2026
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of CSDM Implementation Stages — Walk

    The Walk stage focuses on identifying and populating the network infrastructure Configuration Items (CIs) and applications that technical teams support within your organization. This stage is crucial for enhancing your ServiceNow experience by streamlining CI management and preparing for broader operational strategies.

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    Key Features

    • Managing Discovered Infrastructure CIs: Facilitates the management of metadata for infrastructure CIs, reducing manual maintenance efforts by synchronizing data onto related child objects.
    • View Supported CIs: Establishes a comprehensive view of CIs, allowing you to modify support assignments based on your organizational structure and commitments.
    • Prepare for Service Portfolio Management: Lays the groundwork for effective Service Portfolio Management by ensuring service data is correctly organized.
    • Use the Request Catalog: Enables ordering of technology service offerings through the request catalog, with automation options to streamline workflows.
    • Prepare for ITOM Products: Builds a foundation for Information Technology Operations Management (ITOM) products, enhancing operational capabilities.
    • Enable Automation: Facilitates automated grouping of CIs for improved identification and management.

    Key Outcomes

    By successfully implementing the Walk stage, you can expect enhanced visibility and management of your infrastructure CIs, reduced manual workload, and a structured approach to supporting applications and technology. This stage also prepares your organization for advanced Service Portfolio Management and ITOM capabilities, driving efficiency and effectiveness in your IT operations.

    In the Walk stage, you identify and populate the network infrastructure CIs and applications that your organization's technical teams support.

    Benefits of the operations that you perform in the Walk stage

    Managing discovered infrastructure CIs
    The operations facilitate managing the discovered infrastructure CIs. You might manually managing the metadata on these CIs, such as support group and technical approval group. By identifying the technical service offering that manages the CIs, you can:
    • Configure ServiceNow to populate and synchronize this metadata onto the related child objects.
    • Eliminate the manual effort of maintaining the metadata on thousands of CIs.
    View supported CIs
    The operations establish a view of the CIs that your organization's technical teams support.

    You can see the specific support assignments, which you can change as needed based on your support structure, operational-level agreements (OLAs), and commitments.

    Also, this view enables you to formalize for your process for supporting applications and technology owners.

    Prepare for Service Portfolio Management
    The operations build the foundation for using Service Portfolio Management (Service Portfolio Management).

    You can start using Service Portfolio Management more quickly because your service data are in the right place.

    Use the request catalog
    The operations enable you to order technology service offerings through the request catalog. You can also automate ordering some offerings to enhance the request workflow and update or create related CIs. Catalogs are described in detail in Service Catalog.
    Note:
    The request catalog is not a CMDB table.
    Prepare for ITOM) products
    The operations build the foundation for Information Technology Operations Management (ITOM) products, such as Service Mapping and Discovery).
    Enable Automation
    The operations enable more automated methods of grouping CIs for identification and management by Technical service offerings.

    Tables that you work on during the Walk stage

    The walk stage includes base-system CMDB tables that identify the technology provider.
    Note:
    Some of the classes that you implement in this stage are logical CIs. Logical CIs aren’t created through Discovery, so their Model ID values might not refer to product model (application model, service model, or software model) records. To help you to migrate to a product-centric management paradigm, each instance of a logical CI should be associated with a product model. See Auto-generate product models for logical CIs.

    Tables that you work on during the Walk stage.

    Technology management service [cmdb_ci_service_technical] table (formerly Technical service — renamed in CSDM v5), or [cmdb_query_based_services] for Event Management
    The cmdb_ci_service_technical table has a service classification of "technical service". This base-system CMDB table identifies the provider of the technology that your business consumes.
    Technical service offering [service_offering] table
    A technical service offering is a service offering with a service classification of "technical service". Technical service offerings may be further divided as follows:
    • Location and geography
    • Environment (production or non-production)
    • Pricing
    • Availability
    • Support group (for Incident Management)
    • Technical approval group (for Change Management)
    • Packaging options (commitments)
    The technical service offering comes from the service, based on how the parent serves a specific technical need. Every operational technology management service must be associated with at least one technical service offering.
    Note:
    Not all technical service offerings have to be related to applications or infrastructure CIs. Managed Service Providers can provide technical service offerings.
    Dynamic CI group table [cmdb_ci_query_based_service]

    A dynamic CI group is a collection of CIs based on the results of saved Query Builder queries, encoded queries, or manual entries. Query Builder is described in Exploring CMDB Query Builder. For more information about dynamic CI groups and how you can use them, see Manage Technology Management Services domain in the CSDM framework.