Category: Blog

Recently we attended Knowledge 2022, the flagship event of ServiceNow, bringing together experts, customers, and partners from all over the world around the latest industry trends and platform upgrades. 

After the pause due to Covid-19, this year’s Knowledge included four in-person events in New York, Las Vegas, Sydney, The Hague, and was also available online. 

Although smaller than the events we previously attended in the US, the event in The Hague felt more powerful than ever. The message and content reassured us that the business opportunities in the ServiceNow environment are on a growing path over the coming years. 

The event took place between 11-12 May and included a keynote session, panel discussions, demos, and roundtables, all of which we found very insightful not just for the work we’re currently offering to our clients, but also for our future projects.

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During the keynote, ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott talked about the growing industry need to develop business apps, and how low-code can play a key role in the global shortage of expert developer support.  

This was followed by an App Engine challenge where two participants showed how easy it is to build apps in the ServiceNow environment, one building an app to book pet care services, and the other a travel booking app.  

AI & HYPERAUTOMATION, SERVICE OPERATIONS WORKSPACE, CITIZEN DEVELOPMENT, ESG

The talk of town was around AI and Hyperautomation/ RPA, the Service Operations Workspace, Citizen Development, and ESG. 

The ServiceNow RPA space now comprises four main features: the RPA management hub where you can manage and orchestrate robots, native integration (similar to the Flow Designer), the Desktop Design Studio where you can setup robot workflows, and ready-built components and tools.

The Service Operations Workspace is a new platform addition that offers different teams at an organization a unified experience to prevent and resolve incidents contextually and quickly. 

Regarding Citizen Development, we learned that more and more companies are looking at making this a reality in their workplaces, and that traditional developers play a key role in facilitating this transition.  

NN’s Ashutosh Munot offered some really interesting insights into this topic during his talk 007 A bond stratedy to enable citizen development, where he elaborated on the concept and on the advantages that companies should look for when working with citizen developers.

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) is becoming hotter by the day, as companies realize that although factors here are not necessarily financial, this approach minimizes risk and can positively impact their ROI in the long run. 

Lightstep is another new platform addition that offers developers and site reliability engineers agility and real-time overview when pinpointing the source of issues in incident resolution, helping teams reduce downtime more efficiently. 

And the new Customer Engagement Messenger provides an improved low-code approach to embed self-service functions in a web page or via links in other content such as email. Companies can add functions such as proactive recommendations, configurable cards, intelligent AI search, knowledge management, helping to increase self-service ROI by reducing the customer journey effort.  

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A STRONG COMMUNITY WITH A FOCUS ON EXCELLENCE

At the event we also joined several one-on-one sessions with ServiceNow experts for the designer, integration, and service owner workspace, which helped us gain first-hand advice for using these features in our implementations. 

We’re happy to see that ServiceNow stays committed to ‘making the world work’ and that the excitement remains high among the NOW professionals and community.

The continued demand for workflow automation on a platform that offers customers simplicity and clear investment perspectives and ROI are some of the factors for which we advocate Bill McDermott’s statement that ServiceNow is on the path to become the ‘defining enterprise software company of the 21st Century’.

Want to find out more about how we can help your organization optimize productivity, cost and resilience in IT service, business, and operations management? 

Get in touch with us and start your digital transformation journey today! 

Introducing Bookmark Service Portal Feature.

Employee Experience is at the core of DevHd – Service Portal solutions, the Servicenow Knowledge, Catalog and employee driven records (incidents, requests, etc.) can have considerable size and navigating them is time consuming, so we use multiple access points to enhance UX and reduce clutter.

Quick access to your favorite Catalog Items, Knowledge articles or tickets you follow closely has never been easier.

Our Bookmark feature gives you the power to save any of those to your favorite’s custom menu and access them at anytime from anywhere within the Service Portal.

Last week, we shared with you our top 5 new applications available in the Paris release and because this release brings a lot of enhancements in this article we would like to share with you our top 5 enhancements available in the Paris release. In the Flow Designer interface, action numbers now start with 1 and then increment by 1 as you add more actions to your flow. Legacy action numbering incremented by 1 for each main section and then incremented by .1 for each nested subsection, such as in a Do the following in parallel flow logic block.

1. Flow Designer

The new Paris release comes with a major release regarding Flow Designer and it brings to the table a lot of new features that will speed up your development by creating reusable content that can be used in any flow.

In the Flow Designer interface, action numbers now start with 1 and then increment by 1 as you add more actions to your flow. Legacy action numbering incremented by 1 for each main section and then incremented by .1 for each nested subsection, such as in a Do the following in parallel flow logic block. If your flow actions contain any inline scripts that reference legacy action numbers, you have the option to automatically update your scripts according to the new numbering method.

