Refining the Service catalog

Remove empty categories

Empty Service Manager categories (that contain no items) cause performance degradation when Service Request Catalog attempts to populate existing categories with child items. Service Catalog administrators should verify that the Service Manager Service Catalog contains no empty categories.

Add images for catalog items

You obtain optimum results if all catalog images are the same size and in a similar format. Catalog items display as a “thumbnail” image. Follow these basic rules for attaching a thumbnail image to a catalog item:

• The recommended size for an image is 196x140 pixels. Use a good image utility to crop or resize your images to a consistent size.
• The default background color for a smaller image is white. For consistency, consider adding an appropriate background to maintain the same image dimensions for all items.
• The recommended file type is .jpg or .png. Using other formats may produce unpredictable results.

Separate catalog items for different companies in multi-company mode

These steps should be completed by an experienced Service Manager administrator. An administrator can configure Service Manager to support Multi-Company mode to filter the information that Service Request Catalog users see when making requests. In Multi-Company mode, Service Request Catalog users see only request items for their own company.

An administrator can also enable the Mandanten feature with Multi-Company mode to store company catalog data in its own secure database.

Use the Service Manager Windows Client to complete these steps.

1. To enable Multi-Company mode in the System Information Company record, click

   System Administration > Base System Configuration > Miscellaneous > System Information Record > General.

2. Verify that you have a complete company record with Multi-Company enabled. Click

   Tailoring > Database Manager > Table (company) > Search > company > Search > Show Company in Multi-Company Lists.

3. Add a new “company” field of type character type to the svcCatalog tables and to the svcDisplay table.
4. Enable Mandanten security by specifying a filtering condition for the svcCatalog and svcDisplay tables. Use the Mandanten Field Restriction form to specify the company value (that you specified in step 3) in the Mandant Field Name field. Create two records: one for File Name svcCatalog and one for File Name svcDisplay. Click

   System Administration > Ongoing Maintenance > Mandanten > Mandanten Field Restrictions.

5. Create a Mandanten security group. Make sure the Security ID is a an upper case value. For example, Service Request Catalog is an upper case value. Click

   System Administration > Ongoing Maintenance> Mandanten > Mandanten Security Groups.

6. Type the “company” value in the first row of the Include Value List. Leave the Exclude Value List empty.

7. Click Add to save the security group record.
8. If you enable Mandanten security, add the name of the Mandanten security group to the Security Groups tab on the operator record of each Service Request Catalog user.
9. Assign the company to each category, sub-category, package, and item. This property does not cascade.

   Note If you are an advanced user, you can use these RAD Debugger commands to accomplish this task:

   • d company in $L.file

   • x company in $L.file="company name"

10. Click Save.
11. If you have more than one company defined in Service Manager, make sure each company has categories, subcategories, and producttypes assigned associated with service catalog.

For the detailed steps to complete each Service Manager task, see the Service Manager Help server.