Managing Cost Centers

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You can create Cost Centers within vFire Core and associate these with other entities within the CMDB including Stakeholders, Organizations, People, and CMDB Items. You can also record transactions (such as allocate or reserve a software licenses to a person or configuration item) against a particular Cost Center.

You can also group cost centers to Jurisdictions and allocate Jurisdictions to analysts, if you wish to restrict the cost centers the analyst is allowed to select when adding a transaction.

Adding a Cost Center

Before you start

You must have Cost Center New selected in the Cost Centers tab of your Configuration Management security role. This is not selected by default for the All role.

  1. From the Menu, select New and then select Cost Center .

    2. You can also add Cost Centers by selecting on the Cost Center Search window, or New Cost Center on a Cost Center [Q/D] menu.

  2. Complete the details.
  3. Name Type a name for the Cost Center
    Parent Cost Center Use the Q/D button to select a parent Cost Center
    Category

    Select a category from the drop down list.

    Categories are defined in the Cost Center Category window in System Admin.
    Description Type a description for the Cost Center, formatting it as you wish.
  4. Now you can link the cost center to other CMDB items. You can also use the options in the explorer pane to carry out further tasks.
  5. Select to save the details, or to save the details and display a blank window, ready for recording details of another new cost center.

Searching for Cost Centers

Before you start

You must have Cost Center View selected in the Cost Centers tab of your Configuration Management security role in order to search for or view Cost Centers.

  1. Select and then Search. From the submenu, select Cost Centers .
  2. The Cost Center Search window is divided into two panes. You can select the criteria for the search in the left pane. The results are displayed in the right pane.
  3. Filter your search using the search criteria in the left panel. You can apply as many filters as you wish (some of the fields require you to select a check box for that criteria to apply).

    4. Active Select to include currently active cost centers
    Deleted Select to include deleted cost centers
    Partition If you are using partitioning, select a Partition to filter cost centers by a specific partition
    Include Deleted Field Values Select to include deleted field values in your search. This updates the selected fields with values that have been deleted for those fields. For example, if you are searching for a cost center by Created By, and you select Include Deleted Field Values, the Created By list will be updated to display people that were created and subsequently deleted. You can then select a deleted value from the list, and conduct your search
    Name Select the check box to search Cost Centers by name. Then insert a % symbol in the field below to search on all names, or part or all of the name you want to search for and use the Q/D button.
    Jurisdiction Select the check box to search Cost Centers by jurisdiction. Then insert a % symbol in the field below to search on all jurisdictions, or part or all of the name and use the Q/D button.
    Linked Person Select the check box to search Cost Centers by linked people. Then insert a % symbol in the field below to search on all names, or part or all of the name you want to search for and use the Q/D button.
    Linked Organization Select the check box to search Cost Centers by linked organization. Then insert a % symbol to search on all organizations, or part or all of the name you want to search for in the field below and use the Q/D button.
    Equal, Equal + Below, Equal + Above Select one of the radio buttons to include or exclude subsidiary items in Q/D searches:
    • Equal limits the search to only items created against this value, so if an Organization Head Office was selected, only items linked to Head Office will be displayed.
    • Equal + Below includes items of the specified value and subsidiary items, so Head Office and all subsidiaries will be displayed.
    • Equal + Above includes all items of the specified value and any parent values, so Head Office and the Organization it is part of will be displayed.
    Linked CMDB Item Select the check box to search Cost Centers by linked CMDB item. Then insert a % symbol to search on all linked items, or part or all of the name you want to search for in the field below and use the Q/D button.

  4. To add more fields to your search criteria, select at the top of the Search Criteria pane and configure your search criteria.
  5. Select . The results are displayed in a browse table located in the right hand pane.
  6. From here, you can do any of the following:

    7. to view a selected Cost Center
    to refresh the window
    to delete a selected Cost Center
    to adjust the columns
    to print the results

Updating a Cost Center

Before you start

You must have Cost Center Update selected in the Cost Centers tab of your Configuration Management security role in order to search for or view Cost Centers. To update the stakeholders linked to the cost center, you must have Cost Center Stakeholders Write selected in the same tab.

  1. Search for the cost center. When you have located it on the browse table of search results, select it and then to display the details.
  2. Select to display the details in edit mode.
  3. Make the necessary changes.
  4. You can also link the cost center to other CMDB items or use the options in the explorer pane to carry out further tasks.
  5. Select to save the details, or to save the details and display a blank window, enabling you to create another cost center.

Deleting a Cost Center

Before you start

You must have Cost Center Delete selected in the Cost Centers tab of your Configuration Management security role in order to search for or view Cost Centers.

  • Search for the cost center. When you have located it on the browse table of search results, select it and then .
  • If you want to view the details before deleting the cost center, select to display them, and then from the details window.