Use > Plan > Service Catalog Management > Create an offering

How to create an offering

You define offerings in the Service Catalog Management module.

Create an offering

  1. From the main menu, select Plan > Service Catalog.
  2. Do one of the following:

    • Service Catalog > Catalog: Select a category, and a service under which to add the offering, and in the Offering pane, click Add an Offering.
    • Service Catalog > Offerings: Click New.

  3. In the New Offering dialog box, complete the Offering details section.

    Field Description
    Display label The name of the offering. This is used as the display label.
    Description A description of the offering.
    Offering bundle

    Select this check box to indicate that the offering is an offering bundle, that is, a bundle of offerings.

    Note An offering bundle can only be an IT Service Offering or HR Support Offering.

    Default offering

    Select this check box to define the offering as a default offering. Default offerings are used in the Service Portal in the Request Support screen. When the system suggests offerings and no suitable offering is selected by the user, the default offering is used.

    You can create multiple default offerings, for example based on a user’s entitlement rules.

    Use-case example: In multinational organizations, local IT can set default offerings for all users with the same location. This way the offering is ready to be routed to the right help desk in the right location.

    Service definition The service to which the offering belongs.
    Offering type
    • IT Support Offering. Offering related to support requests.
    • IT Service Offering. Offering related to service requests.
    • HR Support Offering. Offering related to human resources requests.

    Note If Offering bundle is selected, this value is restricted to IT Service Offering and HR Support Offering.

    Status
    • Active. The offering is available in the Service Portal and in the Service Request Management module, depending on the entitled audience. The offering is also available to an Agent dealing with a Live Support call.

    • Inactive. The offering is not available in the Service Portal, nor in the Service Request Management module.

    • Internal. The offering is not available to a user in the Service Portal, but it is available in the Service Request Management module. The offering is also available to an Agent dealing with a Live Support call.

    Promote

    The value in this field controls the order in which offerings (and articles, using a similar field) display on the catalog and category pages of the Service Portal.

    The priority order of the display is:

    • Recommended

    • Normal

    • Deprecated

    This feature allows the IT department to promote offerings. For example, they may want to promote a new Skype for Business headset so that more users start using Skype for Business. It can also help them phase out old offerings, but still keep the offerings at hand in case they are needed again.

    Action type

    If appropriate, select the action to match the offering.

    For example, for an offering that creates a subscription, select Create subscription. For an offering that cancels a subscription, select Cancel. For an offering that updates a record, select Update.

    Required asset information

    Defines the asset - device, infrastructure, actual service, or subscription - required to classify a request under this offering. This is sometimes connected to Action type.

    For example, assume there is an offering Increase VM memory. The Action type for the offering is Update. The Required asset information would be Device, because to fulfill the request, the help desk first needs to know which VM should have its memory increased, and fulfilling the request would update the VM record.

    As another example, assume there is an offering Check my PC age. Again the help desk needs to know which PC the request is for. So, the Required asset information would be Device. But in this case, Action type would be left empty, because the offering is not intent to create, update, cancel, or pause the device.

    Available when:Action type is notCreate subscription.

    Image A representative icon for the offering.
  4. Select a SLA and an OLA/UC in the Agreements session. Only active agreements appear in the drop-down lists. Selected agreements determine the Service Level Target for the request based on this offering. For more information, see Service Level Management.

    Note The maximum number of offerings that can be assigned to an agreement is 250.

  5. If Offering bundle is selected, add offerings in the Bundled offering session.

    1. Click Add or the grid icon .

    2. Select the required records. The added items appear in yellow
  6. Save your changes.

Duplicate an offering

Duplicating offerings is useful if you want to use the same or a very similar definition of a complex offering but for a different purpose. For example, you may have an offering for a new laptop which has a complex task plan and user options. You can duplicate this offering, and use it as a basis for an offering for a new monitor.

To duplicate an offering:

  1. In the main menu, select Service Catalog > Offerings.

  2. Select the offering you want to clone.

    To filter the record list, click the Add filter  button. For more information, see Filters.

  3. Click the record identifier in the ID column to display the selected record.

  4. On the toolbar, click Duplicate.

    The offering is duplicated, and given the same name as the source offering with the suffix, -Copy. For example, NewPC-Copy.

    The following are copied:

    • All general details

    • Task and approval plans/Fulfillment plan

    • User options/Fulfillment plan

    • Default values

    • In the case of an offering bundle, the bundled offerings and the user option mappings.

    • Prices

    Note The following are not copied:

    • History
    • Discussions
    • Business rules
    • The popularity of the offering
    • The number of times the offering has been requested
  5. Edit the new offering as desired and save the offering.

Fulfillment plan

Note This is not relevant for offering bundles.

If you defined user options and a task plan for the offering record in the steps above, you can publish these definitions as a fulfillment plan which can subsequently be used as a fulfillment plan for other offerings, instead of defining them all over again.

To publish the user options and task plan as a fulfillment plan:

  1. In the User Options or Task plan tab, click Publish as fulfillment plan.
  2. Enter a name and a description for the fulfillment plan.

    The plan type is automatically displayed depending in the type of offering that you are defining.

  3. Save the fulfillment plan.

    Both the user options and the task plan are saved to the fulfillment plan, and become read-only in the offering.

  4. To update the plan, click Edit fulfillment plan.

For more details about fulfillment plans, see How to create or edit a fulfillment plan.