As we looked up all the new features for the flow designer, we tried to come up with a list of our favorites but all the new features bring a new perspective about the Flow Designer and increase its usability even more. If you do not take our word look for yourself at this cool new features 😉

Important information for upgrading Flow Designer to Paris 

Content filtering for Flow Designer

Specify what content a user can access based on the user’s role. 

Create a flow with roles 

Create flows and subflows that run with specific roles. Assigning roles enables you to create user-initiated flows that run with their own roles rather than the user’s roles. 

Create complex object templates 

Save complex objects as templates for use as outputs in steps or actions. 

Delete Multiple Records step

Look up and delete multiple existing records as a single action. Using this action removes the need to separately look up a list of records and then delete the list with For Each flow logic.

Duplicate an action or subflow 

Duplicate an action or subflow within a flow.

Get Catalog Variables action 

Get multi-row variable sets when accessing ServiceNow®Service Catalog variables. 

Key Value Map transform function 

Use a transform function to return a value associated with a matching data-pill key. 

Send SMS action in Flow Designer 

Send an SMS text message to specified users or groups as an action in a flow. 

Submit Catalog Item Request action 

Create a requested item [sc_req_item] on a Service Catalog Request [sc_req]. 

Test a flow, subflow, or action in the background 

Use the Run test in background option to test a flow, subflow, or action asynchronously in background. 

Update Multiple Records step 

Look up and update multiple records as a single step. Using this step removes the need to separately look up a list of records and then process the list with a Script step. Set field values with a template or add and configure them using data pills. 

Update Multiple Records action 

Look up and update multiple records as a single action. Using this action removes the need to separately look up a list of records and then process the list with For Each flow logic. Set field values with a template or add and configure them using data pills. 

Use a script to check if a flow has an Ask for Approval action 

In an inline script or Script step, use the hasApprovals() method in the FlowAPI class to determine if a flow contains any Ask for Approval actions. 

Use Flow Data actions to create reusable Process Automation Designer activities 

Collect data from agents interacting with a Workspace playbook. Use this data to create reusable activities for process owners using Process Automation Designer. 

Identify missing actions in a flow 

If adding flows with actions or ServiceNow®IntegrationHub spokes to an instance with those actions or spokes missing, the flow will successfully open and provide a warning for each missing action. 

Flow designer

2. Integration Hub

In Integration Hub we have JSON Streaming Builder and XML Streaming Builder APIs that will help developer lives even more. In these APIs you can build a large streaming or non-streaming JSON or XML payload to use in a REST or SOAP request to send bulk data to a third-party API. For example, you can use these APIs to create a JSON payload in the ServiceNow Flow Designer Script step and pass the returned value to the REST step to send the request to a third-party service. 

Other new features introduced in the Paris release are: 

JSON parser step

Add the JSON parser step in ServiceNow® Action Designer to map inbound JSON payloads to complex object outputs. Access these outputs as data pills in your flows for outbound integrations. 

Access controls for outbound transactions 

Apply an IP access control to outbound traffic, inbound traffic, or bidirectional traffic. 

Connections dashboard 

View and configure your connection and credential aliases through a simplified interface. Add new connections, edit existing connections, and view connection details. 

Support multiple connections 

Support several connections to a single integration provider. Select connections for flows, subflows, and actions directly from a flow. 

And in case the user cannot find what he is looking for, there is a suggestion at the end allowing him to open an incident or browse the request catalog.

input json
output json

Example of XMLStreamingBuilder 

input xml
output xml

3. Evaluate expressions in runtime

A long awaited update for the Script Debugger console finally reach out to make the debugging easier, we don’t know about you, but the fact that we weren’t able to change the variables within the script debugger console was a bit frustrating, and now this is solved. 

Let us get started on how evaluate expressions in runtime using Console. 

#1 First you need to open the System Diagnostics > Script Debugger. 

#2 Setup a breakpoint and trigger the script 

#3 Start debugging and after the script is triggered you will see that the script paused at the first breakpoint. 

#4 Click the upward arrow to expand the console pane. To start evaluating an expression you just write it in the console and press enter, to enter multiple lines of expression, press Shift + Enter after each line. For example you can define a new variable var x = 10, you can change a variable that is already defined in the script and you can call any function that is defined which I think it is pretty cool. 

