Mobiz

ServiceNow Outbound Integrations 

ServiceNow is a huge platform with a wide range of features. Many of its features do not require much coding, and it has an integration hub and flow designer. This article will explore outbound integration from ServiceNow to other applications or platforms. 

When your application requests or sends data to other applications, it is called Outbound Integration. Let's now see how ServiceNow manages outbound integrations and how difficult this ServiceNow solution is.

ServiceNow Integration Hub and Flow Designer

ServiceNow Integration Hub is an integration solution that allows users to automate processes and integrate ServiceNow workflows with third-party systems. It provides a library of reusable integrations called spokes, which can be easily configured to connect with external applications. This no-code or low-code approach simplifies the integration process and makes it accessible to technical and non-technical users. The Flow Designer by ServiceNow is a tool that allows the configuration of integrations and their actions. 

Example of ServiceNow Outbound Integrations

Here are some examples of ServiceNow Integration Hub and Flow Designer. 

Connection with a Third-Party Application

ServiceNow offers several plugins called spokes when connecting to a third-party application or platform like Microsoft Entra ID. When we install spokes, it automatically adds the records that are required to configure a proper connection. 

So, what are the records that are added by spokes? Below is the connection and credential alias in which a lot of connections depending on different Azure ADs tenants can be configured. 

Now, to the connection in which the credentials record is specified, it is needed to use the integration when sending data to other applications.

In credentials, let’s specify the entity profile, which contains profile scopes from Azure AD and Auth provider. These will contain sensitive information about the Azure AD tenant, like client ID and client secret. 

Now, how to use this setup? The answer is Flow Designer. As discussed above, when you install a spoke, you get OOB functionalities like alias and several OOB actions. These functionalities can be used to communicate with other applications. Actions in Flow Designer are units of Flow Designer that perform some OOB functionality in Flow Designer, and their working is pre-configured from ServiceNow.

 Let us first see an action from Microsoft Entra ID spoke, and how it works.

For now, let’s not go into the details of pre-processing or post-processing. However, the important thing here is the Lookup User Details which have the required part.

This shows how this action is configured OOB to send requests on a specified connection. Now, let’s execute this action for a test user, and see how this works.  

Input 

Output

There are some possible ways in which this action can be used. For example, in Mobiz, it is used in both Onboarding and Offboarding flows to find users, if there are any. 

This is just a small example of what the ServiceNow Integration Hub can achieve. It is also possible to run PowerShell scripts configured in actions like Lookup user and write data to Azure AD. 

Conclusion

Outbound integrations in ServiceNow are essential for connecting the platform with external systems. This integration also helps in data exchange, automation, and collaboration. The processes can be made simple, collaboration can be improved, and decisions can be made data-driven through a proper implementation of outbound integrations.

Actions in Flow Designer are important components that helps users to automate processes, streamline workflows, and integrate ServiceNow with other systems and services. By utlizing actions' versatility, customization options, and integration capabilities, organizations can design efficient, scalable, and adaptable workflows.

Get in touch with us today to know more about outbound integrations in ServiceNow. 

by Mobiz

Financial Management and ROI Tracking in Strategic Portfolio Management

In recent times, Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) has become an important aspect when it comes to making projects and initiatives in line with the goals of an organization. And in SPM, the most important part is how to effectively and efficiently manage finances and keep a continuous track of return on investment, or ROI.  

SPM makes sure that resources are allocated as efficiently as possible and that return on investment is as high as it can go. This blog will discuss the challenges faced by organizations in managing their finances. It will also explore how the SPM module takes care of these issues and how best its capabilities can be utilized to get the maximum benefit. 

Introduction 

The SPM module is a simple but effective solution to the money-related problems of organizations and businesses. It integrates financial metrics with project and portfolio data and tells an organization how it is performing as far as finances are concerned. SPM helps organizations to streamline their budget, track their costs, and accurately measure the return on any investment that they make. 

It does so by automating financial management processes and offering real-time visibility. This automation improves financial control, reduces errors, helps make informed decisions, and better strategic planning. The result is the maximum return for investments. 

The Challenge 

Integration and financial metrics with project and portfolio data are some of the major difficulties in portfolio management. This can result in fragmented data scattered across various systems. The reason why organizations face this challenge is that most enterprises still rely on manual processes, making them prone to errors and inefficiencies. Moreover, real-time visibility into financial performance becomes quite difficult. 

This fragmentation affects the ability to make informed decisions about resource allocation and project prioritization. Additionally, measuring ROI is complex, especially when benefits are intangible or long-term, hindering accurate financial performance tracking and optimizing investment returns. 

