ServiceNow Flow designer Part 2 | How ServiceNow Flow works with Demo Example | ServiceNow Actions

[Amit Gujarathi]

Hi All,

Hope you are doing fine.
This tutorial is the continuation of my previous tutorial on ServiceNow Flow designer Chapter 1. IN the previous tutorial we understand what is flow designer in ServiceNow, What are components in ServiceNow, How we can use flow designer components, and one demo example.

In today’s tutorial, we will be using the knowledge which we gain from the last tutorial in order to create a complex flow.
So in this tutorial, we will be trying to create an automation flow with an example.

Before that let’s try to understand what are the different components of flow designer.
Flow Designer consists of the following components:

Flows
A flow is an automated process consisting of a trigger and a sequence of actions. Flows automate business logic for a particular application or process. For example, the VTB Sample Flow creates and assigns a VTB card whenever a priority 1 incident is created. Building and managing flows require that you have some familiarity with the Now Platform tables and fields that the application or process uses. Process analysts can create flows using available actions or copy an existing flow to use it as a template.

Subflows
A subflow is an automated process consisting of a sequence of reusable actions, data inputs, and outputs. In contrast to flows, subflows do not have a trigger but instead run within a flow, another subflow, or a script. Building and managing subflows requires that you have some familiarity with the Now Platform tables and fields that the application or process uses. Process analysts can create subflows using available actions or use an existing subflow as a template.

Actions
An action is a reusable operation that enables process analysts to automate Now Platform features without having to write code. For example, the Create Record action allows process analysts to generate records in a particular table with particular values when certain conditions occur. ServiceNow core actions like Create Record require some familiarity with Now Platform tables and fields. Action designers can create application-specific actions to pre-set configuration details. For example, creating a Create Incident Task action ensures that the process analyst uses the correct table and field configuration each time the action is used. You can add application-specific actions by activating the associated spoke.

Spokes
A spoke is a scoped application containing Flow Designer actions and subflows for managing specific tables. For example, the ITSM Spoke contains actions for managing Incident and Problem records. For a list of available spokes, see Spokes. You can activate additional spokes on your instance by installing the appropriate app from the ServiceNow Store or activating the appropriate plugin. Building your own spoke requires familiarity with application development on the Now Platform.

Action steps
An action step or step is a single reusable operation within an action. For example, the Create Record step allows action designers to specify the table and field values to use during record creation. Action steps require subject matter expertise with application tables, fields, and business logic. Application developers or IT generalists add action steps to actions from the Action Designer design environment. Flow Designer provides a set of ServiceNow core action steps to automate Now Platform processes. You can add application-specific action steps by activating the associated spoke.

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Regards,
Amit Gujarathi
(Technomonk)