External Contact Type
When Analysts add people and designate them as External Contacts, the additional field, External Contact Type, appears on the Person Details window. You may define as many external contact types as you wish.
External Supplier vs. External Contact
External Supplier: An organization or an individual that provides goods or services to your company. They play a key role in your supply chain, impacting various aspects of your business operations, from product quality to delivery timelines.
External Contact: An individual or point of contact within external organizations such as suppliers, partners, or customers. They may or may not have a direct impact on the supply chain but are essential for communication and relationship-building purposes.
External contacts in ITSM (IT Service Management) and ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) refer to individuals or entities outside of your organization who interact with your service management processes. This can include suppliers, customers, partners, and third-party service providers. They are integral to your system for several reasons:
Enhanced Communication: Including external contacts ensures streamlined communication with key stakeholders outside your organization, important for incident resolution, change management, and service requests.
Improved Service Delivery: By having external contacts integrated into your system, you can better manage and deliver services that rely on external parties, ensuring smoother operations and higher customer satisfaction.
Compliance and Reporting: For auditing and compliance purposes, tracking interactions with external contacts is crucial. It helps in creating accurate reports on service levels, incident management, and vendor performance.
Efficient Incident and Problem Management: External contacts often play a role in resolving incidents or problems. Having them in your system simplifies the process of reaching out for support or coordination.
Vendor and Supplier Management: For organizations that rely on vendors and suppliers, managing these relationships within your ITSM system helps in monitoring service quality, managing contracts, and assessing performance.
Integrating external contacts into your system aligns with best practices in ITIL for managing service relationships and delivering value to your customers and your business.
Creating an External Contact Type
Select the Menu button, then Admin, and then select System Administration. The System Administration window is displayed.
In the Explorer pane expand CMDB.
Select External Contact Type to open the window.
Select the new icon. A new row is created to the browse table.
In the Name list, type the name of the external contact type you want to create.
Repeat for each type you want to create.
Save the changes.
Provide the Change Reasons if prompted to do so.
Renaming an External Contact Type
Select the Menu button, then Admin, and then select System Administration. The System Administration window is displayed.
In the Explorer pane expand CMDB.
Select External Contact Type to open the window.
Select the entry you want to edit.
Type the name you want to assign for the selected external contact type.
Save the changes.
Provide the Change Reasons if prompted to do so.
Deleting an External Contact Type
You cannot reverse this procedure. If you delete a type by mistake, you have to re-create the entry by creating a new type.
Select the Menu button, then Admin, and then select System Administration. The System Administration window is displayed.
In the Explorer pane expand CMDB.
Select External Contact Type to open the window.
Select the external contact type entry you want to delete from the list.
Select the delete icon. If you attempt to delete the system default, you will receive a warning message.
Save the changes.
Provide the Change Reasons if prompted to do so.
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