Standard Workflow for Automation

[Money]

Hello everyone!

I was curious...Has anyone come up with a way to have a "default" workflow (or flow) that can be used across catalog items that could have different variables that determine the path a workflow needs to go? For example:

Catalog Item 1:

variable 1 value

variable 2 value

Result: Add user to AD group 1

Also Catalog Item 1:

variable 1 value

variable 2 value

Result: Add user to AD group 2

Catalog Item 2:

variable 1 value

Result: Add user to AD group 

And the thought is both items in this scenario will have the same workflow attached. We would just have a config table of some sort that houses the matrix to determine the AD route.

[Ryan Duce]

As a ServiceNow partner, we had our own packaged model that we pushed to clients to accelerate Service Catalog implementations, because ServiceNow did not historically provide request fulfilment steps.

However, once the feature set I linked to above was released, we started using that for future development, despite all the effort we'd put in to build our custom framework.

Why did we do this?

1. ServiceNow will not support custom development. We would have been eternally on the hook for this custom framework.
2. New features aren't added for free with each upgrade. Gradually our custom framework would have become stale and feature-poor compared to the out-of-box offering.
3. Every time we upgrade we would need to fully regression test the custom steps and modules implemented as part of our framework. This gets more onerous the more integrations you try to add.

As I said above, you can add your own step definitions to the framework. The definitions use Flows to define the fulfilment of steps, so support integrations as well. So if you need integrations to other systems, your own fulfilment step can be set up to perform the callout to other system. The sooner you move to out-of-box functionality the easier it will be to migrate.

[Josh Gold]

@luffy3478 Have you tried Unito? I'd be curious to get your feedback on their no-code integration for ServiceNow. It supports Azure and Jira. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to sync issues to records with 2-way updates. 

[Money]

Good points everyone. I was hoping I didn't have to go a custom route and there is a more efficient way to get it done. But some of your suggestions have crossed my mind multiple times and it looks like I'll have to do something custom. I'll take a look at Ryan Duce's suggestion in hopes I can utilize something closer to out of box. 

Thank you all!

[IbrahimK4837164]

You can use a workflow parameterization approach. This means that you create a single workflow, but define parameters that may vary depending on the catalog item. For example, to add a user to an AD group, you can create a workflow that takes as input parameters such as the value of variable 1 and the value of variable 2. Then, depending on the values of these parameters, you determine which AD group to add the user to.