The Service Catalog
order-on-behalf process allows a service request initiator to order a service
on behalf of another person, the intended customer. A drawback of this approach
is that the intended customer must have ordering permissions for the service.
This contradicts some corporate policies where, for example, IT or
administrative personnel should be able to order services for other people, but
people not in the IT or administrative roles should not be able to order these
services for themselves.
Without service items
and service item-based dictionaries, a workaround for this situation is
possible but hardly ideal. An initiator could choose the person for whom the
service was intended (using a person-based dictionary), but there was no way
for that person to be able to track “his” requisitions. This situation is
remedied by the use service items and service item-based dictionaries. An
initiator can order a service (and provision a service item) and designate a
chosen person as the customer. The customer would then be able to monitor the
request in the form of a service item that would appear in his Service Items
page.
The procedure for
implementing this functionality is fairly straightforward:
- Design the service item.
- Create the service
item-based dictionary, being sure to include in the dictionary the CustomerID
and OrganizationalUnitID. Optionally include a user-defined Status field, which
can be updated as the delivery plan progresses.
- Include the SIBD in an
active form component.
- Create a person-based
dictionary to allow the initiator to choose the customer for the service item.
Include this dictionary either in the same active form component as the SIBD or
another form component—as long as both dictionaries are included in the
service.
- In the active form component
containing the person-based dictionary write two rules as shown below, to copy
information on the chosen person to the service item-based dictionary.
Figure 1. Rule
Dictionary

An administrator is
now able to order the service for various customers, and the customers can see
the service item in the Service Items page or My Items portlet (provided they
have been granted the My Services 360-Degree Consumer or Professional role.) If
the service item has associated services for which the owners of the SIs have
ordering permission, they are able to order those services directly from the
Service Items page.
A drawback of this
approach is that the requisition would not be searchable by “Customer”, within
Service Catalog’s online modules, including Reporting and Advanced Reporting.
In Advanced Reporting, the Service Item’s Customer replacement dictionary (in
the example above, SICustomer) would need to be reportable.