on - edited on by
Shreya Shikha
One of the core features of ITOM Cloud Workspace, if you have the Cloud Accelerate license, is the ability for end user to request new Cloud Accounts. The Cloud Account Management subscription account request workflow is powered by a PAD Playbook as which gets triggered as soon as a new CAM Request is submitted. As a part of new features introduced in the Q3 2025 release (v2.1.0) of Cloud Workspace, we've supercharged the user experience by moving the request interface from a static form to a dynamic Service Catalog item. This change isn't just cosmetic; it opens up a world of customization possibilities for managing virtually any kind of Account Creation workflow within Cloud Workspace!
Concept:
💡 The Core Workflow: How It Works Today
At its heart, the process is simple:
-
A CAM Requester interacts with Cloud Workspace to initiate a cloud account request.
-
The Cloud Workspace request form isn't static; it dynamically embeds a Service Catalog component.
-
It comes pre-configured with an out-of-the-box catalog (sc_cat_item) aptly named "Request Cloud Account." This catalog includes all the essential variables needed for a seamless cloud account request.
-
Submitting this catalog item triggers a standard catalog workflow.
-
The fulfillment of this workflow results in the creation of a CAM Subscription Account Request via a Flow.
-
This Request record then triggers the PAD Playbook, which ultimately leads to the provisioning of your requested cloud account.
While we believe, for a lot of enterprises, this workflow is a good headstart and can easily get them go live for cloud accounts provisioning, but the process is not baked in stone. We have plenty of options to get this customised as per the needs of basic customers as well as advance customers. Few enterprises may already be having their own cloud request catalogs today. Lets see couple of ways in which this workflow can be customised.
🛠️ Modifying The Request Form with Catalog Modification
Lets take a use case where I want to add an additional field called "Assignment group" to my cloud account request form. Additionally, I also want to enforce a rule that the Account owner can only be a user belonging to the assignment group. Now because the request form is driven by the catalog item, it becomes very easy to make such changes. Any user with CW Admin role can follow these steps to modify the catalog:
- From the servicenow menu, list the records from following table: sc_cat_item
- Search by name and find and open the catalog named: Request Cloud Account
- Find variable sets and variables inside that, and also explore the various client scripts.
- Create the new required variable in any existing or a new variable set. Use the correct type, reference/etc, mandatory, hidden flags as required. Optionally con figure the default values and any other tweaks.
- Modify or add the Client Scripts, Catalog UI Policies as per the requirement.
- Make the necessary flow changes in IH Flow named "CW Catalog Cloud Account Request Creation" in flow designer. In this flow, we will get the values (including the new custom variables) of submitted RITM when user submits this request.
- Test the changes and ensure new variables appear on the Cloud Workspace New Request form.
⚠️ Important Note: Please remember that, it is not recommended to remove the out of the box variables completely, as they are essential to creation of a sane CAM Request. When altering these variables, please ensure to make the necessary playbook customisations as required.
➡️ Bringing in an Entirely Different Catalog into Cloud Workspace
If you are more advanced and already have a catalog, or you want to create an entirely new catalog for cloud account requests, you can optionally choose to modify the cloud workspace new account request form to load the catalog from your catalog. Login as CW Admin role and follow these steps:
- Ensure that the catalog you are using is an sc_cat_item which is tested to be working with other portals like Employee center.
- Once verified, note down the sys_id of the above sc_cat_item.
- Navigate to system properties (sys_properties.LIST) and search this system property: sn_itom_cam.cam_catalog_id.
- Notice that the value of this property is the sys_id of the OOTB Cloud account request catalog item. Change this property to the sys_id of the above catalog.
- As a CW Requester, Navigate to Cloud Workspace and Request new Cloud Account form.
- Validate that the form now loads questions from the custom catalog that was specified.
Here is an example of a custom catalog being used with cloud workspace, using this feature:
🎁 Bonus Tip!
When using own catalog, and defining own process engine, you can simply configure your process to directly use this subflow called 'Create CAM Request', besides any other custom work that you may be doing. This subflow is responsible for creating the request from the provided inputs, and called by the OOTB catalog flow as well.
-------------------------------------------------
We're excited to see how you'll leverage these new capabilities to tailor your cloud account provisioning workflows in ITOM Cloud Workspace! Have any questions or brilliant ideas for customization? Let us know! 👇
