Introduction
Journey designer allows customers to build journeys (onboarding, offboarding, promotions, parental leave, etc.) for their employees using Lifecycle Events and/or Journey Accelerator.
- When should you use a Lifecycle Event? Lifecycle Events is great for journeys that require complex workflows, require you to task different departments (HR, IT, Finance, etc.) to complete activities, and/or require complex task types such as signing documents or submitting a catalog item. Lifecycle Events is very powerful, allowing you to automate complex business processes.
- When should you use Journey Accelerator? Journey Accelerator is great for simpler journeys that require more flexibility. You can build sets of stages and tasks and assign them to different audiences. You can create templates for ‘Sales onboarding’ or ‘New leader onboarding’ without the overhead of building a lifecycle event.
With Journey designer, you can bring the power of Lifecycle Events together with the flexibility of Journey Accelerator, and your employees and managers have one central place to complete tasks, learning courses, and access helpful resources. You can also embed learning from Learning Posts and pulse surveys from Listening Posts.
This article will provide more detailed instructions on what is needed to migrate over to the new Journey designer.
Figure 1: Journey page for employees, managers, and mentors
Why should you migrate to Journey designer
Do you want to layer on department-level and role-level onboarding into your onboarding process? Do you want to equip managers with new leader training journeys? Do you want to enhance the new hire experience, going beyond a simple task list? These are just a few of the reasons you should migrate to Journey designer!
Give your employees, managers, and mentors a first-in class experience as they navigate the crucial moments that matter. We have built many new features with Journey designer that will allow you to take your employee journeys to the next level. These features include:
- Managers/mentors can send personalized messages to new hires
- Managers can add mentor(s)
- ML-based recommended learning capabilities (using Learning Posts)
- Embedded pulse surveys (using Listening Posts) - see Other Resources section for related blog post
- Integrations with our new Manager Hub
- Configurable journey insights for managers
- Actionable notifications via Teams, SMS, or other channels (using Virtual Agent)
- More coming as we continue to innovate with Journey designer!
Figure 2: Managers can create journeys and see high-level insights into their team's journeys
Figure 3: Managers can send a personalized message
Figure 4: Journey page for employees, managers, and mentors
How to install Journey designer
If you are an HR Enterprise customer on Tokyo, you can navigate to the ServiceNow store to install Journey designer
Dependencies
- You must be on Tokyo+
- You must install Lifecycle Events for Enterprise first
- You must install the Journey designer store application (will be available with the Utah family release) from the ServiceNow store
- You will need to migrate to Employee Center Pro before implementing Journey designer
Installing Journey designer will install:
- Journey Accelerator v5.0
- Retry framework v1.0
- Employee Center Pro v26.0
Optional applications (for optional features):
- Learning Posts V5.0
- Listening Posts V5.0
- Exchange online integration spoke (for scheduling meetings within Journeys)
- ML for recommended learning
- Virtual Agent
How to migrate Lifecycle Events to Journeys
If you are using Lifecycle Events and interested in moving over to journeys, there are just a few steps to get you started. For a full demo of how to build a journey from a lifecycle event, please reference the Live on ServiceNow recording linked below.
At a high-level, here are the steps you will need to follow to move over your Lifecycle Event(s):
- Create the journey configuration and select the lifecycle event you wish to include in the journey.
- Note: In Tokyo, you must create the Journey in the Journey designer scope.
- Create a new HR service (or insert and copy the existing HR service) of Fulfillment type ‘Journey’ and select the Journey you created in the step above (you should see the related Lifecycle Event appear in the form)
- Note: In Tokyo, you cannot create the HR service from the ‘Manager HR catalog’ page; rather you should create it from the ‘HR Service Configuration’ list
- (If applicable) Associate or create a new record producer that can be used by employees or managers to trigger a journey
- (If applicable) If you are using an integration to trigger the HR service, you will need to modify the integration/BR to trigger the new HR service
- Once done, you can create a journey (and subsequent Lifecycle event) by triggering the HR service via the following methods:
- Integration and/or business rule
- Record producer (either from the HR catalog or from the Journeys page)
- Case creation
- Confirm the Journey is created in the new UI (and no longer created in ‘My Requests’) and you see the Lifecycle Event triggered as expected
Figure 5: HR Service configuration for journeys
Please reference the following resources for more detailed steps on how to migrate your lifecycle event(s) to be a journey (using Journey designer)
- The Journeys Migration Guide KB article
- In-product guided set up which can be accessed from the Journey designer application in any instance with Journey designer installed
- Live on Now Session which includes a demo of how to create a journey from an existing Lifecycle Event and Journey Accelerator plan type
How to migrate Journey Accelerator plans to Journeys
If you are using Journey Accelerator in production, please reference these instructions. Once you install Journey designer, Journey Accelerator v5.0+ will install automatically. JA v5.0+ is dependent on Journey designer and cannot be used standalone.
