IT Service Catalog: Everything You Need To Know

Managing IT services is one of an organization’s most important activities.

Enter the IT service catalog—a centralized repository that details all IT services available to users. Just like a catalog in the retail setting, an organization’s IT service catalog provides a clear and organized way for users to understand and request IT services.

We will explore what goes into an IT service catalog, including its meaning, how it differs from related terms, benefits, IT service catalog examples, and how to build one.

What is an IT Service Catalog?

An IT service catalog primarily contains a consolidated list of services offered by an organization, including IT support services and IT operation services, as well as non-IT service teams, including HR, marketing, and beyond. It features a detailed description of each service's purpose, features, costs, and how to access the service in a centralized database.

Let’s try to understand it with the help of a simple example. Say you go to a car showroom looking for an “SUV Model X” where you can access information about its engine, features, price, and customization options.

Similarly, if you are looking for the IT service “Virtual Machine Provisioning” the IT service catalog will provide detailed information about the available configurations, associated costs, and options for additional backup services or security enhancements. 

IT Service Catalog vs. Service Portfolio

IT service catalog and service portfolio are related concepts but serve different purposes within IT service management. To understand their distinct roles, let's examine their differences:

The IT service catalog is a subset of the service portfolio, focusing on available and active services for end users. This facilitates efficient service requests and improves user satisfaction.

In contrast, the service portfolio offers a comprehensive view of all IT activities, including services in development and those retired, supporting strategic planning and informed decision-making.

IT Service Catalog vs Self-Service Portal 

Although the IT service catalog and self-service portal are sometimes used interchangeably, each has distinct nuances that are important to understand for effective IT service management.

An IT service catalog functions as a comprehensive database of available 

IT services, providing detailed descriptions and information. In contrast, a self-service portal is an interactive interface that allows users to navigate, request, and manage IT services.

To sum up, an IT service catalog offers extensive information about available services, while a self-service platform allows users to interact with these services directly.

Benefits of an IT Service Catalog 

Have a look at some of the benefits of an IT service catalog:

1. Improved User Satisfaction

The most significant advantage of an IT service catalog is that it addresses and fulfills the user's need to access relevant resource information. This way, users can get more with less time invested, leading to a better overall experience and a more satisfied user base.

This is a great way to offer users independence, allowing them to identify and request the products and services that are best suited to their situation. For example, if a customer is facing a problem logging into their account, they can head over to the service catalog to request services like “password reset” on their own. This improves user satisfaction and reduces the need for IT intervention during off-hours.

2. Overall Visibility

An ideal IT service catalog opens the doors of transparency by allowing administrators to review essential metrics such as volume requests, user satisfaction scores, etc. This can help decision-makers strategize effectively based on reliable data.

For example, employees can browse the IT service catalog to understand available IT service request volume requests such as “email account setup” or “VPN access” to plan the associated costs and appoint a person for contact.

3. Improved Self-Service

IT service catalog expands the scope of self-service by providing end users with a single gateway for IT-related requests and services. This not only empowers users with a self-service tool but also relieves some burden off the IT technicians so that they can solely focus on responding to requests effectively. Users can independently browse the list of services and request accordingly, fostering a more sufficient and empowered service.

4. Better Operational Efficiency

An efficient IT service catalog reduces the time and resources to manage individual services. This can significantly improve efficiency and boost employees’ productivity as they don’t have to collect requests personally. When IT employees have an overview of the incoming requests on their dashboard, they can easily plan and schedule each IT service delivery.

5. Enhanced Productivity

One of the greatest benefits of an IT service catalog is that it eliminates the need for manual intervention from IT personnel to move requests forward. This can greatly improve productivity, allowing the IT department to complete its tasks in a priority-based and efficient manner. The IT department gets more time to focus on more strategic tasks, helping enterprises function more efficiently.

6. Increased User-Friendliness

An IT service catalog brings all relevant IT service information in a unified, easy-to-use database, eliminating the roadblocks to making IT requests. The user only has to browse through the catalog and choose and request services without taking any extra burden of worrying behind the scenes.

Components of an IT Service Catalog

You should be aware of the following components while creating the IT service catalog:

1. Service Name

The service name should be easy and simple to understand so that users can identify the approximate purpose of the service.

2. Service Category

Creating service categories will help classify services based on their function or nature. Some examples include cloud services, communication services, security services, application services, etc.

3. Service Description

The service description explains what the service name is all about or its detailed summary. It can include its overview, nature, features, benefits, eligibility criteria, and other relevant information.

4. Service Owner

The service owner is the team or individual responsible for executing the IT service. They ensure that the service meets the users’ needs, is delivered effectively, and aligns with business goals. Key responsibilities include service strategy and design, monitoring service performance and user satisfaction, collaboration, documentation, and budget management. 

5. Service Availability

Service availability shows the status of a particular service and whether the service is currently available or unavailable.

6. Service Level Agreement (SLA)

SLA is an agreement between the service provider and the user that defines the expected level of service and performance standards.

7. Service Costs

It refers to the breakdown of all associated service costs, if applicable. This may include labor, infrastructural, operation, maintenance, and more costs.