The Solution

The SPM module tackles the issues that organizations often encounter by offering a complete solution for managing finances and tracking ROI. It combines financial data with information related to project and portfolio information to give a detailed idea of costs, budgets and financial performance. 

Because of this, you get access to all financial metrics that are updated in real time. The need for manual data is either completely eliminated or reduced a great deal with the automation of processes. This automation results in less number of errors and helps in smooth budgeting and monitoring of finances. Other than that, real-time dashboards and reports give complete information about financial performance. 

Companies can make use of this feature to monitor their budgets and track expenses. It also becomes easy to make informed decisions that can result in sustained growth. With SPM, you can define key performance indicators (KPIs) and utilize analytics. Moreover, the platform supports best practices to prevent budget overruns and scenario analysis to analyze investment options and an optimal budget allocation. 

Result

Organizations that utilize the SPM module get the following:

• Enhanced Financial Control: Integrated financial metrics and automated processes reduce errors. This results in better financial control.

• Increased Visibility: Real-time dashboards and reports enable proactive management and provide complete visibility into financial performance.

• Improved ROI: By accurately tracking and analyzing ROI, organizations can prioritize high-value projects and get better investment returns.

• Optimized Budget Allocation: Organizations are able to allocate their funds effectively with the help of strategic budget planning in SPM.
   

Conclusion 

Concluding the blog, financial management, and ROI tracking are two key aspects of Strategic Portfolio Management. The SPM module in ServiceNow helps businesses integrate financial metrics, automate their processes, and get real-time visibility into their financial performance. Organizations can enhance financial control, improve ROI, and optimize budget allocation by properly leveraging the features offered by SPM. 

This will help them ensure that their investments are aligned with their strategic objectives and deliver maximum value. Implementing the SPM module is a strategic move for any organization looking to excel in financial management and achieve all its business goals.

About the Author

Shabana Khalid is a Junior ServiceNow Developer at MobizInc. With 1 year of experience in ServiceNow development and workflow automation, specializes in building scalable and efficient solutions to drive business innovation and enhance productivity.

About MobizInc

MobizInc is a leading provider of ServiceNow solutions, helping organizations streamline operations, improve efficiency, and deliver exceptional customer experiences. With a focus on innovation and technology. MobizInc empowers businesses to achieve their goals and stay ahead in today's competitive landscape.

If you want to learn more about Strategic Portfolio Management, contact us today!

by Mobiz

Automated Timesheet Reminder System Using Slack Integration 

Submitting timesheets on time are important for tracking projects and performance management. To address the challenge of late submissions, an automated reminder system was created at Mobiz. The system sends Slack messages to users who are yet to submit their timesheets. This blog post discusses how our scheduled job works and its specific code implementation. 

Scheduled Job Overview 

Here is how timesheet reminders are automated using Slack Integration.

• Name: Slack reminder for timesheet submitter 
• Run: Daily 
• Schedule: Use the system time zone 
• Time: 13:00 hours 
• Condition: Excludes weekends 

This is an example of a scheduled job that runs daily at 13:00 hours, except on weekends. It checks for users who have pending or recalled timesheets from previous weeks and sends them a reminder via Slack. 

Implementation Details 

The basis of this implementation is a scheduled job that checks the timesheet database. After analyzing the database, it then identifies all those users who have pending or recalled timesheets. Following is a step-by-step guide about how the script works.

1. Condition Check: The first step is to check for the conditions. This verifies that the job runs only on weekdays, and weekends are off.
   

1. Query Pending Timesheets: The next step involves the query that retrieves timesheets that are pending or recalled and groups all based on the user.
   
   

1. Send Slack Message: It is now time to give the workers a reminder. For each user with pending timesheets, the sendSlackMessage function is called.
   
   

Sending Slack Messages 

The sendSlackMessage function takes care of the process of sending reminders to users on Slack. Here is a detailed overview of this function.

1. Get User Details: The first step is to get user details. User details are retrieved based on their system ID. 
2. Get or Generate Slack ID: If the user doesn't have a Slack ID, their email address is used to search for their Slack ID.
   
3. Generate Message: It is time to generate the message now. This function generates a personalized reminder message for each
   user.
   
   
4. Send Slack Message: This function sends the reminder message to the Slack ID of that specific user. If the user's Slack ID is not already stored, it retrieves and stores it before sending the message.
   
   
   

Example Slack Message 

This is how the reminder message appears in Slack.

The message includes a link that directs the user to the list view of their pending or recalled timesheets for previous weeks, making it easy to fill in their timesheet at one click.