Script debugger console

4. Mobile push notifications

In Paris release mobile push notifications become even more user friendly as they give the user an actionable push notification that can be configured to contain up to 3 actions. The actions that are currently supported are: 

Action item 

Navigation 

URL 

Chat launcher 

The buttons can either be configured to open the app into the desired location or be actioned from the notification pane. The action from the notification pane can be instantaneous or with a free text field to comment your action. 

actionable notifications

5. Enable external users to self-register to your ServiceNow instance

The external user self-registration feature enhances identity verification to improve customer experiences and supports commonly used registration flows. 

External user self-registration enables a large group of users to register to a ServiceNow app without the help of an administrator. For example, your visitors can register themselves to the parking app. Each visitor can complete an automated registration process. This system could generate a parking number, unique to each visitor, and ensure they have a parking space. 

self registration 1

To use this feature, you must activate the External User Self-Registration plugin and enable the blacklist property if you are upgrading to Paris. 

After configuring an app with necessary tables, you should configure the registration, including a pre-registration flow, field mapping, post registration mapping, captcha, role mapping and post registration flow. 

user registration configuration

We are happy to be among the first who are knowledgeable about the new release and we found some great features and improvements in the Paris release.

Early Availability is a ServiceNow early release program that allows qualified, existing customers and select partners to upgrade to a ServiceNow new release before Market Launch, when it then becomes generally available.

We consider the Early Availability a good chance to learn about the new features and enhancements, and to review and test them to always stay up to date and to be able to share them with the customers.

In this article we are sharing with you our preferred top 5 new applications available in the Paris release we think you should know about:

1. Process Automation Designer

Starting with the first, Process Automation Designer is a new application that enables the process owners to create a single, unified process. You can also use Process Automation Designer to provide end users with a simplified, task-oriented view of your process.

With Process Automation Designer you can:

#1 Connect multiple flows and actions into an end-to-end business workflow.

#2 Reuse existing Flow Designer flows, subflows, or actions to automate process activities.

#3 Organize process activities in a digitized task board interface.

#4 Guide end users to complete a process in a task-oriented interface, such as a playbook.

Process designer 2

To get the Process Automation Designer in your platform you must have a Now Platform App Engine subscription.

To create a Process Automation, you will have to navigate to Process Automation > Process Automation Designer and click New.

After you define the Process it will run when all the trigger conditions are met. As a result, the system creates a Process Execution record and renders any previously configured user-facing views of your process.

2. Natural Language Query

Natural Language Query is a new application in the Now platform that promise to bring an easier way for the users to find the answers to all their questions. It enables you to quickly get answers from data in your instance by entering plain-language questions into the user interface.

Natural Language Query is a simple powerful application that could bring a lot of benefits to a company. The features that this application have are the following:

Manage synonyms for Natural Language Query

Create custom synonyms for keywords and semantic shortcuts with conditional definitions to increase positive query results for NLQ users. The synonyms and conditions you create are key components that help the system respond accurately to your records-related questions.

Use NLQ in the Analytics Center tab of any Workspace

Get answers to your records-related queries by entering plain-language questions directly into the Analytics Q&A user interface. You can ask questions such as “How many open cases are assigned to me?” to get an immediate answer

Natural language query 2

3. ServiceNow Upgrade Center application

ServiceNow Upgrade Center is a new application that is active by default in the Paris release and can be used to plan and manage your upgrades.

The application comes with some useful features:

Upgrade Preview

Allows you to explore and preview upgrades to different ServiceNow release versions and see how your instance might be impacted with your current configurations. The Upgrade Preview utility helps you to plan, schedule, and prepare for an upgrade.

Preview skipped list prediction

This feature allows you to reduce post-upgrade review time by previewing the records that have been customized and are different from the upgrade version being previewed and might get skipped due to your customizations in the instance.

Upgrade Monitor module

Here you can view the upgrade summary and the list of records causing conflicts in your instance once the upgrade is complete.

Upgrade History module

The module tracks every upgrade made to an instance. You can also view the complete report of an old upgrade or a recently completed upgrade version using this module.

Administration

This module contains properties for managing Upgrade Center.

upgrade center

4. Hardware Asset Management

This is a new application in which you will need a license to activate it in your Now platform, but it comes with some powerful capabilities for workflows and automations to maintain your assets.

