ServiceNow New York release paves the way to a native mobile-optimized future

Everybody loves their smartphone. Some people even go to bed with their device or even keep it close to their pillow. But, as we enter the second decade of pocket-sized mobile computing, it’s crucial to realize that we’re coming to an important strategic inflection point. 

Until now, users have been pretty much okay with mobile app functionalities that have been ported over from their desktop versions, such as “pinch-and-zoom.” However, such experiences won’t endure because of their essentially non-native level of mobile optimization.

This changing tide is why our ServiceNow New York release extends new desktop and native mobile capabilities across the workplace at scale. 

Mobile enterprise epiphany 

This is the point when mobile has finally come to the enterprise. This is the point when the mobile device you take to bed with you becomes the mobile device you can’t sit at your desk without. It is the point when digitally transformed experiences at work span omnichannel zones—from the desktop to the web and across embedded IoT systems. Now, these experiences also fully embrace mobile out-of-the-box use cases to create more intuitive consumer-like applications. 

We know that more than half of employees now expect their employers to offer native, mobile-optimized tools, propelling this functionality to the fore of the New York release on the Now Platform®.

Beyond pinch-and-zoom

As we move beyond pinch-and-zoom, we will start to adopt a far broader set of device commands and these digital interactions have been engineered into the New York release. Over and above a desktop mouse click, we are paving the way for users to tap, swipe, flick, speak, and even snap (as in take a photo) to spread consumer-like functionality across enterprise systems.

If your laptop is broken or malfunctioning, then why should you have to do more than simply take a picture of it and send it to IT support? New levels of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) facilitated by ServiceNow® Predictive Intelligence in the New York release drive image recognition so that this kind of request can be intelligently automated and resolved.

The arrival of this type of functionality heralds a new wave of enterprise experiences that enable workers in every role to get work done faster, more easily, and more intuitively. 

User creation and curation

The New York release is really putting the power in the hands of end users. By empowering them with no-code mobile application and services development, organizations will no longer need armies of tech people to make things happen. 

You might say this is quite a brave move, because we will now be judged on the ability of users themselves to get work done through native mobile functionality that is purpose-built for employee requests and actions. We’ve only thrown down the gauntlet to ourselves in this way because we’re confident in the scope, breadth, and power of our platform to be able to deliver for all users, in all roles, in all industries.

As we move forward and look to the next stage of mobile technology development, we will naturally further enhance the Now Platform to accommodate and embrace the next wave of voice recognition, biometrics, object recognition, and more.

Spanning the employee lifecycle

The New York release also features a new ServiceNow® Onboarding and Transitions app, which makes starting a new job extremely simple by combining all of the multi-departmental tasks involved in getting up and running as a new employee into a single, intuitive mobile experience. 

From pre-boarding (all the things you do before you start a new job, such as signing an NDA or submitting a photo for your security badge) to onboarding, induction and onwards, ServiceNow has built a self-serve offering that spans the entire employee lifecycle.

What’s different now is that this has all been engineered for native mobile behavior, enabling employees to use features like their device camera, mobile notifications, etc. These are experiences that people are accustomed to every day in their home lives and that have now been brought to the enterprise level. It means that work experiences become just as great as what are often leisure-centric home and personal experiences outside of work.

Core platform elements

In addition to tools for the complete employee lifecycle, I’d like to call out three further platform enhancements that users can look forward to in our New York release. All essentially mobile native, each element of the Now Platform expansion has been built to provide enterprise-wide services and information to employees regardless of their location.

• Reducing complexity with Now Mobile and Virtual Agent innovations – with the help of Natural Language Understanding Model Builder, users can easily train models with sample sentences and phrases, and then improve accuracy by mapping words to their company vocabulary. 

• Transforming finance with financial close automation – features automated journal entries, integration with SAP and Oracle, plus embedded policy and compliance functions. 

• Guided app creator – this innovation means anyone can build a digital workflow employing the ServiceNow new wizard-like user experience, without any coding experience required. It includes an easy spreadsheet to table converter.

Since the ServiceNow New York release is here, we have already started working with our customers and partners on upgrades and, equally, on the next release of the Now Platform, which (as you will have already heard or worked out) begins with the letter O. Get your bags packed for Orlando!