Creating inventory template relationship

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Creating inventory template relationship

    This guide outlines the recommended sequence for creating inventory templates and establishing relationships among equipment, slots, interface cards, and network interfaces within the Telecommunications Network Inventory application. Proper setup of these templates is essential to enable accurate equipment instantiation, which generates network asset instances based on the defined inventory template relationships.

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    Equipment instantiation depends on correctly creating inventory models, default templates, and inventory templates in a particular order to establish valid relationships. Without these relationships, associated slots and interface templates may not be automatically created, requiring manual template creation.

    Key Steps and Best Practices

    • Establish a Default Template: Begin by creating a default template that defines default attribute values for a configuration item (CI) class. Associating this default template with an inventory template ensures that instantiated resources inherit these default attributes.
    • Create Equipment Inventory Templates: Use the Inventory Template form in the Network Inventory Workspace Lists view to create templates for equipment models.
    • Create Related Interface Card Templates: Similarly, create inventory templates for interface card models linked to the equipment template.
    • Create Network Interface Templates: Create network interface model templates associated with the equipment templates.
    • Add Slots to Equipment Templates: Using the Related Templates tab, associate slot templates with equipment inventory templates.
    • Add Network Interfaces to Equipment Templates: Add related network interface templates to the equipment template via the Related Templates tab.
    • Add Interface Cards to Slots: Associate interface card templates with the slot templates.
    • Add Subslots to Interface Cards: When adding new card models, add subslot templates to interface card templates.
    • Create Interface Template Relationships: If interface cards support network interfaces, establish interface template relationships between them.
    • Add Interface Cards to Subslots: For equipment with subslots, add interface card templates accordingly.
    • Add Network Interfaces to Child/Daughter Cards: Optionally, add network interface templates to child or daughter card templates as a final step.

    Additional Inventory Templates

    • Cable Models: Create inventory templates for cable models to instantiate cable and stand records.
    • Logical Composites: Create inventory templates for logical composites to instantiate logical composite records and related equipment and rack records.

    Why This Matters

    Following this sequence ensures automatic creation of associated templates (slots, interfaces) based on model relationships, reducing manual effort and errors. Proper template relationships enable smooth equipment instantiation, which supports accurate network asset management within the Telecommunications Network Inventory application.

    Use this sequence as a guide when creating inventory templates for your equipment and establishing the proper template relationships in the Telecommunications Network Inventory application.

    Sequence for creating template relationships

    Equipment instantiation, or the task of generating network asset instances from the inventory template relationships that you create, is a key function in the Telecommunications Network Inventory application. To operate properly, it depends on you creating accurate inventory models, default templates, and inventory templates, in a certain sequence, to establish proper equipment relationships.

    Note:
    To learn more about equipment instantiation, see Telecommunications design and assign.

    When you create an equipment or card template, the associated slots and interface templates are automatically created by using the data from the model relationship. If the model relationships aren’t made, it doesn't create the associated templates. In this case, you must create the templates manually. To learn more about the model relationship, see Creating inventory template for network asset instantiation. For example, when you create a template for an equipment model, the associated templates, such as the Telco equipment holder (slot) and interface, are automatically created.

    The names for these associated templates are mapped from the Slot naming pattern or Interface naming pattern fields in the Information tab of the Equipment Model or Interface Model forms.

    To establish the proper relationships between these elements for your equipment, perform these tasks in the following order.

    Establishing a default template

    The first step in this process is to create an appropriate default template for use in your inventory template relationship sequence.

    Default templates capture the default attribute values for a configuration item (CI) class. A template defines the set of attribute values for any resource (equipment, card, and so on). When this default template is associated with an inventory template, it adds these attribute values to the resource that is instantiated using that template.

    To learn more, see Create a default template.

    What's next

    After establishing a default template, begin the sequence by creating an inventory template for the equipment model. To learn more, see Creating an inventory template for the equipment model.