This blog aims to be a quick overview of a new application, HR Multi instance Integration (HR MII).
The ServiceNow HR Multi Instance integration application enables inter instance communication between the provider instance and a consumer instance for HR service fulfillment. This helps centralize HR service Delivery in a shared Service model and provides a seamless employee experience for consumer requesting remote vs local HR service fulfillment.
- Plugin: HR Multi instance Integration for Provider, HR Multi Instance Integration for consumer
- Dependency: Service Bridge for Provider, Service Bridge for Consumer, employee center pro, HRSD Core.
The Key benefits of HR MII are:
- Centralization of workflows and business process across multiple instances for service fulfillment. V1.0 of the product focuses on Transactional Service fulfillment.
- Secure HR Service Fulfillment across instance as role-based restriction to view records in both provider and consumer instances.
- Consistent user experience for employees across their entire HR catalog for local or remote fulfillment
- Standardized and Uniform service fulfillment for local and remote request for the HR agent with minimal learning curve.
The HR MII application requires the provider and consumer instances to both have HRSD licensing. With the HR MII applications, an HR provider admin can create Remote record producer that can then be activated by a consumer admin on consumer instance for an employee to request service from. Once the consumer employees request a HR service, a provider task is created on the consumer instance. If any pre-approval flows exist, then after approval this provider task is then synced to the provider instance. Our OOB flow then creates an HR case out of this provider task for an provider HR agent to service. In v1.0, The provider agent works on this HR case and communicates with consumer employee through comments and attachments only. Any state changes on the HR case on provider instance will be mapped to a corresponding state on the consumer task.
Here are the features that have been launched as scope for the v1.0 release of HR MII:
- Instance Registration and connection creation:
- Persona: HR MII Provider admin, HR MII Consumer admin
The Provider HR admin creates a consumer account record, The consumer users need to be imported into the provider instance either via a HCM integration or a schedule daily job. It’s essential for consumer users to be present on provider instance. On provider instance, Provider admin creates a registration record for consumer instance.
On consumer instance, the consumer admin will need to create a provider connection and place a request to connect to provider. Following this the provider admin and consumer admin need to authenticate these requests to form a successful registration.
The connections will now be in an active replication state for inbound and outbound.
- Publishing Remote Record Producer
- Persona: Provider HR Admin, Consumer HR Admin
- Application Scope: HR MII Base Scope
- Roles: delegated_developer
On provider instance, the provider HR admin can create a remote record producer. OOB, we have shipped a flow “Create HR case from Provider Task” which will create a HR case on provider end when this record producer is submitted from consumer instance. It is important for Two variable sets, opened for user and subject person user to be present in every remote record producer created. We have a variable type “reference “which will give provider admin an option to enable remote choice fields. This can reference remote choice definition data present on provider instance, on consumer instance while employee is submitting the request. The provider admin can select a consumer criterion to control who can see this catalog on consumer instance and then mark it as active when it is ready to be used by consumer. It is important to note that a corresponding HR service has to be created wrt this remote record producer on the provider instance.
For the v1.0 version for HR MII, we only allow fulfillment type to be manual.
- Activation of Remote Catalog on Consumer instance
- Persona: HR MII Consumer admin
On the consumer instance under provider connection, there is related record called entitlements. The Remote record producer created by provider admin will be available in inactive state under the related record. Consumer admin can add any pre-approval flows to be completed on the consumer side, before the request is created on the provider side. Consumer admin can also add Related articles that employees will see when they are submitting the request through the catalog on their employee center. Consumer admin needs to activate this catalog for it to be visible for consumer employees
- Consumer Employee requesting for service on Consumer Employee center
- Persona: Consumer employee
- Role: sn_sb.requestor
Only employees with sn_sb.requestor role and the ones who meet the customer criteria that was set on the remote record producer can access this catalog on their employee center. For v1.0 version, consumer employees can only submit request on their behalf, so they will select their username in opened for and subject person field and fill other fields. Consumer employees can also attach any attachments they want to submit with this request.
- Service Request fulfillment
- Persona: Provider HR fulfiller
For the Provider HR agent, the experience is very similar to how they work on a local HR case fulfillment. They can access the remote case in the Agent workspace. In the list view we have a column added which reflects whether the case is remote or local. On case form as well, there is a field that reflects if the case is remote or local. In v1.0 version, it is important to note that the HR agent can communicate with the consumer employee only via comments and attachments on the case. Any approvals that are needed by the consumer side should be handled before the request is even sent to the provider side using pre-approval flows on the catalog. Any changes to state of the case will result in a change in state on provider task on both provider and consumer instance.
If you are interested to learn more on HR multi instance Integration, refer to our product documentation.