Therefore, if you are using Journey Accelerator, you should ensure all existing plans are closed out before you install Journey designer in production, as it will disrupt any outstanding plans.
Once you have closed out Journey Accelerator plans:
- Create the journey configuration and include the ‘plan type’ for the journey (can be combined with the Lifecycle Event)
- When a journey is created, it will include tasks from the plan configurations based on the plan type and audience of the employee
- Journeys that only contain Journey Accelerator can be created by managers from the ‘Create Journey’ widget in the Journeys page
- Journeys that contain Journey Accelerator and a Lifecycle Event must be triggered using the HR service according to the steps above
Note: We will be providing a migration script for these customers in the future. Please contact lucy.curran@servicenow.com for more information.
Diagnostic/test utility
If you are having issues getting the journey to trigger, check the following:
- Restricted Caller Access issues
- Ensure the HR service was created in the Journey designer scope
- Ensure the HR service is correctly associated with the Journey
If you are still having issues, submit a case with Now Support.
FAQs
Q: What is a journey (vs. journey accelerator)?
A: The ‘journey’ refers to the journey record created from the new journey configurations delivered in Journey designer. In the Employee Center, these are now referred to as journeys for employees. The journey can be thought of as a wrapper on top of the underlying lifecycle event/ journey accelerator components. We have removed journey accelerator ‘Action plans’ from the Employee Center. The backend terminology remains the same.
Q: Do I have to migrate to Journey designer?
A: No, not right now. You can continue using Lifecycle Events and Journey Accelerator at least through Tokyo and Utah. However, we will no longer be enhancing those UIs.
Q: Can I use Journeys in Now Mobile?
A: If you are using Now Mobile, we advise you wait until Utah when we deliver Journeys in Now Mobile. Journeys are enabled in mobile responsive interface in Tokyo, but you will need to wait until Utah for the app experience.
Q: Are there any changes to Agent Workspace?
A: Agents should continue to access and manage the lifecycle event as they do today. On the lifecycle event record, there is a link to the Journey record and the Journey Accelerator tasks (if applicable). They can reference those records. Playbooks have not changed.
Q: What determines if a journey can be created from the ‘Create Journey’ widget on the Journeys page?
A: Managers can create a journey from the Journeys page according to the following rules:
- If a journey has a lifecycle event -> if there is a record producer tied to the HR service and the manager meets the criteria on the associated record producer
- If a journey is just journey accelerator -> if the manager meets the criteria defined on the journey configuration (there are ‘Available for’ and ‘Not available for’ related lists on the journey configuration if the journey is just Journey Accelerator.
Q: How do I trigger the journey accelerator tasks after the employee’s start date?
A: You can use the ‘Field mappings’ related list on the Journey configuration to map the HR profile -> employment start date to the Journey Accelerator plan -> start on field. This will ensure the Journey Accelerator tasks are in draft until that mapped date.
Q: How do I set up the other features such as the personalized message and the reports on the manager page?
A: Please reference the in-product guided set-up for help configuring any of the other features in the journey configuration. There are step by step instructions.
Q: How do I configure Journey Accelerator?
A: Please reference the Academy Session posted in ‘Other Resources’ for an in-depth walkthrough of how the backend of Journey Accelerator works.
Q: Can I connect Journeys into the new Manager Hub?
A: Yes, of course. See the other resources section for a deep dive into Manager Hub and how to configure the journeys.
Live on ServiceNow Session
- Reference this recording for a walk through of Journey designer and how to configure a new journey
Other resources
- See Journey Accelerator Academy Session for an in-depth walkthrough of how to configure Journey Accelerator; please ignore the UI as that has changed with Journey designer; the backend of Journey Accelerator remains the same.
- See the Manager Hub Live on ServiceNow session for a deep dive into Manager Hub.
- The Journeys Migration Guide KB article can also be used as a reference.
- Journey designer product documentation
- Listening Posts in Journey designer blog post
Conclusion
If you have any questions,
- Post a question in community
- If troubleshooting is needed, contact now support.
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