Generic relationship fields

You can use this to create relationships between incidents and vendors. However, Service Management best practice for assigning an incident to a vendor (company), is to associate the incident with a group - such as an expert group, or a service desk group - that represents the vendor. An OLA Service Agreement measures the time an incident is in a group, if the incident is assigned to such a group. Therefore, if instead the incident is assigned to a vendor (company), service agreements are unable to measure the service level performance of the vendor.

You can use this to create relationships between requests and vendors. However, Service Management best practice for assigning a request to a vendor (company), is to associate the request with a group - such as an expert group, or a service desk group - that represents the vendor. An OLA Service Agreement measures the time a request is in a group, if the request is assigned to such a group. Therefore, if instead the request is assigned to a vendor (company), service agreements are unable to measure the service level performance of the vendor.

You can use this to create relationships between devices and vendors. Here are two best practice examples that bad usage of this generic relationship may violate:

• Associate a device with a maintenance contract, and then to associate the maintenance contract with the vendor (company).

• Associate a device with a brand. (There is a relationship - Owner - which creates a connection between the brand and the vendor.)

Therefore, the following examples are not best practices, and are not recommended:

• Associate a device with the vendor who is responsible for the maintenance of the device.

• Associate a device with its manufacturer.