Digital End-User Experience (DEX) Welcome Guide

Christopher Ell · ‎07-24-2024

Digital End-User Experience
Welcome Guide

As businesses have accelerated the adoption of technology in the workplace, it’s become more and more difficult to see and understand how end-users are experiencing and interacting with their computers and applications. ServiceNow Digital End-User Experience (DEX) helps you fix issues on your own and is IT’s window into what happens on the other side of the screen.

In this guide we explain what ServiceNow DEX is, how it works, and provide information you can share with your team, including proven guidance and links to key resources designed to set you on the path to success. This guide is primarily designed for ServiceNow Platform Owners, and it also contains useful information if you have a different role in your organization.

Let’s get started!

Guide Overview

1. DEX Overview

2. DEX Architecture and Components

Agent Client Collector for DEX
Browser Extension
Desktop Assistant
DEX Insights
DEX Metrics
Application and Device Health
Application Network Experience
DEX Score
DEX Content Playbook
Proactive Engagement

3. DEX Use Cases

Self-service & Proactive Engagement
- Desktop Assistant
- Proactive Engagement
- Notifications
Investigate & resolve incidents
- DEX Insights
- DEX Metrics
- Actions Content Library
- Network Application Experience
Measure usage & performance
- Application Device Health
- DEX Insights
- DEX Metrics
- DEX Score

4. Learn how to work successfully with ServiceNow experts

5. Chart a path to successful self-implementation

6. Bookmark Other ServiceNow Resources

DEX Overview

ServiceNow® Digital End-User Experience (DEX) is a solution deployed by IT to help employees self-solve technology issues and help IT proactively monitor end-user computers and applications. Its purpose is to detect and fix potential issues before they impact the employee.

IT organizations struggle with reactive approaches when they rely solely on employee-reported incidents to identify experience problems. SaaS applications operating outside IT’s direct oversight compound this challenge and the overall lack of visibility reduces the quality of support IT can provide. Employees frequently live with these issues without reporting them, leaving the employee dissatisfied and IT unaware. To transition from reactive to proactive support, IT requires insights into end-user computer issues that can only be achieved with DEX. (Product Doc)

DEX Architecture and Components

Agent Client Collector

The Agent Client Collector (ACC) is an agent installed on end-user computers. The ACC is built on a Sensu framework which enables you to adopt and extend monitoring checks from the community. It executes commands on the machines it is installed on and sends output data to the ServiceNow® instance which stores events and metrics in the relevant database. (Product Page) (Product Doc)

Browser Extension

A browser extension that can be activated on Chrome or Edge collects different operational or performance-based metrics for web and SaaS applications. (Product Doc)

Desktop Assistant

The DEX Desktop Assistant application allows employees to seamlessly incorporate ServiceNow functionalities into their daily workflow. It provides convenient access to troubleshoot local applications, use the ServiceNow Virtual Agent, perform network tests, and contact IT support. Admins can also send alerts to an end-user Desktop Assistant using Major Incident Management or Proactive Engagement. (Product Doc)

DEX Insights

DEX Insights provide the ability for IT Admin and DEX operators to see useful analytics and trends to help them take proactive action on end-user devices, build IT action plans, and verify system compliance and IT governance policies. (Product Doc)

DEX Metrics

DEX Metrics enhances the capability to monitor and optimize device and application performance for both Mac and Windows OS machines. Creating Metric Rules, enables you to trigger alerts and remedial action on end users’ devices and applications. (Product Doc)

Application & Device Health

DEX Application & Device Health analyzes accumulated user experience data and performance metrics. These metrics are tracked and aggregated over time, spanning different levels such as user, application, device, and location. (Product Doc)

Application Network Experience

ANE leverages network and web application performance metrics such as latency, packet loss and jitters to help the Service Desk collaborate with IT operators in identifying bottlenecks in employee reported issues. (Product Docs)

DEX Score

Digital Experience Score provides a comprehensive insight into the digital experience of employees. It combines application & device health metrics with user sentiment & service experience to provide end-to-end digital experience visibility. A score based on these metrics and sentiment will help you to understand where you should focus IT efforts to improve the employee experience. (Product Doc)

DEX Content Playbook

The DEX Content Playbook offers content to facilitate the monitoring of applications and devices, as well as providing support for application remediation. (Product Doc)

Proactive Engagement

ServiceNow® Proactive Engagement helps an organization in improving employee digital experience, productivity, and satisfaction by proactively enabling employees to self-solve digital issues they experience on a day-to-day basis. The self-remediation process is seamless and consistent without the organization having to publish all solution sets. (Product Doc)

DEX Use Cases

Self-service & Proactive Engagement

Employees can self-service with better visibility into their device using the Desktop Assistant. Your organization will benefit from the following:

Metric Rules allows you to send proactive messages to end-users so they can self-remediate. Triggers include network issues, battery issues, CPU memory, and more!
Deflect Service Desk calls by empowering employees to self-diagnose and resolve issues using Proactive Engagement alert system to notify employees via Virtual Agent or the Desktop Assistant
Providing self-help in static messages, links or KB articles improves employee experience and mitigates end-user issues before they become productivity blockers
Through Desktop Assistant, employees can quickly access their Employee Center

Investigate & Resolve User Issues

DEX provides service desk agents with useful network, device and application insights allowing them to benefit from the following:

Monitor device, application and Network health across the end-user computing and SaaS landscape
Create metric rules to detect issues with performance, usability, compliance and run remedial actions to proactively correct them
Use DEX Score to understand service health from the employee perspective and execute contextual surveys
Agents can correlate desktop and infrastructure alerts with historical endpoint data to evaluate business impact and possible root cause of incidents
Execute diagnostic and remediation actions from DEX Console like purge recycle bin, clear browsing history, end service, reboot device and more!

Measure Usage & Performance

Increase the visibility of organization experience and device and application performance using, DEX Insights, DEX Metrics and DEX Score. Your organization can benefit from the following:

Optimize hardware refresh cycles and software spend based on actual usage and performance like OS age, CPU usage, disk health and more!
Live drill down into hot spots and Asset 360 for live troubleshooting with ITSM Investigate Framework
Analyze digital technology usage and performance trends and gain insights to improve end-user experience
Enrich asset inventory with usage data from end-user devices, installed apps, and SaaS apps
Identify compliant and non-compliant system attributes and applications using compliance score (1-100%)

Work with ServiceNow experts

If you have chosen to work with a ServiceNow partner or ServiceNow Expert Services for your implementation, it’s important to clearly communicate the business outcomes you want to achieve and agree on a well-structured roadmap to attain these goals. If you need guidance on successfully engaging with an implementation partner, this workbook is an excellent starting point.

To accelerate time to value and reduce risk, make sure that your partner uses Now Create, ServiceNow’s library of more than 700 leading implementation practices. We also recommend you use Now Create if you are self-implementing, as it provides a wealth of assets designed to guide you to success.

If you want to work with a partner but haven’t selected one yet, check out our Partner Finder or talk to your ServiceNow account representative about ServiceNow Expert Services.

For those of you who have purchased ServiceNow Impact services you will have ServiceNow experts and resources at your fingertips to help you through your implementation of DEX and achieving your goals. If you do not have a ServiceNow Impact package, consider how having dedicated resources, discounted training, and jumpstart services can help you get the most out of your ServiceNow investment. Read more here.

Prepare for self-implementation

Build your team’s skills

If you are planning to self-implement, you need to give your platform team the skills they need to succeed. The best way of doing this is to become a certified ServiceNow professional. We offer several certification paths for different roles on your team. Check out the links below:

DEX Specific Training

You can take a DEX specific course on FrED. In this course you will gain a fundamental understanding of the DEX industry and ServiceNow's DEX offering. You will also learn about the personas associated with DEX and what the implementation process looks like.

Digital End-User Experience (DEX) Bootcamp On-Demand

A DEX specific training course is in the works and will be added to this guide once complete. In the meantime, the following courses are a great starting point for training your Service Desk, product managers, and other DEX users:

Make your implementation smooth and easy

For a comprehensive implementation process framework that is proven to scale to the largest, most complex global deployments, take a look at our Success Packs on Now Create. Success Packs tailor our core Now Create methodology of more than 700 leading practices to deliver business outcomes aligned with specific product sets. A Success Pack for DEX is currently in the works, but the following are also helpful to review:

Join the Digital End-User Experience Community

Visit the DEX community page. You’ll find best practices and other useful resources for your implementation, and it’s also the forum to talk to ServiceNow experts, get your questions answered, and connect with other community members.

Understand ServiceNow releases and upgrades

If you’re not already on the latest ServiceNow release, we strongly recommend that you upgrade before you go live. By upgrading, you get new ServiceNow innovations into the hands of your users faster, get access to the latest performance and security enhancements, and ensure that support is there when you need it. To make your upgrade smooth and successful, look at these upgrade resources.

Digital End-user Experience (DEX) requires Washington as the minimum ServiceNow version, so if you have not upgraded to at least Washington, you will not be able to take advantage of DEX.

Bookmark these resources!

ServiceNow Customer Success Center

The CSC is a one-stop shop that gives you instant access to proven methodologies, leading practices, and expert insights and advice.

Now Support

You can get technical issues resolved quickly by contacting our team comprised of ServiceNow employees with deep product knowledge and real-world experience. Read more here on how to use support.

DEX YouTube Community Playlist

Here you will see DEX demos and walkthroughs for our latest features and use cases. We are constantly creating new content so be sure to regularly check in!