Below are the Questions received during the LIVE Webinar
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Trying to automate business services? There's an app for that!
How Argonne National Labs serves >12,000 diverse end users
Join this webinar and hear how Argonne National Labs was able to:
- Easily automate everyday tasks with apps created on the ServiceNow Platform
- Create consistent, state of the art experiences for thousands of diverse end users
- Extend problem solving, enabling the rest of their organization beyond IT to develop apps
Q. What kind of criteria or situations do you consider in identifying new projects to build applications around? So, how do you set criteria and priorities for your next projects?
A. Our Business Relationship Managers have regular meetings with our customers to identify potential candidates. In many cases, the priority of such cases is defined by the outcome of an audit and a need to respond in a timely manner.
Q. What's your favorite aspect of the Now Platform?
A. The ability to empower non-programmers to be able to take ownership of there services and applications
Q. What kind of skill set or experience is necessary to build some of the apps you've discussed?
A. For the two main applications in the slide deck an understanding of java script and ServiceNow capabilites (Administration) was essential
Q. Question to ServiceNow: Clone and save as draft functionality are common requirements in our catalog too. Any plans to bring those features into the product?
A. Not at this time.
Q. How are the calendar entries generated and do you use the meeting invite functionality to enable the ability to add to a users (Outlook, etc.) calendar
A. We created a custom integration using custom table that sends outlook a formatted email.
Q. Is the charging app reservation history being used to determine where additional charging stations may be installed in the future?
A. We are building trend usage reports to answer this question
Q. Hi This is Shashikant, Can you tell us about converting HTML to PDF, did you used any 3rd party tool?
A. We use htmltopdf - https://wkhtmltopdf.org/ . The solution at a very high level is:
1.) Requested Item completed in ServiceNow
2.) ServiceNow generates HTML and pushes it to the orchestration box via SSH Key and passphrase
3.) Runs script on snow-orchestration.it.anl.gov
a.) wkhtmltopdf to convert HTML to PDF
b.) Uses ServiceNow::SOAP perl module to attach resulting PDF to RITM
Q. How is your organization structured in terms of resources to build custom applications, as well as provide operational/support work in the same time?
A. We have a core team of 4 people and a consultant. All are responsible for development and two of them manage the administration. We also have ~5 champions that can do catalog item work and development based on our governance.
Q. does each user that accesses an application need a license?
A. Not in our case. The applications we demo'd are for general users of the lab. The approvals and work done by backend service providers do require licenses.
Q. Was there cost to incorporate Google? (for the Charging Stations)
A. No cost. We take advantage of the ServiceNow Map page
Q. Is new application roll-out in ServiceNow additional cost?
A. There are several factors involved in determining licensing requirements for custom built applications on the platform. The best way to assess your specific scenario is to engage your ServiceNow sales representative and have them help determine licensing for your requirements.
Q. What is the open source PDF generation tool you incorporated into your signage app?
A. We use htmltopdf - https://wkhtmltopdf.org/ . The solution at a very high level is:
1.) Requested Item completed in ServiceNow
2.) ServiceNow generates HTML and pushes it to the orchestration box via SSH Key and passphrase
3.) Runs script on snow-orchestration.it.anl.gov
a.) wkhtmltopdf to convert HTML to PDF
b.) Uses ServiceNow::SOAP perl module to attach resulting PDF to RITM
Q. Do you only have one governance board?
A. We have a technical governance board and a Strategic governance board for Service Now
Q. How many admins do you have again?
A. We have a core team of 4 people and a consultant. All are responsible for development and two of them manage the administration. We also have ~5 champions that can do catalog item work and development based on our governance.
Q. Are these scoped applications?
A. These are not scoped applications. We are looking at this feature for future development
Q. Did you set up the CMDB first?
A. No.
Q. Can we touch basis with you in the Snow community for more details?
A. I am on the community. Feel free to connect and ask questions.
Q. Are the apps all ran from the catalog or do you have other intranet sites that house the apps
A. All of our applications are run from the catalog. We have discussed using our portal as a central method for users to connect to other applications outside of servicenow but we have not done so as of yet.
Q. Have you established an automation center of excellence to ensure consistency in usage and governance, convey best practices, etc?
A. We have not. We are a small team with restricted funding. We do make use of the SDLC module to manage our releases.
Q. Can i get the information around the backend on how the calendaring was done sent to my email when you send it out?
A. Yes. Reach out to me on the community and I'll have one of the development team contact you.