Hardware Asset Management comes with the following features which we think will improve quite a lot the way your company manages their hardware assets:

Asset life cycle automation

Keep your asset data accurate by automating the update of your asset records throughout the asset’s life cycle. Automated workflows and asset tasks help you to keep accurate records of your assets and reduce manual updates to assets and their associated CIs. Hardware Asset dashboard

Hardware Asset dashboard

Get a comprehensive view of your hardware assets through the entire asset life cycle. You can get insights into your asset inventory, disposal status of assets, approaching timelines for end of life stages, and pending purchase orders. Hardware model normalization

Hardware model Normalization

Get visibility and control of your hardware models and assets throughout your IT environment. You can use the hardware library and normalization rules to gauge your hardware assets and plan for a refresh when an asset approaches its end of life. You can also normalize details, such as the manufacturer, product, model, and device type of your hardware and consumable models. Auditing your asset inventory

Auditing your asset inventory

Conduct scheduled or unplanned audits of your stockrooms and other locations such as offices or datacenters. You can use the ServiceNow® Agent mobile app to scan hardware assets for the audit. You can also view detailed audit results to see the assets that are expected at the location and the assets that are found. Quick start tests for Hardware Asset Management

Quick start test for Hardware Asset Management

After upgrades and deployments of new applications or integrations, run quick start tests to verify that Hardware Asset Management still works. If you customized Hardware Asset Management, copy the quick start tests, and configure them for your customizations.

ham automated dashboard

5. Workforce Optimization for ITSM

ServiceNow Workforce Optimization for ITSM is a new application in the Paris release, that can be used to improve the quality and efficiency of service teams and enhance team satisfaction.

It allows you to assess the needed skills for your organization and to use Predictive Intelligence to identify skill gaps and recommend coaching and training needs for your team.

This application is part of the new ITSM Enterprise offering and it comes with the following features:

Customizing the Workforce Optimization landing page

You can customize your home page to monitor metrics and trends that matter most to you and you can use the User Interface (UI) Builder to add data visualization components to display widgets and reports that you want to track and monitor.

Scheduling

This feature allows to manage the scheduling for your organization from a central location.

The managers can plan and manage shifts, add breaks, preview schedules, and time-off requests for the team.

The agents can manage their own schedules by swapping shifts with their colleagues or create time-off requests.

Teams

Teams can be used to track and analyze performance trends for the teams from a single location. You can monitor the trends for each agent within your team and compare your agents or team members with one another. With Teams, you can identify skill gaps so that you can recommend which skills are needed to coach your agents.

Predictive intelligence for coaching and training

Gain visibility into how your teams are performing in real time. You can use skill recommendations and continual coaching cycles to enhance your agents’ skills.

Coaching

Use the Coaching application to do the following:

Identify coaching opportunities from critical points in the process that need improvement.

Automatically generate assessments to measure the quality of completed tasks.

Use surveys to apply consistent, measurable scores that highlight exceptional moments of service or areas that need attention.

Channel Management

Use channels to route work to specific queues. You can review the real-time performance of your team members as they actively work on tasks across channels.

Roles added to Workforce Optimization for ITSM

Use the new roles added to Workforce Optimization for ITSM to monitor your teams’ performance, manage queues, schedule, coach, and train your agents.

Domain Separation

Separate data, processes, and tasks into logical groupings in Workforce Optimization for ITSM with domain separation. You can then control aspects in each domain, including which users can see and access the data.

optimized team etc 1

The companies are trying to find the best solutions on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace, to enable workers to return to work safely while keeping the risk of contamination as low as possible. Getting employees back to the workplace requires careful planning, execution, and agility on the part of organizations.

Organizations using digital transformation with automation and digital workflows in place will find faster solutions to get back to work more efficiently, productively, and safely.

ServiceNow Safe Workplace is a four-app suite and dashboard that aims to help you manage the essential steps for returning employees to the workplace and support everyone’s health and safety.

Employee Readiness Surveys

An application designed to help you address a series of questions and gather feedback from your employees about their health and readiness to get back to the workplace, including preferred return timeframe. Based on the feedback received, you can determine the actions you need to take to ensure you find the solutions that helps them feel safe and secure.

Get the application from the ServiceNow store:

Employee Readiness Surveys app

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Employee Health Screening

This application allows you to check if the employees meet all health and security requirements before they enter the workplace, according with your site’s entry rules, including temperature check and appropriate personal protective equipment. The application can be used by a receptionist, a professional nurse or any other individual assigned to manage your facility.

Get the application from the ServiceNow store:

Employee Health Screening app

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Workplace Safety Management

This application helps workplace service managers to coordinate the return process by using shifts and assigning employees to pre-configured safe workspaces, automating cleaning tasks to ensure shifts readiness and gives you an overview on the workspace availability and cleaning history.

Get the application from the ServiceNow store:

Workplace Safety Management app

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Workplace PPE Inventory Management

The Workplace PPE Inventory Management application enables the organization to manage and monitor personal protective equipment stock by location and facility and it gives you a historical data on equipment needs and levels over time.

Get the application from the ServiceNow store:

Workplace PPE Inventory Management app

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We are here to help you implement and configure the apps fast and tailored to your needs.