Leave of Absence Journey creation in HRSD

[Mansi Gupta1]

Hi All, 
I am new to Journey Designer in ServiceNow HRSD and need help in creating one for Leaves of Absence. We have a catalog form from where depending on whether the leave type selected is parental or Military, it will trigger a journey specific to each.
1. Creating 2 different HR Services for each with fulfillment type as journey and updating the HR Service of the created lifecycle event based on leave type selected via a flow did not trigger the corresponding lifecycle event for Parental Journey. So I instead updated the HR service from producer script so that it triggers the lifecycle event. Would that be a good approach to do so.
2. Moreover when creating lifecycle event for Parental journey I need branching on manager approval step so that when approved, the case gets assigned to a specific group and when rejected, the Journey moves to an "Application returned" branch. Employee can update and resubmit, which re-routes to step where the notification triggered for manager and approval triggered and again assigned to fulfillment team if approved.
3. How can we make each activity to execute on specific dates relative to start date and end date of leave like some task to execute n no. of days prior to leave start date.

Thanks

[Yogesh11bhatt]

Hi Mansi,

Welcome to Journey Designer in HRSD! Based on your requirements, here are some recommendations:

1. Triggering Different Journeys Based on Leave Type

Using the Record Producer script to set the appropriate HR Service before the HR Case is created is generally the preferred approach.

Journey/Lifecycle Event evaluation occurs during case creation. If the HR Service is updated later through a Flow, the case may have already been evaluated against the original HR Service, which can prevent the correct Journey from launching. By determining the HR Service in the Record Producer and setting current.hr_service before insert, the correct Journey is triggered immediately.

2. Manager Approval, Branching, and Resubmission

Journey Designer supports conditional branching, but it is not designed to repeatedly loop back to previously completed activity sets.

For your scenario:

• Create a Manager Approval activity within the Journey.

• Use branching to direct the Journey based on the approval outcome:

  • Approved → Continue to Fulfillment activities and assign the case to the appropriate group.

  • Rejected → Move to an "Application Returned" activity set.

For the employee update and resubmission process, Flow Designer is typically the better choice. The Flow can:

• Wait for employee updates.

• Re-submit the request for manager approval.

• Repeat the approval cycle as needed.

• Update the case status and Journey context accordingly.

This approach keeps the Journey focused on employee milestones while Flow Designer handles the approval loop.

3. Scheduling Activities Relative to Leave Dates

You can configure Activity Sets to execute based on Journey Dates and offsets.

For example:

• 30 days before Leave Start Date

• 7 days before Leave Start Date

• On Leave Start Date

• 5 days before Leave End Date

• On Return-to-Work Date

Map the Leave Start Date and Leave End Date as Journey Dates and configure Activity Set triggers using date-based offsets. ServiceNow will automatically place the Activity Set in a waiting state until the configured date is reached.

Additional Consideration

If Parental Leave and Military Leave have significantly different processes, maintaining separate HR Services and separate Journeys is often the cleanest and most maintainable design. It simplifies reporting, reduces Journey complexity, and makes future enhancements easier.

Hope this helps with your implementation ,please help this as helpful.

Best Regards,
Yogesh Bhatt

[Mansi Gupta1]

Thanks for your valuable insights on this. Also, in addition to activity sets, can we trigger activities within the same activity set too based on journey dates like a particular activity 21 days prior and another activity

7 days prior to start date

[Tanushree Maiti]

Hi @Mansi Gupta1 

Refer:

Trigger Lifecycle events based off fields from Record Producer? 

How to trigger a Lifecycle event

Configure an HR service for a lifecycle event 

Employee Journey Management: Configuration Guide for Admins

https://www.servicenow.com/community/hrsd-forum/understanding-lifecycle-events-in-servicenow-hr-serv...