Understanding Workflows and Workflow Administration
Imagine starting a new job, and everything is aligned. From sending emails to your sheets, accounts, and tasks. Seems too good to be true? Don’t worry! It is true. All this can be done with ServiceNow Workflows.
Workflows in ServiceNow are a perfect way to automate complex processes using drag-and-drop. They include multiple stages, some scripting, and ideal logic during creation.
In this chapter, you will be learning about ServiceNow Workflows, their features, types, stages, and how to create/delete them. You will also learn about the ServiceNow Workflow editor and how it works.
Introduction to Workflows
A workflow is a sequence of activities that follow a logical path to automate multi-step processes across the platform. These workflows offer drag-and-drop interfaces that can be arranged in a flowchart for better visual representation.
Workflows represent activities in boxes that contain information about each stage, and the connecting lines show the transition from one activity to the next.
Let us understand this with a ServiceNow Workflow example for High-Priority Incident Management:
Suppose a company is dealing with critical system outages but is stuck with a manual ticket-routing process that frustrates both IT managers and impacted employees.
- To solve this issue, the company uses ServiceNow Workflow to create an automated incident-routing workflow on the Incident table. The workflow helps IT managers automate standard processes such as updating work notes, checking assignment status, and creating child tasks. This helps the Service Desk team prioritize urgent work and brings consistency to repetitive triage tasks across support groups.
- How exactly does this solution help the company? By using the workflow, IT managers can save time that would otherwise be spent manually monitoring unassigned ticket queues. The Service Desk team also benefits from automated task creation, status updates, and notifications for critical incidents. This provides faster visibility into urgent issues and helps impacted employees receive a more efficient resolution experience.
Now that we have discussed this example, let us break down the types, activities, properties, and administration of ServiceNow Workflows that support business operations.
Types of workflows in ServiceNow
Workflows can be divided into different types based on their role in a particular process. These significant workflows are:
- Record Triggered Flow: It is the most common workflow for automating data-driven processes. It primarily works with creating, updating, and deleting records.
- Service Catalog Triggered Flow: This flow type is designed to manage the request lifecycle created through the service catalog. It runs on Catalog Item, Request, or Request Item events.
- Scheduled Flow: This type of flow runs entirely based on time schedules, daily, weekly, monthly, or on a specified date/time. It is used to maintain your routine tasks, audit data, or send reminders.
- Application-Triggered Flow: Here, the flow initiates from specific application events rather than by creation or time-based triggers. It is mainly used when developers want flows to run from app logic.
- Script/REST Triggered Flow: A robust and reliable way to initiate a flow using the Flow API. This flow is used to execute complex, reusable logic, external systems, and UI actions without embedding the logic.
Activities in Workflows
ServiceNow Workflow activities integrate with various components to enhance automation. Below are the standard ServiceNow workflow features, including different activities and transitions:
| Features | Activity Name | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Conditional Logic | If/ Switch/ Wait for Condition | If: Create a yes/no-based condition. Switch: Create multiple paths based on exact field value. Wait for Condition: Pauses the flow until specified conditions are met. |
| Process Control | Approval/ Tasks/ Notification | Approval: The Flow needs to be approved by the specified user or group. Tasks: Create new records to be assigned and completed in the process. Notification: Sends emails to users/groups to notify them of the status. |
| Utilities | Run Script/ Set Values/ Timer | Run Script: Developers can insert custom JavaScript to handle complex logic. Set Values: Automatically update one or more values on the current record. Timer: Pauses the flow for a specified amount of time. |
| Flow Control | Join/ Branch/ Turnstile | Join: Merges multiple paths into a single path before moving forward. Branch: Separates the flow into parallel paths for individual execution. Turnstile: Creates a loop that repeats a section of the workflow until conditions are met. |
Workflow Properties & Administration
The workflow properties allow users to configure settings, including application scope, Start conditions, schedule, inputs, stages, and run time metrics.
Stages in Workflow
Understanding the ServiceNow workflow stages is essential to the platform. It provides a high-level summary in which the technical team assesses the activity’s state, and the end user looks up the stage. Based on these stages, the user can understand where the activity is. The stages are aligned in the linear gauge that is visible on the Service Portal.
- Request Approval – This is the initial stage in which the system determines the required approvers and prepares the approval record.
- Waiting for Approval – Here, the workflow pauses after the notification is sent to the approvers. The system waits for human approvals or rejections that initiate further flow.
- Fulfilment – Once the approval is granted, the workflow moves towards fulfilment. It is also called the action phase, during which users see that the request is authorized and being processed.
- Delivery – Here, the technical tasks are completed. It implies that all configurations are complete. It is where the user receives the item. For physical items, it means they are being delivered or shipped to the user. For a digital item, it means the access or login ID is being sent.
- Request cancelled – This stage is reached when the approver manually cancels the request. It indicates that the workflow is stopped and no further tasks will be created.
- Completed – If the workflow was successful, this is the last stage. It shows that all tasks in the workflow are closed, and users have received the item or service they requested.
What’s Next?
The Workflow editor is a legacy ServiceNow Workflow Tool used for automations and to streamline multi-step processes. With changing times, ServiceNow has upgraded to the Flow Designer, which provides better and more efficient automations. In the next topic, we will be covering the Flow Designer components, features, and Actions.
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