What is ITIL Service Catalog?

• Service Catalog Definition

  Service Catalog Definition

  Defined in the IT infrastructure library, the IT service catalog is an organized repository of an organization’s active IT servicesend users can request and use efficiently. It falls under the ambit of the IT service portfolio, which provides more in-depth insights into a company's IT services, including active and retired services and products, as well as products currently in the production pipeline.
• How to build an IT service catalog?

  How to build an IT service catalog?

  Building a well-defined IT service catalog is crucial so end-users have a single source of truth to find IT services delivered by your service desk and the procedures to request those services. A service catalog typically supports two separate but interrelated views: the customer view and the technical view. The former refers to the interface end-users employ while requesting a particular service from the catalog, whereas the latter contains technical information required by the IT staff to deliver a specific service quickly.

  Outlined below are some of the valuable steps to build a reliable IT service catalog:

  Determine key stakeholders and business goals

  One of the vital prerequisites for creating an accurate IT service catalog involves determining your end-user expectations and business goals. Conduct a meeting and ask the key stakeholders, such as senior management and employees, about the IT services they require to perform daily tasks more efficiently. In addition, coordinate with the service desk and other IT teams to perform a gap analysis. Evaluate whether the existing services and solutions meet your business objectives and end-user requirements.

  Define services and manage access permissions

  The next step of catalog creation involves defining and categorizing all the services offered by your IT department. Proper categorization reduces the time required to search for and request a particular service. Determining the delivery time frame and the fulfillment workflow associated with every service is also crucial. You should also enable role-based access permissions to your catalog and its different services for proper ITIL service catalog management. Role-based access control helps ensure end-users can view and request the services relevant to them.

  Formulate service-related SLAs and fulfillment methods

  After defining and categorizing IT services, create service level agreements and fulfillment strategies for every service. Determine delivery time frames and service owners for all services. The service owner serves as a single point of contact for all queries related to a particular service. For instance, in the case of a new employee system setup request, the hardware technician from the IT department of your company will be the service owner. Map relevant workflows for all the service offerings to enable standardization and timely delivery. In addition, confirm the fulfillment period set for every service is realistic to avoid unnecessary delays and ensure a seamless user experience. Build an ITIL service catalog management team to maintain accurate and up-to-date information in your catalog.

  Design an intuitive and user-friendly catalog

  Since the service catalog's primary objective is to make it easier for end-users to request an IT service, it should support an intuitive and user-friendly design. Giving careful thought to the overall user experience of your catalog will help enhance the end-user adoption and satisfaction rate. All the IT services and their key attributes, such as the expected date of service fulfillment and service owners, should be clearly highlighted to end-users. Instead of tedious and lengthy forms, use dynamic request forms with conditional fields while gathering information from end-users to improve their experience. In addition, incorporate functionality allowing end-users to track the status of their past service requests to ensure transparency throughout the service lifecycle.

  Integrate the catalog with the self-service portal

  An IT self-service portal serves as a one-stop platform for employees to report incidents, read valuable knowledge base articles, and track past service requests. Integrating your service catalog with this portal can amplify the self-service experience of the end-users as they get the flexibility to report IT incidents and request IT services from a single platform. Ensure all the popular services are listed at the top of the self-service portal so users don't have to spend additional time searching and requesting different services.

  Release the catalog in phases

  Perform beta testing by making your catalog available for a particular group of users or a single department before rolling it out for the entire organization. The feedback obtained from the initial users will help enhance the overall usability of the catalog. Once the catalog becomes available for the whole organization, focus on continual service improvement by regularly monitoring the key performance indicators, such as the number of requests served by technicians and the total number of requests in the backlog. Tracking these metrics over time will help enhance the effectiveness of your catalog.

  Employ automated tools for quick service delivery

  A service catalog tool can help end-users rapidly search and request services and monitor the status of their past requests through a simple, easy-to-use interface. Advanced service catalog tools can seamlessly integrate with other ITSM solutions, such as IT asset management and CMDB software, to give you unified data insights. Ensure that the software chosen by you matches your organization's I&O maturity level to avoid cost overrun. It should also comply with frameworks, such as ITSM and COBIT, and data privacy laws applicable in your industry.
• How can an IT service catalog be used?

  How can an IT service catalog be used?

  The end-users in an organization regularly make multiple service requests to the service desk, such as new laptop orders, password resets, and file access requests. Fulfilling these requests in a standardized and timely manner is one of the vital responsibilities of your organization's IT department, besides change and incident management. IT service catalog helps your service desk effectively manage the lifecycle of service requests placed by the end-users. Both the end-users and IT staff can use the service catalog. The technical view of this catalog is only visible to the service providers. It contains technical information, such as approval workflows and supporting services, which IT staff utilizes for proper service fulfillment.

  On the other end, the customer view of the catalog can be accessed via the IT-self-service portal by the end-users to make service requests to your IT department.

  Outlined below are some of the other key benefits of a service catalog tool:

  Improved staff productivity: Employing an IT service catalog tool reduces the need for excessive manual interaction between the IT department and end-users. The catalog lists all the IT services along with the steps needed to request and deliver those services, which helps standardize the service delivery and improve staff productivity. The clearly defined workflows for service fulfillment allow the IT staff to act upon the end-user requests quickly and efficiently.

  Reduced costs: Service catalog software can help reduce the turnaround time and delivery cost associated with every service request. It can offer powerful analytics and reporting capabilities, which allow you to identify the popular services, as well as the services requiring additional resources and can be discontinued. This analysis helps you reallocate resources to services delivering the highest value to end-users, ultimately enhancing your overall business productivity.

  Higher customer satisfaction: A service catalog tool provides an easy pathway for end-users to request the IT services offered by an organization. It also helps maintain consistent service provision standards and ensures rapid service fulfillment, increasing customer satisfaction.