Key IT Service Catalog Metrics

After you release your service catalog, you should continuously improve it. This can be done by eliminating unnecessary or unused services and adding new services. Set aside time to review your processes and devise strategies based on the results.

To review your service catalog, here are some essential metrics to consider:

• Request the volume of each service
• Least and most accessed services
• Frequency of service request types
• Number of users accessing the catalog
• Costs associated with a specific service
• Service availability or uptime
• Backlog of service requests
• User satisfaction score

IT Service Catalog Examples 

Here are a few examples of IT service catalogs from reputed organizations to help you understand how they work:

1. National Institute for Health Center for Information Technology (NIH CIT)

The National Institute for Health Center for Information Technology (NIH CIT) is designed intuitively on a straightforward portal. It allows users to browse services, submit report tickets, and access a knowledge base for self-help purposes.

The catalog ranges from a wide range of services to further biomedical research through solid technological support. It includes application services, collaboration technology, hosting services, technology training, and more.

2. Stanford University

Stanford University's IT catalog offers dozens of services students and academics can access from one unified IT portal. The catalog is diverse and comprehensive, including A to Z ways of entering support tickets. The university community, including students, faculty, and staff, can access the service with smooth navigation. Some key categories include collaboration tools, Microsoft OneDrive, communication services, data and file storage, etc.

3. Berkeley

Berkely’s information technology service catalog displays an alphabetical list of all available services. It provides a search bar for quick and easy browsing that includes granularity by category or person eligibility. All categories are also listed in the interface for convenience.

How to Build an IT Service Catalog

To build an IT service catalog, you must follow a structured approach to enhance efficiency, user experience, and transparency.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to building an ITSM service catalog:

1. Understand Key Challenges

Work with business leaders and end users to discover key challenges and identify solutions.

Two of the biggest challenges that organizations face are:

• Defining scope: Start with a pilot project focusing on high-demand services and gradually expanding.
• Identifying and documenting all services offered by the IT department: Conduct workshops and interviews with IT staff and end users.

2. Identify End Users and Providers

Consider these simple steps to identify your end users and providers:

• Conduct stakeholder workshops to understand their needs, expectations, and capabilities.
• Develop user personas to help you understand their specific needs and tailor service offerings.
• Clearly define roles and responsibilities for both.
• Establish communication channels such as newsletters to keep everyone informed.

3. Define IT-Related Services

Take a full inventory of all IT services within the organization. This can help you work through any legacy service delivery methods to identify the most requested service.

While creating a list of IT-related services offered by your organization, include all relevant details such as category, owner, costs, and availability. Don’t forget to look for gaps in the existing offerings to retire or add any new services accordingly.

4. Design the IT Service Catalog

The IT service catalog should be simple to use and understand while being informative and detailed. Users should not need to spend hours finding a particular service.

The best way to approach this can be:

• Determine the primary goals, including service transparency, streamlining request processes, or user satisfaction.
• Categorize services with logical grouping.
• Create a detailed description of each service.
• Design the user interface with intuitive navigation, search functionalities, and clear categories.
• Integrate with existing IT management systems such as ticketing systems and configuration management databases.
• Create a communication line like emails or newsletters plan to inform all stakeholders. 

5. Test And Deploy

Before launching your ITIL service catalog, test it with actual users. You can create a focus group from a cross-section of users to evaluate user acceptance. This will also help you understand whether the service catalog meets established objectives. After getting feedback from the users, you can make the changes accordingly.

6. Measure and Improve

Finally, after launching your IT service catalog, you can sit back and let the analytics do the job. It can help you measure all metrics and identify how your users find value. You can use these insights to make data-driven strategic decisions to improve your IT service catalog.

GenAI-enabled Enterprise IT Service Catalog Management with Rezolve.ai

An organization without an IT service catalog today drags back its performance to at least ten years. The central repository of IT services promotes transparency, efficiency, and user satisfaction to the maximum extent.

However, many organizations find it difficult to create their IT service catalog due to a lack of IT resources or other factors. This is when tools like Rezolve.ai come into play.

Rezolve.ai offers service management in a user-friendly interface for maximum user satisfaction. With GenAI’s automation capabilities, you can accelerate the fulfillment of service requests while ensuring that all parties stay consistently updated through notifications.

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FAQs

What is a service catalog in IT?

A service catalog in IT is a consolidated list of resources and offerings within an organization. It is a central repository where organizations list available IT services detailing how to request and  acquire each service.

How to build an IT service catalog?

To build an IT service catalog, consider these steps-

• 1. Identify all stakeholders 
• 2. ⁠Outline the services you want to provide in the catalog
• 3. ⁠Use the essential tools to build the catalog
• 4. ⁠Deploy the catalog
• 5. ⁠Gather and act on feedback from users
• 6. ⁠Utilize metrics for continuous analysis and improvement

What is a service catalog in ITIL v3?

IT service catalog in an ITIL V3 is a systematic and detailed list of all IT services offered by an organization to its users. There are primarily two types of IT service catalogs-

1. Business service catalog

2. Technical service catalog