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Configuration Items in CMDB
Configuration items (CIs) represent the individual assets in your IT environment. Each CI stores key details about a specific hardware or software component, helping your teams track, manage, and understand the infrastructure that supports your business. CIs provide the foundation for service management, impact analysis, and discovery.
Required Editions
| Available in: Lightning Experience |
| Available in: Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited Editions with Agentforce IT Service that have CMDB and Service Graph enabled. |
A CI is a digital record of an asset or service that plays a role in your IT operations. The assets or services can include physical devices like laptops and routers, virtual machines, software applications, cloud services, and databases. CIs help create a real-time view of your IT ecosystem. Each CI has:
- A type, such as workstation, server, or application
- A set of attributes, like name, owner, IP address, location, or software version
- Optional relationships, such as which server a database runs on or what software is installed on a machine
In CMDB, the All Configuration Items tab displays every configuration item (CI) in your environment, including those created manually or added through Discovery. Use this tab to browse, search, and manage the full set of CIs across the organization.
The My Configuration Items tab shows only the CIs assigned to the current logged in user. Use this view to track assets you own, update details, or monitor relevant changes.
A support engineer wants to track all company-issued laptops. Each laptop is represented as a workstation CI in CMDB. The CI includes fields like hostname, model number, operating system, assigned user, and location. The engineer can also define relationships between the workstation and installed applications, connected printers, and network devices. When discovery runs, it detects the laptop and updates its CI with the latest attribute values. If a new device is found, CMDB creates a new CI automatically.
- Create a Configuration Item
A configuration item (CI) represents a physical or virtual asset in your IT environment. Create CI manually when setting up Configuration Management Database (CMDB) or when you need to capture a new asset that isn’t detected through discovery. - Edit a Configuration Item
Update a configuration item (CI) when asset details change. - Import Configuration Items to CMDB
Import configuration items (CIs) and CI tags in bulk using a predefined CSV template. Download a prestructured template that matches the selected CI type and then upload the completed CSV to import CIs into CMDB. Use this method to maintain consistency and reduce manual effort during CMDB setup. - Export Configuration Items
Export filtered configuration items (CIs) to a CSV file for external use and operational workflows. Apply list view filters to export only the required CIs and download completed export files from the Export History tab. Use exported files for reporting, analysis, migrations, and operational reviews. - Configuration Item Record and Tabs
Each configuration item (CI) record contains essential asset details collected manually or through asset discovery. You can view the record to assess technical and business metadata, verify ownership, and understand upstream and downstream dependencies. Use the record to troubleshoot incidents faster, assess ownership, and track related issues across IT operations. - Configuration Item Tags
Use configuration item (CI) tags to group and organize CIs across your CMDB. Tags are flexible labels that help teams filter, identify, and manage related CIs more efficiently. Apply tags manually or populate them through discovery, imports, and APIs. Teams can use tags to represent operational, business, or environment-specific metadata across different CI types. - Manage Configuration Item Components
Add or remove supported component records from a configuration item (CI) to maintain accurate infrastructure and software associations.
