Integrating EPIC Nova Notes and Build Trackers

[Lynn Timberlake]

I am from Vidant Health.  We attended the last ServiceNow EPIC Council meeting where Ohio Health presented the topics of integrating EPIC Nova Notes and Build Trackers with SN.  We are very interested in doing the same.  These are a few of our outstanding questions.

1. How do you handle documentation in Nova vs. SN?
2. What are the integration capabilities between Nova and SN?  Is it bidirectional or only unidirectional?  Wanting to know if SN can update Nova.  For example, can notes, tasks and comments be updated in Nova?
3. Can Multiple Tasks for the same note be associated to the Same Feature?  For example, what if there is a review for Applications, Informatics, and Education  - can that be tracked?
   1. Can multiple tasks for the same note but different teams be tracked together?
4. How do you avoid Double Documenting
5. What does the reporting look like out of SN compared to Nova?

[Ryan56]

Hi Lynn,

I'm glad the presentation was thought-provoking, and I'm happy to answer any questions.  I also gave a similar presentation at XGM in 2017, in case you want to check that out as well (https://xgm.epic.com/sessions/ > 2017 > XGM > PMAC04 or SRT52).

1. Documentation in Nova is minimal - just a short explanation of why, if we're not going to implement the functionality.  ServiceNow is our source of truth where we track issues, conversations, decisions, etc.  This approach stems from our decision that Nova will remain one piece of Epic's communication strategy, while ServiceNow will remain our project- and task-tracking system for all of our build - whether from Nova or another source.  Our Features in Nova show which Nova note the Feature originated from, so we can always go back to the Nova note if needed.
2. Our integration is a one-way email from Nova to ServiceNow that we then parse to create the records we need.  There's currently no pushing information back to Nova, although I've heard that Epic is discussing actual integration with support systems like ServiceNow, and Nova integration is up there as a hot topic.
3. Yes, Features can have as many tasks as needed, and each task can be assigned to a specific team or individual.  So for the examples you gave, review tasks for different areas and teams can all be tracked together on the same Feature.  If the same tasks are always needed, we would even be able to automatically create them every time so the builder doesn't have to do it manually.
4. See the answer to 1 above.  We only document in Nova if we're not implementing it.  Otherwise we have a record in ServiceNow where we document.
5. We only use the Project Tracking report in Nova, because that's all we need for how we use.  That report tracks our Nova review, which is our main intake for our quarterly upgrades, while ServiceNow tracks the build and testing progression for Nova items and others.  The ServiceNow reports have many more options when it comes to types of display, filtering, and other configuration settings.  Both systems allow scheduling reports to be sent on specific days to specific people.

Christopher mentioned you were also looking into uploading Content Management or Data Courier tickets.  I'm happy to give a demo on that or anything else above.  It works well enough, and once Epic allows record-level comments in Content Management, we should be able to skip the uploading portion altogether, instead specifying the CM ticket in the Feature, then using the Epic web services to push and pull information automatically.  Maybe by then some of this could be standard if the integration initiative works out.  I believe Brian Nuernberg from Novant was looking into something like this.

We're also investigating how to adapt this foundation we've built to work with the Agile/SDLC module in ServiceNow.

Thanks!
- Ryan

[Lynn Timberlake]

Ryan - thank you for your response.  I was wondering if you would be willing to demo this for several of our EPIC analysts here at Vidant via a WebEx session and then allow for questions.  We are very interested in implementing this at Vidant but I'd like for the analysts to see it for themselves.  I'd be happy to schedule this on our calendars at your convenience.  My number here at Vidant is 252-847-4975 if you'd like to give me a call to chat about it.  Thanks.

[Mariano Lemus]

Hello Ryan,

I am consulting for an integrations between EPIC and ServiceNow, would you be able to share the slides here?  I tried following your link but it requires me to create an account for Epic UserWeb which at the moment I don't have.

Have you integrated Service Portal to be the one front end option for EPIC system of records?

Thank you,

Mariano