Managing Configuration Items

The CI list is where every configuration item in your CMDB lives. Use it to find a CI, open it to see what it connects to and what work is open against it, and create new CIs as you bring more of your organization into the CMDB.

Available for:

Customers using SysAid Spaces. If you're using SysAid Classic, see Configuration Items List.

How it works

Each row in the CI list is one configuration item. Open a row and you get that CI's form: the General Details tab holds the CI's own details, and the tabs beside it show how the CI connects to the rest of your data.

Which fields appear on the form depends on the CI's type and sub type, so a vehicle CI and a contract CI can look nothing alike. For the concepts behind types, sub types, and relations, see the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) Guide.

The CI list behaves like any other table in SysAid for sorting, filtering, column selection, and views. To learn more about those, see Using SysAid Lists.

One view is specific to the CMDB. The SelectCIs predefined view controls the advanced search screen that appears wherever someone picks a CI elsewhere in SysAid, such as the Main CI field on a service record. Change that view, and you change what people see in the picker.

What's on each tab

Each CI entity includes the following tabs:

The tabs are in that order on the form, and the form's own OK, Cancel, and Apply buttons sit at the bottom of whichever tab you're on.

To have SysAid attach service records to CIs for you, rather than setting Main CI by hand each time, see Import Settings.

Access and permissions

• View CMDB lets an Agent see CIs. Clear it and that Agent sees no CIs at all.

• Modify CMDB lets an Agent create and edit CIs, CI templates, and CI types.

Restrict access for blocks an Agent from selected SysAid pages on top of both of the above, so an Agent with both permissions can still be kept off the CMDB pages. It's available in the Full Edition. See Managing Agent and Admin Permissions.

Limitations

• The CI relations graph draws only the direction you select. If the direction you pick has no relations, the CI appears on its own even when relations exist in the other direction.

• Only service records that name a CI as their Main CI appear on that CI's Help Desk tab. A service record merely linked to the CI some other way doesn't show up there.

Create a CI/CIs

There are four ways to get a CI into the CMDB, depending on how many you're creating and where they come from.

To create a single CI:

1. Go to Asset Manager > CI List.

2. Click + New.

3. Select the CI Type, and the CI Sub Type if the type has any. Do this before filling in anything else, because the rest of the form changes to match what you selected.

4. Fill in the General Details tab and click OK or Apply.

For many near-identical CIs at once, such as a batch of new company phones, use a template instead. See CI Templates.

For CIs that already exist elsewhere in SysAid, or that you have in a spreadsheet, use an import. Importing CIs Overview covers every route in and the order they depend on.

You can also create CIs by scanning them with the CI scanner in the SysAid mobile app. See SysAid Mobile App for Agents.

Edit a CI

To edit a CI:

1. Go to Asset Manager > CI List.

2. Click the row of the CI you want to edit.

3. Make your changes and click OK or Apply.

To change which fields appear on the form for a given type or sub type, click the design form icon and see Modifying Forms (Design Form). A form view you save applies only to the CI type and sub type you selected, so each combination can have its own.

Relate a CI to another CI

Relations between computers, the software installed on them, and their matching catalog items can be created in bulk, and so can relations loaded from a CSV. See Importing CI Relations. Everything else you create on the CI itself, one at a time.

To relate CIs:

1. Go to Asset Manager > CI List and click the row of the CI you want to start from.

2. Go to the CI relations tab.

3. Select the relationship type you want from the drop-down list.

4. Click Add destination CIs. The Select a CI window opens.

5. Filter to find the CIs you want, and select the check box at the left end of each row you're adding. Toggle All selects everything currently visible.

6. Click Select at the bottom of the window. The window closes, and the relations are created.

Please note:

If you have a lot of CIs and used Show All, the Select button sits below the rows, so you may need to scroll down to reach it.

To see the result, open the CI Relations Graph tab and choose a direction. The Relation Type Filter narrows the graph to particular relationship types, so you can show only the software installed on a workstation, for example.

Act on several CIs at once

To use bulk actions on several CIs:

1. Go to Asset Manager > CI List.

2. Select one or more rows using the check boxes at the left end of each row. The actions list opens.

3. Choose an action:

   • Delete removes the selected CIs.

   • Print exports the selected CIs to PDF.

   • Export exports the selected CIs to CSV.

   • Status sets a status on every selected CI. Choose the status from the drop-down list and click Set.

Important:

Delete acts on every CI you selected, including any you can't see because they're on another page of the table. Check your selection before deleting, and remember that deleting a CI also removes the relations other CIs had to it.

CI field reference

You may see fields that aren't listed here. They're either custom fields added to your system or fields added by a third-party integration.

Tip!

• Custom fields are renamed under Settings > Administration > Languages > Translation.

• The values a custom list offers are edited under Settings > Customization > Field Value Lists.

Next steps

• Importing CIs in bulk for the first time: Importing CIs Overview.

• Adding types and sub types beyond the predefined ones, so your CIs carry the right fields: CI Type List and CI Sub Types.

• Adding relationship types beyond the three predefined ones: CI Relation Types.