Conclusion 

By implementing this automated Slack reminder system, Mobiz has streamlined and fast-tracked the process of ensuring timely timesheet submissions. This improves compliance as well as overall operational efficiency. The scheduled job runs seamlessly in the background and takes care of reminders without any manual involvement. This feature helps the human resource team of the company to put their energies on other important tasks. Contact us for more. 

by Mobiz

Inbound Integrations in ServiceNow 

In this article, we will learn about inbound integrations in ServiceNow with other third-party applications. Inbound and outbound integrations both have their importance in implementing a solution. Writing an API that will receive or send data to a third-party application is a long work in any custom application. 

But in ServiceNow, it is comparatively very easy to integrate ServiceNow with other third-party applications. Like in the case of custom API writing, you can also modify API behavior, such as response, with almost no code. 

Example of Inbound Integration in ServiceNow 

Let’s have a look at an example of an inbound integration in ServiceNow. In a project, integration of Workday with ServiceNow was required. The requirements were to automate the hiring and termination process, which would be initiated through Workday. Workday is an American on-demand cloud-based software provider with expertise in applications for financial management, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and human capital management (HCM). 

The first thing in the project was to create an import set table and a transform map that would guide incoming records from the import set table to the desired table. 

One functionality of transform maps that stands out is that you can write a script to modify the response and add your custom messages for certain errors or conditions using the error message object. A date validation was added on the hire date and termination date and changed the response. This changed response will give you an error message and will not insert a record in the desired table when the transform map is executed. 

In the next step, a custom table was created where these records would be saved. An integration account was also created, which was used in the authentication of the ServiceNow instance. The ACLs were configured for the custom table and roles for the integration account, which will give a limited access to the ServiceNow instance. 

Now, it was time to set up inbound integration from Workday to ServiceNow. Luckily, in ServiceNow, there are a number of different OOB functionalities for inbound and outbound integrations. For inbound integration to a third-party application, ServiceNow provides OOB rest API endpoints on which requests can be sent. These requests are automatically guided to the respective place i.e., table or catalog item. 

In the project, the import set table was used as an entry point from the workday. If anyone is interested, you can check OOB rest APIs from REST API Explorer. Just select the proper namespace and table and select which request suits your requirements. The rest API from Postman was tested with the proper schema. 

After completing the testing, endpoints were sent to the Workday side. They made some requests, and when they were successful, this part was done. With this, the first segment of the project was achieved, which was to trigger the User onboarding/offboarding process from the Workday side and send all data to ServiceNow through inbound integration. 

Conclusion

This project highlights how effective ServiceNow's integration capabilities are. With the help of inbound integrations, organizations can easily integrate their systems and improve workflows. Integrations play an integral role in making sure that there is operational efficiency in a business. 

Mobiz has a number of different solutions like this for your company to try. Feel free to reach out to us if you have any queries regarding ServiceNow implementation or solution. 

by Mobiz

Efficient Customer Insights: ServiceNow's Automated Feedback Collection

Gathering feedback efficiently is crucial for continuous improvement. At Mobiz, we enhanced ServiceNow's automated feedback collection to provide valuable insights and improve customer satisfaction.

Automating feedback collection in ServiceNow allows organizations to seamlessly capture, analyze, and act on customer feedback, leading to better service delivery and increased customer satisfaction.

On our PMO Coordinator request, I developed Key Features at Mobiz:

1. Survey Automation: Automatically send surveys post-interaction for timely feedback.
2. Real-Time Analytics: Process feedback instantly for actionable insights.
3. Customized Enhancements:

• Survey Reminders: Send reminders 2 business days before the due date.
• Summary Reports: Send summary results to the head of PMO, the PM, and the PMO coordinator at the end of the due date.
• Survey Resubmission Prompt: Prompt users to resubmit surveys when closing reopened projects.

Using automation through flow designer in Workflow Studio Summary is being calculated and using relative duration right after the due date it is disputed.

Benefits:

• Efficiency: Automated surveys and reminders save time and resources, allowing teams to focus on analyzing feedback rather than collecting it manually.
• Timeliness: Real-time feedback collection and reminders ensure that insights are current and that response rates are maximized.
• Improved Service Quality: Analyzing feedback helps identify areas for improvement, leading to enhanced service delivery and customer satisfaction.

Mobiz's enhancements led to a 30% increase in survey response rates and a 25% boost in customer satisfaction scores.

ServiceNow's automated feedback collection, enhanced with customized features, is a powerful tool for gaining customer insights efficiently. By automating surveys, sending reminders, generating summary reports, and prompting for resubmission, organizations can enhance service quality and customer satisfaction.

Discover how ServiceNow's automated feedback collection, with customized enhancements, can transform your customer service processes. Implement these features to capture valuable insights and drive continuous improvement in your organization.

by Mobiz