Introduction
In the Rome release, we delivered the ability for new hires to complete onboarding activities via the Now Mobile app. This eliminates the need to for the separate Mobile Onboarding app. This blog provides information about what it takes to deploy Now Mobile for onboarding and things to consider along the way.
Why use Now Mobile for onboarding?
Providing new hires with an app to complete onboarding activities means they can start to review content and complete activities before they show up for work on day one, all from their phone. This allows the new employee to focus on the job day one and less on administrative activities. Prior to Rome, there was a dedicated Mobile Onboarding application. The feedback from customers was it was inconvenient for new hires to download an app that was only going to be used for a short period of time. There are multiple benefits to using Now Mobile for onboarding:
-
A single app for new hires, employees, and managers that provides a secure and tailored experience based on role.
-
The new hire experience is streamlined in that they only need to obtain one app instead of two and their experience seamlessly transitions from new hire to employee on day one.
-
Simplified support and administration. As new versions of apps are made available, only one needs to be configured and maintained.
Considerations
Authentication – Will new hires authenticate into ServiceNow for onboarding using a local login account or single sign-on? This will determine any adjustments to the text of the notifications in regard to how the new hire will login.
Deploy Now Mobile for employees – Have you deployed Now Mobile to your broader employee population? You should consider making Now Mobile available to all employees prior to using it for onboarding. It would not necessarily be a good experience for a new hire to have an app experience for onboarding, then have no additional capabilities once they become an employee.
Already using the Mobile Onboarding app – If the Mobile Onboarding app is already in use by your organization, it will continue to be supported and in the public app stores until March 2023. This can be used as a guide for your migration to Now Mobile when you are ready.
Out-of-the-Box Onboarding Experience and Process
This section outlines the onboarding experience based on delivered capabilities and demo data. This can be used as a guide for when deploying your own onboarding process and mobile app specific impacts.
Initiating Onboarding
The onboarding process can be started by a variety of methods, but a typical way is using an HR catalog request. In the demo data, the request is titled New Hire Onboarding. Submitting this request will create the user, HR profile, and open an onboarding lifecycle event case.
Automatic Role Assignment
The New Hire role is automatically assigned to a user based on having an Employment Type of Full Time, Part Time, or Temporary Employee and an Employment Start Date in the future.
Similarly, the Employee role is automatically assigned based on the same Employment Type values but an Employment Start Date that is at or before today, or an Employment End Date that is empty or in the future.
These role assignment rules and conditions can be managed under HR Administration > Client Role Assignment Rules.
The actual assignment of roles happens when the Update Client Roles Scheduled Job executes.
New Hire Notifications
In the initial activity set, there are activities that trigger notifications to the new hire providing instructions on how to access the onboarding portal and mobile app. The demo New Hire Onboarding lifecycle event triggers three notifications.
Triggered by Account Notification activity:
Triggered by New Hire Notification activity:
TIP: In your own process, you may choose to combine two of these notifications. For example, you could elect not to use New Hire Notification activity and change the language in the Account Notification emails to promote the Now Mobile app as the primary access method for new hires.
IMPORTANT: In Rome, links to the Now Mobile app have been enhanced to include parameters to default your ServiceNow instance name in the app so users no longer need to enter it.
New Hire View in Now Mobile
By default, new hires will have a limited experience in Now Mobile so they can focus on onboarding and not be distracted by content and services that will not be relevant until they are an employee.
The new hire experience in Now Mobile can also easily be configured to meet your specific use cases requirements.
The default new hire experience contains:
- Mobile Content section: This section will only display if there is content that has been published and relevant to a new hire under Content Publishing.
- Static Media Content section: An area where you can embed an image or video.
- Onboarding Card: Displays current task counts and clicking on the card drills into the timeline view of activity sets and activities.
- Requests: A place to track additional Requests.
- Navigation bar: Limited since this New Hire configuration does not have access to Knowledge or Service.
Add, Remove, or Order Sections
Navigate to Launcher Screens > Onboarding Homepage
In this example, we want to remove the My Items section.
Once in the Onboarding Homepage Launcher screen, use the red X to mark the row for deletion, then Save. If you refresh the view in the Now Mobile app, you can see the change reflected immediately.
This is also the screen used to add sections (Insert a new row…). For more information on adding or creating mobile UI sections, see the Resources section below.
Dynamic Content
Content Publishing can be used to present content in Now Mobile that changes dynamically for the new hire as they progress through the onboarding process. For example, you may want an image or video to change right before day one that focuses on getting ready for orientation, then on day one you want it to change to a welcome banner.
Static Content
Static content sections can be used to display an image and message to the new hire. This is a simple way to display something like a logo or campus image that would remain constant.
Static Media Sections can be configured by navigating to sn_me_static_media_section.list. You can modify the sample sections or create new ones. You can also have more than one static media section. They can be added and ordered using the Launcher screen referenced above.
Day One Authentication Change
In most organizations, employees use single sign-on (SSO) to authenticate to enterprise systems. So how do you make sure a new hire switches from using local login to SSO on day one in Now Mobile? In Rome, ServiceNow makes it easier for that authentication change to happen.
Two new activities are available for use in onboarding lifecycle events. These activities would be included in the activity set that represents day one for the employee.
Reminder Email: This activity triggers a notification to the employee reminding them about the Now Mobile app and contains a link to launch the app. As mentioned previously, you will want to review the content of this notification and tailor it to be more specific to your organization and needs.
Logout and Send Notification: This activity triggers a Flow that forces the new hires Now Mobile local login session to close so they are forced to login again, forcing the use of SSO. It also sends a Mobile push notification to prompt them to log back in with company credentials.
Resources
- Now Mobile documentation
- Mobile Apps Community Forum
- Mobile App Academy Sessions
- Authentication documentation
- Configuring media UI sections documentation
5 Comments
