SmartSuite for the Configuration Manager

Define CI types, attributes and the relationships that tie servers, applications and services together in Configuration Management (CMDB), with standard categories and ownership applied consistently so every record follows your data model.

Every change to a configuration record is traceable: who edited which attribute, when and under which change. When you run an accuracy audit, the history is already there rather than reconstructed from tickets.

Bring IT Asset Management records and the holdings in Enterprise Assets & Structure alongside your configuration items through linked records, so hardware, licenses and cloud resources share the same ownership and lifecycle fields.

When the Change and Release Manager closes a change in Change Management, the affected configuration items are updated in the same workflow, so the model reflects what was deployed rather than what was planned.

Link problems and root-cause analysis in IT Incident Management to the configuration items involved, so the Incident and Problem Manager can see which services share a failing component before the next recurrence.

The IT Disaster Recovery Lead's continuity plans draw on your system and dependency inventory directly: critical services map to the systems, facilities and vendors beneath them, so recovery sequencing rests on the CMDB rather than a copy.

Record each configuration audit as a task with its sample, findings and the corrective actions assigned, evidence attached; the IT Service Manager sees the result and the open actions without a separate spreadsheet.

Permissions decide who may edit configuration items and approval flows govern bulk updates, so the model changes through a controlled path and an auditor can trace each record back to an approved change.

Where DORA or ISO 27001 applies, the mapping of ICT assets and dependencies to important functions is kept as a governed record with review cycles and version history, ready for the resilience team and the regulator.

IT Service Manager

The Configuration Manager owns service configuration management: the CMDB, the configuration items in it, their relationships to services and the data quality rules that keep it trustworthy. That includes the configuration management plan and data model, the definition of item types and attributes, control over changes to configuration records, audits for accuracy and the integration of discovery, asset and cloud sources. Incident, change, asset and risk processes all work from the picture this role maintains.

Configuration Management (CMDB) maintains configuration items, their attributes and their relationships to services in one CMDB, with an audit history on every record and the data quality rules you define for ownership, relationships and review dates. Because every change to a configuration record is logged, you can run accuracy audits against the history rather than reconstructing what happened. IT Asset Management and Enterprise Assets & Structure hold the asset and organizational records the CMDB links to, so the estate is described once and referenced everywhere.

When a change request is raised, SmartSuite provides impact analysis from the service map held in Configuration Management (CMDB), so the Change and Release Manager can see which services and dependencies a change touches before it is approved. After deployment, Change Management records the configuration updates back into the CMDB, which keeps the service map current instead of drifting from the live estate. The Configuration Manager owns that loop: the map informs the change, and the change updates the map.

IT Incident Management links each incident and problem to the configuration items affected, so the Incident and Problem Manager can see which services depend on the failing item and diagnose faster. For the Configuration Manager, those links are also a quality signal: incidents that cannot be matched to a configuration item point to gaps in the CMDB. The same system and dependency inventory supplies the IT Disaster Recovery Lead with the data that DR and continuity plans rely on.

SmartSuite reports CMDB completeness, accuracy and audit results to IT leadership from the same records the processes use, so the Configuration Manager does not assemble a separate reporting pack. Completeness and accuracy are measured against the data quality rules and the audit history, and audit results record what was checked and what was corrected. The IT Service Manager sees the same figures, which turns the conversation about investment in discovery or clean-up into a factual one.

Start with the configuration item types, attributes and service relationships defined in your configuration management plan, then load the records you already trust from discovery, asset and cloud sources. SmartSuite holds them with audit history and data quality rules from the first record, so quality improves as you go rather than waiting for a complete load. Scope can begin with the services that matter most to incident and change and widen from there; the IT Asset Manager and Systems Administrator are usually the next users.