The service catalog extends service request management to model and publish IT services in a catalog. Service designers create service components to define complex services and organize them in the service catalog.
In addition, the service catalog is the interface from which end users order their services.
Users order services from the service catalog. The system triggers the service fulfillment process in service request management: Processors use service requests that contain guided procedures and operations tasks to process the service orders.
In addition, processors can schedule guided procedures to process operations tasks that must be repeated regularly.
To process service orders, IT Service Management uses the service request transaction type.
Various settings must be configured before you can use the service catalog.
For more information about configuring the service catalog and service components, see Configuring a Service Catalog.
For more information about configuring service request management, see Configuring Service Request Management.
Using service request management, when processing service orders, you can do the following:
Involve different processors
Prepare procedures that processors can execute regularly or when ordered
Record efforts
Document the execution of the procedure in detail
Service request management for the New Employee service:
The service catalog contains several service components, for example, New Employee.
An end user orders a service component from the service catalog by creating a service order. The service order can contain a questionnaire to provide more information, such as what software the new employee requires.
The New Employee service component contains products from several categories, for example, hardware (Material product category), or notebook setup (Service product category).
For the notebook setup, the system creates service requests for service fulfillment, for example, for installing the software.
A service request contains operations tasks (SMOT transaction type). Operations tasks are automatically created based on a guided procedure that is related to the service request. Examples of operations tasks are installing the operating system, installing special software, and setting up the workstation.