Access Data outside of ServiceNow Tables

[carlh]

Hello,

I've been asked if it's possible to access Data from external tables in our instance.

Example:   We have our Club Location Data stored in a SQL database on one of our on prem Servers.

Is it possible to access that data without pulling it all in to ServiceNow? In SharePoint we build data connection and query fields.

How would this be done in ServiceNow?

[kopp820]

Here's my recommendations in order of "best practice" and personal preference:

1. Integration using a MID server where the data lives in your source system and ServiceNow
2. Provide a clickable URL to the source data using a form annotation and HTML
3. Not sure if this is possible, but perhaps you can figure out how to view the data with an iFrame and MID server. My gut feeling says it's not possible without a full integration (see #1 above)

[drjohnchun]

I can think of 2 methods, depending on what you're trying to accomplish:

1. Import Set Data Sources via MID Server
2. SQL Server Web Services

Using #1, you can send a SELECT query just for the data you want and import it into ServiceNow instead of pulling all data and filtering out in ServiceNow.

Please feel free to connect, follow, mark helpful, like, endorse.

John Chun, PhD PMP

[carlh]

I am not well spoken on MID server or web services at this time.  

More of what we're trying to do...

We created an Insurance App in ServiceNow using contracts.   It took a while and left a bad taste in the executives mouths.   I argued that the hardest part was getting the VENDOR data in to ServiceNow and creating a nightly process to keep it synced with the source data.

If I didn't have that issue of having to duplicate data in to (that is not ever going to be moved in to ServiceNow as the source), I could produce quicker.

[drjohnchun]

I don't know what your data size is, but the Import Set Data Sources via MID Server could be a viable solution for a nightly sync. You can sync remote and local tables using coalesce keys. This is a common solution for what you're describing. Setting it up is quite simple; you may try connecting in Sandbox and just get SELECT count(*) FROM table to test connectivity; after that, you can try querying test data and import.

Another option, if you don't want to do nightly sync, is a real-time lookup, which may present its own technical and usability (delays) challenges.

[rlatorre]

Here's an app in the SNow Share that does on demand queries to an external SQL DB. It still requires the data to be stored in ServiceNow once related to a record but real-time searches retrieve data from the external database.

Query external contact database on-demand:

ServiceNow Share